Thread by @JillianWeise

I live disability theory. I don't need to read a lot of it.

If I was always reading disability theory, I would NOT BE READING other thinkers I want to read, like Cicero, Epictetus, et al.

Ex: Everyone telling me to read Sara Ahmed's COMPLAINT rn. I'm living Ahmed's book rn.

https://twitter.com/RickGodden/status/1622729630695190533

That photo is the back cover of @epiphanylit . It shows Sara Ahmed's essay "No," a very good essay, alongside my essay, "Some Husbands I Work With."

I had to publish that piece as a "short story" at the time. I told the Editor, "You know this is real, right? I don't feel safe."

Editor at Epiphany? Totally fantastic. Understood that I would change a few minor details, thereby fictionalizing my life, so that the husbands at my work place would not 1) sue me nor 2) hurt me. #AcademicTwitter

I feel free to tell you that, now, because I left that workplace. I am no longer employed there. If you want to read the "story" which is an essay, then you can buy it from my Etsy shop. I sell PDFs at Borg4Borg on Etsy. I'm going to sell access copies, there. Back to the point:

People have good intentions when they tell me to read Sara Ahmed's COMPLAINT. And I've skimmed the book. I don't know where the disability sections are. Can't find those. And it seems to me that the one group of people who are MOST harmed by academic systems? Disabled people.

We disabled people, in higher education, occupy ALL IDENTITY POSITIONS. So we are trans and disabled. We are Muslim and disabled. We are BIPOC and disabled. We are agender and disabled.

And we are being very much harmed by The Academy. And it is not just #AcademicAbleism

I no longer accept the kind of casual nod to #AcademicAbleism when what is really happening? Abuse. People in high education, and the system of higher education itself, abuses disabled people. All the time. So frequently, and with such panache, that nobody even calls it abuse.

So until Sara Ahmed updates COMPLAINT with a section specifically on the experience of disabled faculty, staff and students in higher education, or in any abusive system, I won't be close-reading Sara Ahmed's book.

And my larger point is this: If you are living something, that is, you are in the middle of being the COMPLAINER:

-- you are disabled and
-- doing the work
-- filling out the forms
-- spending hours in comms w/ the offices

-- you are disabled and
-- your colleagues think you're 'crazy'
-- your colleagues are spreading rumors abt you
-- your colleagues wish you would take your disabled bodymind and simply disappear

then Ahmed's COMPLAINT does not have much help for you primarily bc COMPLAINT does not recognize you, either, as the most vulnerable person inside an academic system. If the book did, then there would be an entire chapter, at least, on abuse of disabled ppl in higher education.

And what you really DONT NEED right now? If you are disabled & complaining about abuses in academia? You don't need a book that recognizes all kinds of identities. But not yours. Not really.

#SaraAhmed #Complaint #DisabilityTwitter #AcademicTwitter #WorkplaceHarassment

Asterisk on this: Not all colleagues. But more than 3 which is too many. It is far too easy for academics, at any University, to delegitimize disabled thinkers on the basis of our disabled identity. It is also illegal. Yet it happens all the time.

So to answer Rick's question @RickGodden ]reminder of question: "does reading disability theory ever just, you know, fuck you up?"[ sure, I suppose, but what really fucks me up is everyone telling me to read Ahmed's COMPLAINT when that book sidelines disabled faculty & students

& when I am living the actual subject of the book. Now to be fair: when people suggest I read Ahmed's COMPLAINT? They mean well. People do not know what to do. People feel, I speculate, helpless. They don't have any other ideas. They don't know how to intervene in abuse.

What would I like people to do?

I would like people who are witnessing the abuse I am going thru to call EthicsPoint.

EthicsPoint is an outside company employer hired. The company will not use your preferred name, but otherwise EthicsPoint is fine.

secure.ethicspoint.com/domain/media/e…

And how would you make that call? Well, first you are going to need to be hearing and not #Deaf because the company does not have TTY.

So EthicsPoint assumes you're hearing.

It is probably unfathomable to the company that deaf and hard-of-hearing ppl work as professors.

But EthicsPoint does offer option to file a report via online form. So you can use that form. Or you can call them. And you can say: "My colleague Cy has been abused for being disabled in our Department. The abuse has to stop."

Dial toll-free 855-231-7511

And my gratitude to the Editor @epiphanylit , Tracy O'Neill. I don't think she's on here? If she is: thank you, Tracy, not just for your support of my writing, but also for your incredible witness of what I was going thru.