Comments on: About this “can’t defend themselves” stuff.

By: Rachel

Rachel — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 01:25:38 +0000

Hi, I’m Rachel – nice to meet you. I’ve supposedly got cognitive stuff from a brain injury and have struggled with work. I also cry easily which caused me to lose my career in teaching. I cry a lot about that one. I heard from a video clip that the teachers teased you too. That’s awful and I wish you could have known to say something sooner so you didn’t have to endure that pain. I’m sorry for the pain you’ve gone through. I guess my family has been dysfunctional so my situation is quite different. You seem to have a much more stable life. I get fatigued easily and will be starting a full-time job. I have a two year old son so I’m concerened about having energy left at the end of the day – and never getting downtime if I get sick. It’s hard for me to understand my problems because doctors have spoken two ways to me in terms of being able to get any help and the government has not offered. So I’m gonna give it my best shot to support us but it seems unfair to not get equal employment opportunities when that’s what is touted as being the American way.

write sometime if you ever see this :)
Rachel

By: Jackie

Jackie — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 00:03:35 +0000

I think when groups first start to stand up for their rights, such as with the Tropic Thunder fiasco you were referring to. People try to keep them down by infantilizing them. If it isn’t, “Well they should stop throwing a temper tantrum over a silly word!” it’s “They can’t defend themselves, how sick do you have to be to beat up on the defenseless!” It’s the same type of behaviour people have used throughout time when they wanted to keep people down.

By: Melody

Melody — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 08:46:38 +0000

That is discomforting. Especially since it is so much a part of oppression that people within the group are talked down to (such as a woman being told to “behave like a good little girl” or a black man being called “boy”), and that this is already very much in line with how people with cognitive disabilities are treated.

By: Shazia Shamim

Shazia Shamim — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 20:11:45 +0000

Amanda, i am with you and fully agreed with you point of view.

By: Xia

Xia — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 05:27:11 +0000

You make total sense. It’s very insulting.

By: cripchick

cripchick — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 02:53:58 +0000

yes. yes yes yes.

in addition to what you’ve stated, i’ve been having a hard time w/ some of the organizing around tropic thunder (though i am waiting until after all the actions and negotiations have been won to bring them up). the fact that a lot of parents/parent organizations were spotlighted when a lot of self advocates did the leg work and are most affected by this, the protest signs that said the r-word was bad was because we are not connected to our disabilities instead of saying the r-word is oppressive and hateful, the connections that were not made to other movements (i.e. rather than celebrating the fact that the n-word wasn’t used, our strategy has been to say “hey! you didn’t use the n-word but you used the r-word”,) etc..

anyways. glad to read this.

By: Brett

Brett — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 01:38:31 +0000

I’m glad you posted this, showing that you can indeed “defend yourself.”

When I first read a response to the situation that said “it’s awful because disabled people are defenseless, incapable of defending” themselves,” my first thought was that this was more directly, and intentionally, offensive than off-hand uses of “retard” is. Of course, it may just reflect the general ignorance of the public at large about what it really means to be autistic (or anything else not considered “normal”).

By: Sharon

Sharon — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 23:18:51 +0000

Yes Amanda! I have seen all these sorts of comments too and been turned off by them. It’s as if some people are trying to get the word dropped out of pity.

I couldn’t even be bothered to comment on Patricia Bauer’s posts as there was so much of the very attitude you describe.