Here are your three disability-related links for Wednesday, May 8, 2024.
1. A Message from Theo Braddy: Your Words Hurt Me
Theo Braddy, National Council on Independent Living - May 6, 2024
“Let’s delve into the language we employ. I understand if you feel weary of constant reminders about the significance of terminology. Yet, it’s crucial to grasp that words not only convey meaning but also shape our perceptions and beliefs.”
Some of what Braddy says here may seem obvious, to the point of tediousness. He acknowledges this. But there is still a very large and sometimes noisy contingent of people who angrily insist that language doesn’t matter, or shouldn’t matter, to disabled people. Even a lot of actual disabled people think this, and derive part of their pride and self-confidence — or an ideal image of them — from insisting they don’t care what people call them. It’s important for people like this to understand that words really do matter, even if they, personally, don’t see it or feel it. Plus, there are also plenty of people who truly don’t know which words mean what when it comes to disabled people. They are open to changing their language habits, but aren’t sure exactly how. That’s why messages like this are still worth repeating, even if if feels like you’ve heard them a thousand times before.
2. The Canadian State Is Euthanizing Its Poor and Disabled
David Moscrop, Jacobin - May 1, 2024
Source: X (Twitter) via Sara Luterman
“A libertarian ethos partially underwrote the fact that not many people blinked when MAiD was initially rolled out. Taking a more expansive view of rights, many of those not swayed by rote libertarianism were convinced that concerns over bodily autonomy and compassion were reason enough to adopt MAiD. However, in the absence of a robust welfare state, and in the face of structural poverty and discrimination, particularly toward disabled people, there is no world in which the MAiD program can be understood to be “progressive.””
This isn’t the first piece I’ve shared here on “assisted suicide,” also known as “Medical Aid in Dying,” (MAiD). I know for certain it won’t be the last, since I’ve got another one lined up for early next week. It’s an important and increasingly urgent disability topic. One reason to take note of this article is that it appears in Jacobin, which is a pretty far Left Wing magazine. And that’s significant because by and large the Left is usually assumed to be in favor of MAiD. But here, the author makes the case in a socialist, class-conscious publication that MAiD is an issue of economic justice and class, not simply a natural next step in the march of personal freedom and enlightened secular values. Whether or not Jacobin readers can ever be especially influential on this is debatable. But for those who tend to decide specific issues based on strong ideology and political identities, it’s important to show that at the very least, MAiD is not a slam dunk for anyone, whichever political and ideological culture they come from.
3. Review: 'And They Lived…Ever After' Rewrites Fairy Tales Through A Disability Lens
Vineetha Mokkil, Outlook - May 4, 2024
“What if visually impaired Cinderella found a way to love herself? What if hearing impaired Snow White bonded with a community she could call her own? How does a neurodivergent Ugly Duckling turn into a self-reliant swan? Can a wheelchair-using Rapunzel save her prince?”
I haven’t read any of these re-imagined fairy tales. So I don’t know if they are well-written and compelling. But the idea seems brilliant. I want to order this book and read it. Besides, I haven’t shared any other disability-related articles from India yet. And this stood out to me as a particularly fun and intriguing subject.
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I'm an American living in Germany (with quite its own history of "euthanasia"), but I read and hear a lot about MAiD through disabled online friends in Canada and the U.S. They could be likely be characterized as "far left" down to a person, certain well left. (Count me in.) Though I tend to lose track of it, I'm a fan of Jacobin and their takes on a lot of things. Since I was already disturbed by the program, the piece more than resonates. I'll agree that Jacobin barely reaches readers outside of its niche, but I am still buoyed by this degree of informed analysis and its potential to leak out enough to reach and educate the eyeballs of *some* who aren't disabled/chronically ill and/or have not previously given the subject a great degree of thought. But perhaps even more so, what strikes me in your commentary is a sense of non-disabled writers and thinkers as perforce those who must amplify these arguments, ceding the control of public discourse to the "center" and those that identify as abled. No doubt these cadres must be educated to ultimately ensure comprehensive, structural *barriers* to social abuses being wrought by such "vaunted" programs, but it is essential that disabled people predominantly drive the discourse. We have our own voices and are equally part of the self-same society as perhaps dubiously adjudged thought leaders and thought "gatekeepers," a set of "abled saviors" as it were.