» Disabled Discrimination

No, the title isn’t “disability discrimination”, but “disabled discrimination”.The BBC has a series of (badly written) message boards, one of which is frequented by people with disabilities. A recent thread was started there, entitled “Does disablism work both ways“.

The question was about this new pseudo-word, “disablism”, that has become common on those message boards, and asked if the word also applied to discrimination by people with disabilities towards people who have no disabilities.

As expected, the responses varied from the term being solely applicable to discrimination against people with disabilities, and the more-than-expected comments from one poster that implied discrimination against people without disabilities were “sauce for the gander”.

So, the basic thinking goes, the disabled can only be discriminated against, and any discrimination they show towards those without disabilities are payback.

Here’s my problem.

Discrimination is “bad”, does it make it any “better” if it’s done by a minority frequently discriminated against towards a group that does a lot of discriminating?

If it’s “wrong” to do one way, can anything really justify it in the opposite direction?

Bear in mind that this is also the message board where one poster remarked “I hate the poppy appeal - I don’t think I should support people who volunteered to be in the armed forces.” - sentiments that were repeated by several others in that particular thread.

I think it’s safe to say that “discrimination” is bad - but it being used to justify being bad in return seems to be a failure of logic to me.

Either it’s bad, or it’s acceptable. If you think it’s acceptable under any circumstances, then I feel you’re on your own and can’t complain about it being aimed at you, either at first or in response to your own discrimination.

Unfortunately, the culture of entitlement and the “professional victim” syndrome have taken root, at least for a large number of people who contribute to that forum. And these things have become so poisonously pervasive that the thought police now rule that roost.

The posters there raise some very troubling issues, real discriminatory policies and practices that are extant in the UK that are, by any definition, improper.

The problem is, all they do is sit around and stew in their own juices, posting their vitriol and shaking their fist to the skies. Very few of them actually do anything to try to change the situation, rather they spend their time posting online about hard done by they are in society, how the deck is stacked against them, and generally trying to backdoor a pity-me party response.

The few who post there about practicalities to try to address those real problems get shot down, I think because the majority don’t want to hear about ways to try to fix things, they’re too busy feeling sorry for themselves and enjoying it.

Yes, enjoying it. Highlighting problems is the start of finding a solution, but too many seem to think that it’s all they should do, and the world should magically fix itself. In the meantime, they’re going to keep on bitching about their miserable lives - refusing to think that if their lives are so miserable maybe they should get off their asses and do something themselves to fix things.

Professional victims.

The thread about veterans included a post made by one of those professional victims, and offered one of the most asinine concepts I’ve ever seen - that veterans should not get decent medical care because other people with disabilities don’t.

The culture of entitlement has these posters, this clique of professional victims, all running around complaining, and expecting someone else to fix things. They do nothing practical to try to improve conditions, rather they spend all their time sitting around complaining about people using the wrong language that doesn’t suit them - language that is designed to separate and isolate people with disabilities from society even further!

There are people who are working to fix problems, such as the Direct Action Network. This activism group has the potential to kick ass and not bother taking names, and to force public awareness of the myriad of problems people with disabilities in the UK face. This small group of agitators has figured out that the only way to address those inequalities is to get in the face of those who make the decisions, and prevent issues from being hidden under the carpet.

You’d think, given the number of vociferous posters on the BBC’s Ouch! forums, that D.A.N. protests and demonstrations would be well attended.

Not that I can see. In fact, I’ve seen very little from the professional victim clique about D.A.N. activities even in conversation. They’re too busy trying to justify their own discrimination against people without disabilities, or trying to force people to use their acceptable victim-laden terminology, through peer pressure and browbeating.

Sometimes I really wonder if they deserve things being fixed. In their own way, they have a level of disability-fascism, where they are entitled to everything, or no-one is entitled to anything, where discrimination against them is to be abhorred but discrimination by them is “just desserts”, and where noting they don’t bother trying to fix things gets you castigated by an internal minority.

This elitism is a bigger threat to disability-equality than any level of discrimination by the able-bodied majority (able bodied, incidentally, being another term that causes dissent, since it “obviously” excludes those whose disabilities involve mental health problems). This vociferous yet impotent minority complains of exclusion, whilst at the same time promoting and implementing exclusionary behavior, attempting to force the community to adopt that behavior.

I can only assume that it’s similar to the veteran’s issue - this clique is miserable, so everyone else should be miserable as well. If any individual dares to rise out of the disability ghetto, this clique will try to drag them back down, because it’s easier than them trying to raise themselves up similarly.

As long as disability politics can be hijacked by a vociferous minority that is less interested in real change and more interested in being able to bitch about their lives, there will be little progress towards equality with the rest of society. It’s a self-fulfilling policy.

Prejudice exists.

It’s wrong.

Regardless of who is discriminating, and who is the target.

As long as it’s allowed, regardless of the perceived justification, there will never be an end to it - an eye for an eye, a crutch for a crutch. The question is, how long before the disabled community itself wakes up and deals with the prejudice inside the community itself, against the able-bodied majority and members of the community itself who refuse to sit and wallow in their misery, but instead go and change their environment?

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Tags: Disability, discrimination, ouch