It's ridiculously easy to talk about ableism without drawing comparisons to racism or coopting language that Black people use to talk about their experiences.
'If this was about race instead of disability...'
Nope, fuck off, stop right there, cease talking, step back, ding dong you are wrong.
We talk about racism, particularly anti-Black racism, like it's 'privileged' in terms of being something people care about. Stop. STOP.
The queer community does this as well, and we need to shut the fuck up.
What world are we living in if we think anti-Black racism is something people care about or an issue that has overwhelming support? Turn over the channel once in a while, ffs.
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I will NOT take people declaring that the only autistic people complaining about 'Music' are those who haven't ever 'needed' restraint, when my replies have been so full of autistic people bravely recounting their restraint related trauma.
Fuck you, if you're saying this. Fuck you.
You saying this only proves how little you care about the abuse that so many autistic people have faced, how unwilling you are to listen. You don't believe those that have been restrained are capable of voicing their trauma. Fuck you.
I, an autistic person who has not experienced this kind of restraint, will stand with autistic people who have experienced it and who have lasting trauma from this abuse.
You claim to care about those with 'severe' autism, but you fucking fail to show it with every word.
I'm writing an article on how disabled people are treated when it comes to life saving medical treatment, and I'm looking to speak to people with lived experience (for example, have you been made low priority or refused life-saving treatment?). DMs are open! #JournoRequest
The piece will use the recent news around DNRs being forced on people with learning disabilities as a springboard for a conversation on how disabled lives are valued differently to abled lives, and how the pandemic has shed light on an already existing issue.
It will discuss things like transplant lists, and how neurodivergent people can be refused a place on it because of their neurodivergence, and the blocking of ventilators and other potentially life saving care for people based on pre-existing disability.
There's something so fucking misogynistic about that clip where a woman is explaining how Thatcher lifted up the ladder behind her, and the interviewer is like 'but wasn't it important that she proved a woman COULD be prime minister?'.
Bitch, we always knew we could.
The issue was never that women don't believe in themselves enough to be Prime Minister, you fucking cockwomble.
Anyway shout out to the woman for responding with a list of reasons why Thatcher is shit and basically saying 'I don't care that she was a woman, she was a dickhead'.
I think it's important to talk about the way Sia behaved towards autistic people on Twitter, and the behaviour she enabled from her fans, because it was more than just offensive. For many autistics, online spaces are our community, and her actions drove people off their accounts.
It's just a small part of the greater harm, but this has had a genuine, damaging, violent impact on many autistic people who found themselves in the crosshairs of her defensiveness. I know that people are still receiving death threats from people 'defending' Sia.
This shit is important. Driving someone off Twitter, particularly a disabled person, could very easily be driving them away from their main support circles, and, in the instances of full time advocates, driving them away from the work that keeps a roof over their heads.
My video on Sia/Music is live, and, with it, my YouTube channel is officially launched!
I run through how 'Music' is harmful, how we got here, and steps that Sia and we can take to rectify some of the damage done #ActuallyAutistic#SiaDoesntSpeakForUs
Massive thank you to @131Jj for speaking to me about the harrassment and abuse he received as a result of Sia's fans, which I understand have continued to escalate recently.
There's just such a strong 'in my utopia you don't exist' vibe from some of these takes around anti-capitalism and the social model of disability.
It's important to talk about how yes, capitalism absolutely contributes to mental illness, and in some cases the demands of capitalism make things like ADHD and autism even more disabling, but disabilities aren't going to be 'fixed' if and when we destroy capitalism.
Takes like these, however well intentioned and however much they may accidentally touch on the brink of an important conversation, only serve to play into the ableism that rips through anti-capitalist and leftist spaces and makes them unsafe for disabled people.