Wednesday, 24 February 2016

From the inside (2)

#SayTheWord, Not “Special Needs”
eisforerin, 16 February 2016
... Every time someone says “special needs,” they reinforce the false notion that disabled people are asking for “extras” when we require accommodations, modifications, and/or support to access the same things that non-disabled people are able to access, such as education, public spaces, community involvement, and so on ...

The unofficial biography: #FashionAngel. Parodying inspiration porn
Carly Findlay, 11 February 2016
... I'm releasing an unofficial biography. All the cool crips are doing it. The art proof came in on the weekend. I'm loving the Vogue Magazine quote - clearly they're scouring my instagram ... That's a parody. Not a real book. I had so much fun helping to create it though. And I hoped that while it makes people laugh, it also makes them think.

Disabled people are not your feel-good back-pats
Autistic Hoya, 11 February 2016
... Typically, the story ends with the non-disabled participant "heroically" letting the disabled person (usually a person with an intellectual or developmental disability) win. The underlying assumptions, of course, are that (a) disabled people are incapable of winning or even competing alongside everyone else because we are automatically not good at anything ever, and (b) disabled people lack awareness of reality so much that we can't tell when others are patronizing or condescending ...
OR
"Do you want to support disabled people? Do you want to be more informed, more educated, less ignorant, and less foolish? Then start by paying attention to what we have to say. Start by learning the tools of practicing allyship. Start by assuming that your assumptions are wrong or at the very least, misinformed. Start by questioning narratives that seem to be much more about a non-disabled person's supposed heroics than about a disabled person's humanity and agency in controlling the narrative about them. Start by focusing less on some special one-time event or photo shoot, and more time on the systemic problems in your backyard..."

Our stories, our voices, everyday
Jax Jacki Brown, Writers Victoria, 10 February 2016
... ‘Disability is a culturally fabricated narrative of the body’.

I wanted to tell you about this quote because I think it invites you to ponder the stories we tell, and consistently are told, about disability and how these narratives frame how we think about it, how we write about it and how we, as a society, respond to physical or mental difference ...

No comments:

Post a Comment