EDIT: Don’t bother reporting people criticizing others for not wearing a helmet. It’s not victim blaming, just like criticizing someone for not wearing a seatbelt isn’t victim blaming.
Wear your helmets people: Of course nobody deserves to get hit by a car but the reality is people are getting hit by cars.
I appreciate you taking the criticism on the chin, and your apology.
I will just point out though that it isn’t about offence, it’s about inclusion. I think giving this a read could be quite helpful. Also - framing disability as “inconvenienced by the cards life has dealt” isn’t great (sure, being disabled can be inconvenient, but in many if not most cases it isn’t our disabilities that are the reason why, but societies unwillingness to consider and include us, which ties back in with the previous point), here is a good link for that (I’m not trying to be an ass on a rant, just taking the opportunity to educate when I see the willingness to hear it).
Certainly not seeing you as an ass on a rant. I do aim to do better. I said it because I didn’t consider you. The concept of you. A person of disability in this world. This instance. This conversation. The problem with the online world is that you don’t see the other person. You take impressions. “These people have similar opinions, they must be just like me…” And in my case, “just like me” is a mid 40s able bodied white man. I see words on a screen with similar views to mine, the mind doesn’t default to “dark skinned woman with paraplegia” (I have no idea who you are, just an example of who isn’t me). It doesn’t see that. Instead similar views is similar person.
Was that a throwaway line of "dark humour " for the lowest common denominator? Probably. But it doesn’t matter because it was still hurtful.
I know I would never have thrown it out in front of my coworker Jake. The man has cerebral palsy, but we’re both employed to unload that truck. He is my equal.
Why does what I think or say even have to be thought about? Probably because I was raised in a home of “different is wrong” and stereotyping. Who I became as a young man and who I want to become as I get older are 2 different things that take effort.
Thankyou for helping me with my path.
No one knows everything, and we should all hope and aim to learn new things every day, and unlearn the harmful socialisation we’ve had enforced on us, both are constant works in progress.
Having said that… 😂
The issue isn’t that we’re online, not all disability is visible, and you really have no way of knowing if someone standing right in front of you is disabled. Your assumption that everyone is like you is because the world generally cater to and centres people like you, so those that aren’t kind of fall off at the periphery of your view (this is why representation is important), but the fact that you are able to recognise that puts you ahead of the curve.
Jake shouldn’t have to be there, not only for the reason I mentioned above (you may very well have other disabled co workers, whose disability you can’t see), but also because not having someone directly impacted hear it doesn’t mean the ableism doesn’t still have an impact, in normalising it.
Also - Jake is your equal not because he does the same job, but because he is Jake, and would be your equal even if he wasn’t able to work.
I’m going to do a little info dump here, I don’t expect that you’ll read this all at once (or even at all), but I think it’s good information that is worth sharing to help further understanding, so it’s there for anyone who wants to learn more:
https://everydayfeminism.com/2014/11/ableist-language-matters/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis - I think this idea frames a lot of peoples’ thinking about disability
https://www.yorku.ca/edu/unleading/ableism (their entire series on Systems of Oppression is worth a look)
https://disabledfeminists.com/category/ableist-word-profile/ - worth reading the entire series, the entries are a little lengthy, but the whole archive is only 2 pages
https://thestrand.ca/capitalism-ableism-and-the-glamorization-of-productivity/
https://dailyfreepress.com/2020/11/19/mind-your-business-ableism-is-rooted-in-capitalism/
https://leavingevidence.wordpress.com/2011/02/12/changing-the-framework-disability-justice/