Recently I have been thinking about my blog here. What do I really want out of my blog, what do I want to put into it, and what on earth do I think I will get out of it? Please note: this is not some sort of blogging goodbye, I am analyzing what I am doing on a number of fronts.
One of the first side effects I noticed when I became (or finally realized I was) disabled was a serious disconnect from the world around me. I had not opted out of participating in the world, but very few things were aimed at including or even caring about me and this new-to-me group I found myself in! Unless I wanted a Jazzy or a Rascal I was pretty much left out. I already experienced this as a woman, as a poor person, as a poly person, and a bisexual (unless you are a bi woman having sex with other "bi" women for the purpose of turning on straight men, being bisexual is often considered indecision or greed rather than an actual sexual orientation). In most of life's genres I am relegated to a background player, or just ignored. I do have relative privilege and I try to live my life with that understanding.
My response to being discarded and feeling disconnected was to become hyper-connected. I went from not caring about most television programming to having the news on almost all the time. I started spending more of my time on line following news, pop culture, and finally connecting my interest in politics and social justice to the modern Internet. I found that if I saw a news story a couple of times I had a much better chance of retaining it and being able to discuss it with someone else.
As the scope of the issues and problems regarding USian society and culture about disability became clearer to me and I started to understand that it was right up there with other great societal poisons, I began to understand that I wanted to be part of the solution. I wanted (and still want) to take some of the things that happened to me along the way and use them to help other people. I want to take the horrible things that happened and give them to you so you can either avoid them yourself or better understand someone else in your life that has experienced similar things. So here I am.
No comments:
Post a Comment
I will get to your comment as soon as possible! Moderation is to guard against some of the vile things that happen on this series of tubes...