Thread by @ekverstania

And this is why disabled people who DON'T want to die are often murdered: because people think that killing people with high support needs, or people who are simply old and frail-looking is the 'decent' thing to do.

https://twitter.com/__fury_/status/1371829773823922179

The 'right' to kill disabled people is too seldom discussed in the context of disabled people's right to choose proper support and care without being made to feel like a burden. notdeadyet.org

Elderly and disabled people are treated so badly by society and institutions as a whole that many nondisabled people say outright that they'd rather be dead than disabled, BUT THEY DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT WORKING TO CHANGE SOCIETY'S MINDSET OR SYSTEMS.

Here you go: the words of nonspeaking autistic teenager Zekwande Mathenjwa from Pretoria: "I am happy to be alive".

https://twitter.com/ekverstania/status/1365904380583694339?s=19

Do you think it's 'sweet' or 'inspirational' that this disabled boy is happy to be alive 'in spite of his disability' or is he allowed to be happy to be alive as he is, and permitted to love himself fully, autism and all? Because that's kinda a key question here.

If you think there's always a person 'behind' the disability ("I see you, not your disability"), you may have a hard time accepting the idea of allowing life to those for whom the disability actually is an inextricable part of who they are.

Many people conceptualise heaven as a place where people get new bodies. They talk about how disabled people will be free from their disabilities. Somehow, they imagine that these new bodies will be quite similar to one another.

So let's look at mainstream society's typical mental picture of a disabled person, viz. a wheelchair user. Wheelchair users are actually ENABLED by their wheelchairs and DISABLED by wobbly pavements, a lack of ramps, and everything being placed too high. And so on.

So now imagine we all die and get similar bodies in heaven. How about we all get easily retractible wings for fast mobility, and for regular mobility, nobody has legs, we all get built-in wheels, and the pavements of gold are smooth, but still with sufficient grip?

I could add autism, short stature, blindness and chronic illness to the mix, and we'll run into problems with this standard new-bodies-in-heaven thing. I mean, what would the size range be? Everyone would be healthy, of course, so could you weigh, say, 700 kg? Or be 5 cm tall?

Is heaven a place where pain stops, mobility is easy, and everyone understands and accepts you BECAUSE YOU ARE A BLONDE, BLUE-EYED CURLY-HAIRED CHERUB?

Because we're there, actually.

What do people ON EARTH have to be, to be accepted?

Why aren't we doing the acceptance part now already, before people die?

Because we're dealing with the idea that heaven is a place where everyone BECOMES ACCEPTABLE based on our own socially imposed criteria of acceptability.

So, society feeds us this idea that in order to be kind to people, we need to dispatch them to the place where social norms remain basically the same, but they magically get bodies that conform to those norms, and that's why it's nice up there.

It's all about the glorification of sameness and the paradoxical simultaneous admiration for certain exceptions. theatlantic.com/business/archi…

Ironically, we're not even talking about the majority of people being nasty to the minority of people who are different from them. Because MOST people in the world don't conform to the kyriarchical ideal of being a rich, white, nondisabled man. ballastexistenz.wordpress.com/2016/05/01/the…

What sorts of people SHOULD there be? (Thank you to @Ghillie_Guide for this reference.) eugenicsarchive.ca

If this is not just about the majority being mean to the minority, then what IS it about? It's about the unquestioning acceptance of some sort of ideal by the majority, and that majority being mostly prepared to impose that arbitrary ideal even upon themselves.

And so we get INTERNALISED ableism, INTERNALISED sexism, INTERNALISED name-your oppression.
neurocosmopolitanism.com/throw-away-the…