Thoughts on Disability

Defining Disability and Driftwood

You have to love this author, Alison Kafer. She begins her chapter, “A Future for Whom: Passing on Billboard Liberation”, by commenting on Superman.  She comments while looking up at a billboard of Christopher Reeves which is intended to inspire recognition at his dreadful accident and acknowledge his courage.  However, the public relations campaign behind this feel-good message is subversive. Actor Reeves is associated with his most famous role of Superman. Now he is paralyzed and unable to survive without help from personal aides.  Kafer points out that the billboard image of his disability, other than an oxygen tube in the corner, lessens the impact of his disability. . The considerable financial and medical resources which supported his existence are not visible. They are invisible by intent. “Values.com/Foundation for a Better Life” sponsors the billboard and their agenda is politically ultra conservative. 

Reeves is white, male, and his billboard photo appeals to conservative values by taking advantage of America’s white/male/hegemony. He is obviously super-masculine in spite of his physical paralysis. This is deliberately tendered as success due to his manly “courage”.  If you are a different gender or race, you are invisible.

Community values trump individual obstacles. By making public perception one of individual vulnerability, by not acknowledging the enormous numbers of physically and mentally impaired coming home from war, the attitudes presented by FBL’s Superman billboard thrust the burden of disability on the individual. The message is one of “buck up” instead of “how can we help”.

This politicization of disability is intended to diminish and quiet activists who campaign for accommodations for the handicapped, or as Kafer puts it, the “queer crips”. Anyone who is outside the norm, whether sexually, racially, or disabled is different and queer.  Numbers of elderly are expected to swell the ranks of those outside the norm. Consider that stereotyped wheelchair persons are commonly perceived as less intelligent and therefore undesirable. For decades, handicapped persons were sterilized so they could not have children who might pass on “defective” genes.  Politicizing ignores reality and makes the elderly and disabled expendable.

A wheelchair bound person spends a lot of time waiting for suitable vehicle transportation which leads to the concept of “crip time”. Crip (read crippled) time has to allow for situations that do not accommodate physical needs.  Not only is the issue one of access, but the unexpected aspects of physical transport lead to living in the moment. This philosophy arose out of the HIV and AIDS era, when recovery was dismal and any future belonged to others. Crip time cannot be regulated by the clock; it moves to a disjointed rhythm that depends on need and services.

             Perhaps the most egregious attitude toward handicapped people is the notion that a disabled person is limited because they are not trying hard enough. Kafer writes, “…FBL’s website clearly delineates the group’s perspective by encouraging ‘adherence to a set of quality values through personal accountability and by raising the level of expectations of performance of all individuals regardless of religion or race’ (89)”.  By emphasizing community values over personal needs, the conservative position makes it clear that vulnerable disabled have to, and should, fend for themselves.

Disabled who dare to speak out, these“queer crips”, have to fight hard for ramps, elevators, public access across many venues, but more importantly, just to maintain their position in public consciousness. Kafer says, “I envision a media campaign that favors dissent at least as much as unity, that recognizes political protest and activism as signs of courage, that is as concerned with collective responsibility and accountability as personal (100)”. It doesn’t take much to give a hand up. Someone living in a physically challenged body just wants to get on with living.

"Intersectionality" and Equality

Intersectionality Toolbox

In their highly regarded text, Intersectionality,Patricia Hill Collins and Sirma Bilge write, “Intersectionality is a way of understanding and analyzing the complexity of the world, in people, and in human experience.” (2)  This intersectionality technique shows how many peoples interact and influence each other. Their guide is helpful to understand and analyze how differing contexts of human experience impact social and political results. By suggesting multiple possibilities for study, that might otherwise be overlooked by stereotyped bias, it promises that a specific inequality is not as likely to fall through the cracks. The authors note, “… intersectionality can be a useful analytic tool for thinking about and developing strategies to achieve….equity ((3)”.

Major social elements such as race, class, gender, sex, etc. exist in nearly infinite range of possibilities. Considering complexities and permitting unexpected combinations can produce positive results. Intersectionality rejects the usual “normative” position in order to open up to the possibility of a more equal and level playing field.

Inequality issues of gender and LGBTQ can also be studied in the intersectionality framework. This is helpful on constructing gender identity for those not able to advocate for themselves. The authors note, “Relational thinking rejects either/or binary thinking…opposing theory to practice, scholarship to activism, or blacks to whites. Instead, relationality embraces a both/and frame…examining their interconnections (27)”. These interconnections pave the way for inclusiveness.

 In an interesting example, intersectionality shows how powerful wealthy business interests interfered with the political and social structure of Brazil during the 2014 World Cup. FIFA soccer lobbied for laws that restricted everything from travel to food concessions outside the venue. Without considering the way all Brazilians might be affected, the concerns of poor men and women were not included in tournament planning. Because many people enjoy sports, it was assumed that even poverty stricken people would be in favor of the extravagance. The opposite occurred. Brazilians suffered hardships from the exclusivity of arrangements aimed at an international clientele instead of local population. In spite of high expectations, Brazil lost the games and lost millions of money. The scandal following the games suggested massive bribery and corruption. The power domain enjoyed by the organizers had been based on the assumption that sports benefit everyone. That was certainly not the case for women because only men can compete in the tournament. That was not the case for non-athletes because the sport is exclusively for extraordinarily talented athletes. A level playing field, for most of the country outside FIFA, definitely did not exist.

Intersectionality, used to study Brazil, discloses many social aspects not addressed by the common assumption that there are no racial barriers. About a thousand Brazilian feminists felt they were discriminated against and gathered to express their African roots. This was contrary to Brazil’s policy of racial democracy which emerged from its history as a colonial mix of native and outside nationalities.

The authors note that the black women’s movement in Brazil, “shows how intellectual and political activism work by growing by a specific set of concerns in a specific social situation, in this case the identity politics of the Afro-Brazilian women (28)”. This focuses thinking about social inequality and power relationships in various contexts.  The importance of context broadens the appreciation of specific kinds of problems in social situations across the world and the awareness that one size does not fit all.

 

 

The Transgender Need for Recognition

Transgender Dilemma

Leslie Feinberg was a transgendered activist who wrote the groundbreaking novel, Stone Butch Blues.  Feinberg died in 2014 but her novel is relevant in our culture as America’s political institutions resist inclusion. Her lead character of Jess Goldberg comes from Feinberg’s own bitter experience as a lesbian Jewish woman trying to fit in as living as a man. Trapped in a homophobic society by the male power structure, her struggles are tragic.  The forces which shaped her identity jump off the page with intensity that cannot be ignored.

As Dan Frosch previously noted, “…gay and transgender advocates say transgender students…are vulnerable to bullying and harassment” since institutions measure against a norm. Nonconforming persons are targeted. In the novel, Jess Goldberg and her friend Mona are jailed following a police raid against gays. She says, “The drag queens were in the large cell next to ours. Mona and I smiled at each other… Then she walked forward with them, rather than be dragged out (35)”. This is Jess’s first experience with police brutality against gays. The text continues, “About an hour later the cops brought Mona back…she could barely stand…blood running down (35)”. Mona tells inexperienced Jess, “It changes you…what they do to you in here…everyday on the streets---it changes you, you know?” (35)

 The queer person does not fit in and therefore constantly fights for recognition. Feinberg’s character is not just lesbian, but yearns for female love and a life gendered as a man.  Jess struggles to find someone who understands her quandary.  She lives as a border dweller, vigilant, with a foot in two worlds, trying to survive and how to fit in. Without a model to follow, the unscripted journey fraught with disaster. She dresses as a male but is incomplete without a companion to share her world of fluidity. As Jess’s lover Edna puts it, “I don’t want to go back to the bars and the fights. I just want a place to be with the people I love.  I want to be accepted for who I am, and not just in the gay world (218)”.  

Leslie Steinberg underwent hormone therapy and ultimately decided against continuing disruptive treatment. Toward the end of her life, she reconciled with the body she was born in and tried to increase awareness of the needs of gender queer issues. She is gone too soon.

 Deciding not to undergo gender modifying surgery becomes a political barrier to those identifying documents that signal change for a transgendered person. New Jersey’s Governor Chris Christie has vetoed legislation, allowing birth certificates and passports to show transgender name and sex change, unless the person has submitted to sex change surgery. This means that not only is there still a challenge to a person’s liberty to be at peace with one’s self, but there is a political mandate to inflict potential harm on a person’s body.  Not much has changed institutionally since the homophobic abuse of pre-Stonewall police raids on gay and lesbian bars, as so graphically pictured by Jess Goldberg in Steinberg’s Stone Butch Blues.