One True Cause

I find little credibility in the One True Cause argument. Someone else has probably come up with a better name for it, but a quick tour through Derailing for Dummies has left me unsatisfied. Make no mistake, I find D4D otherwise very useful and like it quite a lot! Give me a minute, and I think you will find that "One True Cause" is used frequently as a derailing and discrediting tactic.

To clear this up, I do not mean "cause" as in cause and effect, although that is also a logical fallacy. I am using "cause" in One True Cause or 1TC or OTC to mean a situation, bigotry, societal failure, civil rights issue... the sort of causes we gather around to solve, resolve, improve, remove, make better. The intent is to make your cause less worthy of time, attention, and effort than their cause.

The One True Cause is this: why are you talking about/working on/devoting time and energy to X cause when Y cause is more important, more universal, more pressing and/or more personal? The OTC shares mental real estate with the Oppression Olympics, although the person committing the logical fallacy need not believe or be touched by either cause, they just want to be done with yours.

A recent example I have seen is this paraphrase of mine: how can you talk about Glenn Greenwalt's pal getting detained and the chilling effect it may have on free speech when Greenwalt is a lying jerk and other people have been treated worse? Here, I respectfully posit that one can care about the assault on free speech via detention of loved ones no matter how much one may dislike the people in this particular story and even still care about the dishonesty and ethical questions raised by the same persons. I can think that GG looks like a lying jerk and still beat the drum of free speech.

A common OTC argument is often brought up regarding US drone bombing. We mustn't concern ourselves with the innocents murdered in the never ending search for "top Al Qaeda" operatives because that would diminish our ability to kill the "right" people in Pakistan, Yemen, Afghanistan... over there. Except that innocents murdered in a bloody attempt to exact justice is how this all started, whether you think it started with 9/11 or the use of Afghani people as chess pieces to fight a Cold War with the USSR, or, or, or...

Admittedly, it may be hard to drag our focus from getting through our own days, fighting the oppressions heaped upon us, scraping to put what we can on the table at dinner time for our loved ones to give a damn about people exploded out of existence while doing the same damn thing over there... someplace far away, some place filled with brown people struggling the same struggles and (just like us) never earned the need to fear random death from above. 

As a disabled person raising a ruckus, I see the One True Cause fallacy all the time. How can I complain about the lack of accessibility at the local Pride Fest when that just give critics more fuel to try to shut it down? Well, I can tell you that as bisexual woman with disabilities I could not cross streets because beer booths had deliberately blocked curb cuts. How can I, a poor white lady, spend time on race issues when I should be focused on poverty? Well, my daughters go to the same schools that are neglected because there are not enough white faces in those schools for the people in power to care about them. Even if they went to lily white schools, better education for "inner city" or "deprived" schools means more skilled workers and smarter citizens which increases economic opportunity for everyone. 

Often One True Cause is used with some legitimate feeling, worry that this other cause will suffer if people are not singularly devoted to it. People and their issues can be complex, and OTC often ignores the intersections that exist in social justice, in caring about freedom and real opportunities for all peoples. But just as we can love our parents, our significant others/spouses, our children, and our friends and extended family - I believe that we can care about more than one cause with legitimate depth of feeling and commitment. Some of us must do so, whether we ever wanted to or not. Just inside our walls here at home we are directly concerned with disability, neuro-atypicality of various types, feminism, poverty, school quality/funding, the Affordable Care Act/healthcare accessibility in general, religious freedom, racism (our neighbors and our children's peers are more melanin gifted than our family), QUILTBAG rights and issues... 

OTC is just one more minor oppression. OTC is other people telling you what causes they think you should support. OTC is just one more way to exert control, but worse since is is usually done by social justice folks to other social justice folks. So it is likely to be listened to, likely to bypass the filters we put in place when we are dealing with folks that could not care less about making the US a more just place. This often comes from people we respect, trust - folks we value in some way.

So you see, we had to learn to juggle many interests and that is just a brief overview. OTC has no place in our social justice cosmology. OTC is different than picking the battles that mean something to you: I get that.  One True Cause desires to denigrate other causes (others' causes?), and that is not cricket. On a good body day, I can actually chew gum, pat my head and rub my tummy all at the same time. But do not hold your breath waiting for a good day, I have less than a handful of those a month right now. The ones I get - I know how to spend them!

Outing Invisible Disablilities

As you well know, Gentle Reader, not every disability is visible to the untrained, naked eye. You know that most of what contributes to my state of disability is invisible unless I use an aid to help myself get around. I get a lot of hairy eyeballs if I use disability parking or other help from folks that think disability is a state for them to judge themselves, based only on what they see in one moment.

Well, someone in Portland calling themselves "Artemis of the wild" has gone further. Reported by the Oregonian via Gawker, this pusillanimous fuckwit has decided that folks receiving disability and have the audacity to vote should be unveiled publicly. For the sake of your sanity, do not read the comments for either article. 

I could count the ways that this is screwed up, but you and I, Gentle Reader, have things to do and lives to live. Keeping that in mind, let us take a brief tour of a few of the worst bits.

• People are not one issue voters.
• You cannot see a whole host of mental and physical disabilities. Just get fucking used to that.
• Voting is a right and a privilege of US citizenship, even if the far right is trying to take it away. Disability, even if you get those meager benefits, does not in any way strip a person of citizenship or any other status besides "temporarily able bodied" (also: TAB).

You do not get to decide who is disabled and who is faking it. If they have run the disability-approval gauntlet (and it is pretty horrible for some) and did the song and dance to get their status validated by the Social Security Administration to receive aid, or even just their doc's office to get a parking pass then they have already proved to anyone that matters that they qualified. You need to back the hell off. They are already handling enough extra difficulty being disabled and all. 

There are only a few people disabled folk are required to give their status to, and it is not you, Jackass of the suburbs.

Dear "Artemis of the wild,"

I am disabled. I vote. I do not cast my votes solely on the basis of favoritism of disability status (if I did, there is almost no such thing).

I still count.

Fuck you.

Sincerely,

PatientC

PatientC smoking a clove cig against a fiery background.

Words and Political Correctness

I had the opportunity the other day to participate in a terrific community discussion about political correctness, specifically referencing things like A-line ribbed tank tops, the use of the word "rape" in a gaming environment and others. And I want to explore the idea of political correctness here. No links or anything, just trying to iron out some ideas and see what they are.


I want to set some hyperbole aside. When we talk about social political correctness, we are not talking about laws at any level. There are no Jack Booted Language Police. We are simply dealing with social norms. And those can very from nation to nation, culture to culture, house hold to house hold. And just like every other social norm, we are all constantly juggling one to another as we go through our days and our lives.


No law, no physical impediment keeps you from using a politically incorrect word or phrase or idea in conversation or media. The gripe is that if you do value your right to a word over the potential offense or harm it may cause, your may be viewed as someone that does exactly that. The problem is not the use of this word or that word. They can still be used. The only penalty is that your peers may, may see you as someone that values their right to a word over their hurt, offense, or harm. 


The social price of political incorrectness is being thought of as an asshole. 


I want you, Gentle Reader, to know that I did not start over here, although I wish I had. I started over there, demanding my rights to words and other people's right's to words. I am a greater fan of the 1st Amendment than the 2nd Amendment - and I value them both quite highly.


I had not considered every one else's right to exist at least with my indifference, if not any benevolence. But those other people, they should not have to guard themselves every time they are among other people. They should not walk in fear that I may throw them back to an abusive marriage or a sexual assault just because they had to go to the store. They should expect the world to be as indifferent, neutral, or benevolent to them as you expect it to be for you.


What happens when you are brought to someone else's pain is that you are being trusted with it. If I say to you that a particular phrase or word is upsetting to me, you have two decisions to make:

• You either believe, or not. I have a responsibility to be honest, and I will probably even try to be patient if my situation is not one that you could have been expected to be tuned into. But then you either believe me, and take me at my word that something is offensive to me personally or maybe I say that as one of their number, some of these folks are offended by that. You can educate yourself as much as you like later, that would actually be great. But in this moment, it is simple trust issue.
• You either care, or not. While that may sound cruel to the person being asked to stop offending, upsetting, or harming - I guarantee that it is less cruel then being asked to forgive or ignore someone while they knowingly do harm to you whenever, however they see fit, forever. Because whatever burden you carry is simply unimportant to them. 

That is it. 

• If you believe and care, you work to change a language habit (you do not really "lose" a word in any actual sense), and you show a wounded someone that there is at least one person out there not willing to knowingly hurt them further. 
• If you care but don't believe, you start asking or teasing about exactly that harmful thing, maybe discounting the very idea, or act like the stated harm is over-reacting. Hey, maybe you ask friends and strangers around you if this thing "is really offensive?" Because: 1st Amendment. You may change your language use if you do research that confirms, or other people concur.
• If you do not believe and do not care, then you will change nothing about your habits, maybe dig into the wound a little bit, you know, to prove it is not there. Because: "plenty of people go through more and aren't crying." 
• If you believe and do not care, then hopefully you are apathetic, but maybe you dig into that wound often and deep, you know, to help them "get over" their sensitivity. Maybe you envision yourself as some sort of Devil's Advocate. As if the person trying to trust you has not had enough of true adversaries.

There are other options, and many other factors that may influence a particular situation, but I am comfortable with those four as likely types of outcomes.


I have said before, and I truly believe it: "Political correctness is a quick and easy guide to avoid being seen as an asshole if you are not, in fact, an asshole."

I truly do not understand how being conscientious of another person's history, or that of a group of people, is walking on eggshells, or some other surrender of personal power. Why is it a problem to have to think about these people with a problem? Surely they have to consider you. Why is it not a instead a strength to be in a more grounded, solid group free or nearly free of such angst, pain, distrust, suspicion and harm?

Poverty and Rand

The following contains my ramblings on some posts elsewhere about Ayn Rand, her views on poverty, and particularly how her ideological followers (whether they call themselves Objectivists, Randians or not) view and treat poverty. I have edited these slightly to make them make sense on their own, and for some grammar errors, or for clarification. Additions will be marked {thus}.

If you want to see a simulation of how an Objectivist society would go down, play Bioshock.

Enjoy!

~~~

When I first read (Ayn) Rand as a teenager, I loved her "perusing your own skills/ideals/whatnot to your own perfection" world view, but even then had trouble with her economics. As an adult, I do think there are things in her writing worth considering. My enormous trouble with her comes not from the fact that she has a economic ideology that I vehemently disagree with, but from what she does with it and how she expresses it. She had a fanatical hatred for the poor, calling them parasites and insisting that the world would be better off if they were removed from it (not lifted out of poverty by opportunity). That is more than a simply economic philosophy. She had a pathology about it. The irony is that when in dire straits herself she made use of the same safety net that she pontificated so loudly against.

And do not get me started on her Objectivist followers, they are such a hot mess it would take days to spell out everything wrong with their stances.

~~~

{On hating someone for being poor and apparently slothful.} Okay, but does that make any sense, either? Hating someone for something like that? And the very idea "people who were happy to remain poor" is bizarre, it makes no sense and has no reality in it whatsoever. But she did seem to think that such existed, and were a blight.

You are fine - I did not see it as semantics. And this is why it is important to really analyse literature, particularly when the author is openly promoting a particular world view. The saddest thing about Rand (besides the hypocrisy of her later life) is that it is really difficult to have a conversation like this where we talk about the ideas and do not degrade each other.

~~~

You cannot expect people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps when they have no boots.

In one hundred percent of my lived experience and anecdotal experiences I have been able to pursue, there is always a reason for not being able to take advantage of an opportunity. No one, I assert, no one is "happy" being poor. Some are making the best of their circumstances, and good for them if they can. Usually, people making that claim have no idea of the chasm between being on state sponsored assistance and becoming self-sufficient. Often, the job openings available cannot help bridge that chasm. But now we are getting past common perceptions of poverty and getting into the reality of it, and I do know know if this is a venue where that is desired, or if it is a part of the conversation worth getting into right now.

~~~

Eh, given that most state's assistance is not enough to live on, let long live a life of leisure, I have a hard time believing that. Are their some cases of welfare fraud? Sure. But the myth of the Welfare Queen, living a life of luxury courtesy of the state is just that: a malicious, ridiculous, and downright stupid myth. But the Randians eat it up and have made it a central pole in their tent of misguided self righteousness.

~~~

Ah, I see now. Thanks for the discussion, but you have some dead give a ways in your last two posts that lead me to believe we are not going to actually get anywhere with further discussion.

Because we could get into the weeds and prove that if you have children to care for, or conditions that require constant medical coverage, or any number of situations that make the gap between getting your first couple of paychecks and when the state cuts you off simply too wide for too many people - but you illustrate above that such would not really mean much to you. {I have done the math before, for multiple states - usually the new aid for an additional child will not even cover diapers, let alone be "extra money" in any way.}

I have lived, and am currently, living these situations. I am finding this a unique phenomena, the linking of morality to financial success or lack of it. It is bizarre. Not to knock you, specifically, I mean that it is a weird cultural thing. 

~~~

{The conversation mostly devolved at that point. Reading the above, the poster took what I said and turned it into a tirade against them. It was a beautiful illustration of both missing the point, and turning logic into a personal attack. The poster also was apparently unaware that I am disabled, that that, yes indeed, they were talking about me. But this issue was bigger than that.}

Hmm, in my two paragraphs I do not see any twisting or manipulating - or even any of the extrapolation that would allow such. Hell, I did not even say that you were one of the people comfortable punishing poor people, only that perhaps you could educate me on their mindset. You do protest too much, I think.

And it is about me. It is about you. It is about everyone. It is about the poor. It is about the people that have been poor. It is about the people that will be poor. It is about everyone. And so, yeah, I am pretty damn uncomfortable with blanket moral judgments towards "the poor" as a group. Especially "slothful" - because that has to come from someone that has never been poor, because being poor is damn hard work. I do find it a convenient landmark, though, because the people that throw the word around obviously are completely disconnected from the work of just being poor. The running around, the appointments, the paperwork, the requirements just to receive any kind of aid - they do make you work for it. Hell, Disability alone takes an average of two to three years to resolve a case.

Most USian households are one paycheck, one health calamity, one car accident, from suddenly being poor. Do they deserve your moral indignation? No, they do not. But it is far too common to find your own "Welfare Queen or King" and decide that this morally bankrupt person is the face of the poor. Never mind that most aid is given to white house holds that simply had that one paycheck calamity. Or were downsized. Or became disabled. The true face of poverty in the US is us, you and me, not your "morally bankrupt" scapegoats. Much like in war, the dehumanization of the poor allows us to treat them as this other deserving of what ever they get. lucky for the scraps thrown their way.

There is a preponderance of evidence supporting the fact that we are the face of poverty. Or more appropriately, that you cannot generalize the way you would like to. If I thought I could change your mind, LMGTFY {Let Me Google That For You}, but you can easily do so if you want. You could have done so before this discussion, or during it.

Side note: I do not know about all states, but in mine if you are working on a 4 year degree you are disqualified from receiving help maintaining your household from the state. I know that for a been there, done that fact. Because your full class load keeps you from looking for full time work - so you are not eligible for aid. How is that for irony? Again, the result of policy makers having no contact with reality.

Help for ALL Surviving Domestic Abuse

Republicans Back out of Domestic Violence Help


All they had to do was renew the damn bill.


In a discussion online about this article it was mentioned that undocumented working women that were being abused would be "rewarded" by the proposed changes. I got really angry and responded:


... REWARDED?!? REALLY? What kind of "reward" is it when you have to get your ass jacked, sometimes for years, before you can get it? And lawbreakers?!? Give me a goddamn break! We have protections in place for mass murderers on DEATH ROW but some lady that came here for a better life and can't navigate the multi thousand dollar convoluted piece of shit we call an immigration system is fair game?!? Holy hell!


So then I took a deep, cleansing breath while waiting on a reply. I am not posting the other side of the conversation here because it was casual and there was no shared understanding at the time that I might extrapolate on my responses for my blog.  


Okay. Human rights are not contingent on being a citizen. Full stop. And there is nothing about DV/DA help that actually makes one a citizen. So no crime is "washed away." Offering a minuscule number of undocumented women visas only gives them a bit of temporary help, moving one issue out of the current stressors while one works ones way out of the living hell that is domestic abuse and/or violence. It will not make these women citizens, not by a long shot, and to argue that it is a reward of any kind is disingenuous at best, and  out and out lying manipulation at worst.

I am so fucking tired of people acting like a accident of birth that put them within the fabricated and stolen USian boarders some how makes them special or better than other people. Or that other human beings are some how less human or their suffering is less important because their moment of birth put them (usually, in these arguments) south of an artificial line made of murder and theft. The fact that we are having these "rights of birth" arguments in a country founded on the idea that birth status does not make one better or worse than any other person is disgusting.

My point above, about mass murderers, is not to say the people in our prison system should not be protected from the tyranny of the system or their peers. They should be subjected to the cruelty of their sentences but not a jot more. My point was to juxtapose one "law breaker" with another, highlighting the differences in protection each receive. One has been convicted of taking lives, the other committed, or their parents committed, a crime of geography.


But there is nothing in our laws that makes one birth better than another, something that seems to be missing in every one of these arguments I have seen. If your main focus regarding help for the survivors of domestic violence is illegal immigration, I have not no help for you. I believe that this serves as an illustration of exactly how much some people are being distracted from the issues at hand. All people surviving domestic abuse, assault, and violence deserve help. No one deserves to live in fear: man, woman, child, citizen, non-citizen, cis or trans, disabled or TAB. This is about human rights, and and what we do about it will show who we are as a country.

On the Word "Lame"

Transcript below the break.

Thank you to everyone that has sent me notes about this video. Your thoughts are greatly appreciated by me.

It is nice to be back.

Ally Anxiety

So, Tuesday, I am did my usual thing… I listened to the Blacking It Up pod cast (and you should, too – it is amazing!). Apparently, bridges had been built over the weekend by Jack and Jill’s Cheryl Contee and Elon James White at RightOnline, because we had one of our first trolls. Ms. Contee’s and Mr. White’s adventure is documented here: “INCOGNEGRO:  UNDERCOVER AS A BLACK CONSERVATIVE AT RIGHT ONLINE DURING NETROOTS NATION PART 1." It is a must read! While I already read Jack and Jill Politics, I keep checking the site for the next part…

The pod cast was full of the anticipated and appreciated awesome. Then the troll showed up. What followed caused, for me, a severe case of ally anxiety.

During the pod cast, there is a chat window underneath where the listeners can chat amongst ourselves, respond to the show, ask questions, snark – whatever happens to be going on. Sometimes we wander way off topic, sometimes the show and the chat room work in beautiful harmony. When I started listening to @BlackingItUp and BCCO’s other shows, I just listened for a week or two, because I am a visitor, an ally – and I did not want to come on too strong, too fast, too pushy, too “white liberal on the internet.”

This day, a new person came into the chat. New people are fun and enthusiastically welcomed. This person was not fun. One by one, this person (I presumed he, there was the tell tale reek of mansplaining) started raising racial flags. Whites are racially oppressed, standardized testing is not racially biased, I am colorblind – why aren’t you, I should not get searched at the airport, racial minorities are racists because they complain about race relations, but everyone is racist like me. You know ‘em and hate ‘em: they are the classic tropes of the racist. He would raise one flag, wade into his rightly earned flak, wait for a few moments, and then raise another one. I would not be surprised to find that “oneshotoneki11” (my approximation) is at least a semi-pro troll.

Here is where the ally anxiety comes in: what do you do? I wanted to be out in front, and stomp this asshole into the ground; to stop the badness, to vent the frustration of not being able to confront so many people’s racism, and personally to show that I am not with him or his ilk. But I am working on being an ally; one of the first rules is DO NOT MAKE IT ABOUT YOU IF IT IS NOT ABOUT YOU. So I reeled myself in, spoke my peace once in a while but mostly either stayed out of the way while others let him have it, supported the excellent arguments being made against him and his toxic memetic stew, and expressed dismay that he would violate the hospitality offered him as a new guest.

I know that my case of ally anxiety was nothing, nothing compared to what the black listeners were going through while this was happening. I know that what was going on in my heart, my head, and my gut is miniscule in the grand scope of things. My feelings, my reactions – those are not a big deal to anyone but me. I write this to air it out, to solicit the opinions and experience of others, and to give anyone that wants it an insight into what went on in my head (or heads like mine?) during this. I was angry, I was sad, I was sick. We discovered that four (if I remember correctly) white members of the audience had stayed on this guy, which was also cool. I think that we, the audience, feel a little closer to one another, because of what this asshole brought out a united sense of solidarity in us.

Plucked popinjays like this troll make me ashamed of my skin. I wanted to apologize for his inanity, and I did – but that does not make any sense. No more sense than the bizarre “blaming” that minority groups sometimes face over one individual behaving badly. 

I found out that I was not obviously white, which is kind of neat.Often white racial justice allies are problematic in and of themselves. They refuse to recognize their own internal racism, how all the little assumptions, good, bad, and "neutral" add up to a racism that is insidious, because it can hide.

Racists often do not even know that they are racists, let alone doing evil. You cannot convince someone (though any means) to stop doing something they believe they are not doing in the first place. 

The top of the kyriarchy knows that their days are numbered and that their power is slipping – which, I think, is why they are always scrambling, always grabbing, and always further consolidating their power. With the election of a President that neither looks like them nor shares their history or values, they are now in a full on panic. “Take their country back,” indeed – just as the rest of us may start to think it may actually be our country, too.

Blog note: The various Pod Casts are archived and available on the Brooklyn Comedy Company’s web page. You can also find the shows on ITunes and YouTube – remember to take a moment to rate and comment, they deserve the love.

Shout out to the chat room – sorry about the trash.

SmartAss Commentary: On Tracy Morgan

Two big posts in one day!

If you do not know the story of Tracy Morgan performing at a show and telling an audience that should his hypothetical gay son approached him in an effete manner that he would stab him to death in the neck, you can find out more here and here and here, along with your usual sources.

I have read and heard some unbelievable arguments in favor of Morgan’s tirade, and while [spelling edit] they (and some of their sources) have stunned me, I remain in #TeamThatWasStupidHatefulandWrong. One included that the Facebook author of the expose was not adhering to some standard of “objectivity.” Why should this author, upon hearing Morgan’s hate, have any obligation to be objective regarding what he heard? Why is the burden always on those knocked about to give others the benefit of the doubt? What does the injured party owe to the oppressing party?

Oh, and a flying fuck you to people that say we should be objective about things like this. Frankly, if you can remain coolly aloof and objective about issues of social justice, then you can very well fuck off. If the oppression and degradation of others does not pitch you into a seething caldron of sadness, anger, and righteous rage – then you simply do not care enough to matter to me.

The most interesting part to me is that the argument for Morgan’s free speech is to restrict the free speech of people that found his bit to be offensive. That people are infringing his right to be offensive by speaking up about being offended. Tracy Morgan has freedom of speech, but no one else can have freedom of speech regarding how he uses his? Morgan saying he'd stab his gay son - that is fine, but speaking up about the propagation of anti-LGBTQIA violence, particularly against children, well - that is just out of line and unfair?!?

Remember, constitutionally protected speech means protection from government censorship – not protection from being less marketable. Morgan the man can think and say as he likes, but Morgan, the company, which is that man on a stage making money - he is in the marketplace of ideas and his ideas were loudly rejected. You can't ride that pony to fame and fortune, and then kick it when it bucks you for being an ass.

To argue that one is “allowing” themselves to be bothered by Morgan’s stance that LGBT people should man up and quit being pussies regarding bullying and such is to argue from a position of privilege and to negate the experiences of LGBT people. It also negates the experiences of children and teenagers. One of my most proud parenting moments was when my eldest daughter came to me out of the blue and said, “Thank you for not forgetting what it is like to be a teenage girl.” You forget that young people do not have the social calluses that we develop with age and experience. You blow off the things that cause them genuine distress, because to connect with that feeling is to remember all the slights and wrongs from when you were that age and admit to being that vulnerable, that tender – all over again.

But, but, but – we are taking money out of Morgan’s pocket when we do not like what he said! YES, WE ARE AND THAT IS THE POINT. Morgan’s pockets are lined with our money – he got it by saying things we (the general public) like in the first damn place. He decided to make his living via pleasing the public. Again, this is the free market at work, the free market that has been so very, very good to Morgan. Some say that people can express their opinion, but it shameful when they do to the detriment of someone that makes their living by interacting with the self-same public - that is twisted logic. What does that even mean? We are allowed to like an entertainer’s work, but not allowed to dislike it? There is nothing coherent in that stance.

To those that say “Oh, we don’t know he said that! All we know is what one offended guy wrote!” In all of my reading about this issue, and I have done a lot – there is one thing I have not seen and that is Tracy Morgan issuing any kind of denial. No one that attended the show has claimed that the bit description was untrue. He is headed to Nashville to apologize personally.

I have seen and heard some arguments that depend on the “Equal Opportunity Offender” line of reasoning. You know, when the discrimination, hate speech, abuse, and murder of LGBTQIA and queer youth are distant, horrific memory - then it can be a joke. I am of the opinion that one can, indeed, make a joke about anything. Murder, rape, racism, anything can be a target of humor. But that humor speaks to who you are and what you believe. If your joke about rape makes rapists or would be rapists laugh – then you are being oppressive. If your joke tickles the people that work against the rape culture, then your joke is not oppressive. Joke about what you want, I am fine with that. I am also fine with learning about what you believe by the jokes you make and the people you find deserving of that laugh.

I would much rather ignorant bigots speak their mind long and loud so I am never worried that my viewing time, or my money, goes to supporting their hatred in any way. Let them shout all day, so that the rest of us may know them, make up our own minds about them, and be free to speak and act as WE choose, exercising that same freedom.

Note: Tracy Morgan’s wallet contains not one cent of mine. I am not, and have never been, a fan of his.

SmartAss Commentary: Cripple Queers Stay Home

Note: I never thought that I would write a somewhat positive take on a gun show and a very negative experience at a Pride event, well, ever. But here I am.

So, IndyPride was the weekend of June 11th, 2011. My family and I were excited to attend. We have friends all over the LGBT, Intersex and Queer spectrum. I am bisexual, and my girls – much to my own parental pride – feel free to decide who and what they are in their own time. So my husband, my boyfriend, my girls, and I loaded up to head downtown for the Indianapolis Pride festival.

Saturday was beautiful, but hot. There was no natural protection from the sun, but we were prepared.

Parking was a nightmare – many of the downtown spots were blocked off for the event, so we found zero available handicapped parking anywhere near the festival. So D dropped us off a couple of blocks away from the singular entrance. A grassy field needed to be crossed to reach the gate – there was no smoothed path, let alone paved walkway – to use to get in. Fortunately, the folks canvassing for a fund for college to help LGBT youth were at the gate, and I donated, still fairly optimistic about the upcoming experience.

The southern end of the park has a lot of paved walk ways, but few booths. Being near the fountain provided a cool breeze for the few moments it took to pass it. Our first nightmare began as we tried to cross the dividing street (blocked from auto traffic for the event). The people running Circle City Pride apparently decided that giving the bar tents 3 extra, mostly unused feet of space was more important than allowing people to use the city’s curb cuts. They blocked off all of them on all four corners at the ends of the street. One was left on the middle of the north side. I had a complete sense-of-humor failure as I rolled between blocked off curb cuts and eventually had enough, hit my hand breaks, and had a good cry behind my sunglasses (noticed only, I think, by my family).

The north end of the park is completely inaccessible. This made me angry not only for me and the other people at the event, but in general. This is the damn Veteran’s Memorial Plaza, dammit – how on earth are disabled veterans going to navigate this hill and stair infested park?


The festival did block off the far northern paved cross-over, making those of us trying to navigate the tents and booths travel over 4-6 times more ground to get around than the TAB attendees. I spent some time parked at the north east corner, and watched other people using wheelchairs along with parents with children in wagons or strollers curse their luck as they realized they were stuck.

Many of the displays were up small curbs and arranged on dirt paths. Again, this was almost entirely inaccessible unless you have an ATV chair. We eventually were able to find our way to the one booth run by a friend where we knew we could park and rest. Without that, we would have left almost immediately.

While I sat parked, mulling over the supposed message of inclusion of Pride Day and the associated events, my husband and youngest daughter were directed by the one friendly staff member we saw to talk to an organizer. The organizer had no care at all about the issue they brought to her and directed them to speak to a nearby city cop. This… officer, and yes, I have his name, found it appropriate to tell them to suck it up or talk to the military officer in charge of the park. The fucking hell?!?  He was rude, discriminatory, and dismissive. Thanks, Officer Friendly, for destroying my children’s first impression of dealing directly with a law enforcement representative. You are now their idea of what cops are like, in general. Ass.

Navigating in general was difficult, as most staff and patrons never bothered to look lower than eye level while traveling from place to place. Eventually I had no issue poking people with my cane while yelling “EXCUSE ME!” and running over the occasional toe. Maybe you will look for people shorter than your eye level next time, jerk.

So Indy Pride or Circle City Pride was a damn nightmare. Indy Pride was not inclusive. If you are a queer cripple, apparently you should stay in your closet. High on the Hill rocks, though, and was accommodating both at the booth and in their store. So, there was a positive note. That was,well, the only positive note.

Not a Junkie

Thank you to Blurbette and #TeamAfterParty for bringing this simmering topic back to a brain boil.

Days like today find me feeling like a junkie. At least, I think that other people may see it that way. See, the doctor that signs my pain prescription took a long vacation around the holiday, a vaction which happened to include the day my Rx needed to be filled. So, I was, of course, left waiting. I have only rarely experienced any sense of urgency from medical professionals regarding pain treatment.

After years of fighting and enduring, I did finally get my health pros to take my pain seriously. My GP/gateway provider was particularly hesitant. He did decide (eventually!) that my pain is indeed real, and I am not seeking to sell my pills on the street. Even so, my ability to live my day to day life with at least some freedom of pain is not, and has never been, a priority for anyone with a sheepskin.

The difference between opiate dependence and opiate addiction is not obvious to the casual observer. One of the reasons I hate being called an addict is that addiction is a whole different experience, and I do not want to appropriate that experience set as my own when my addictions are mild: caffeine and nicotine.

I am dependent. This means that I require opiates to modulate my pain (it is long past being negated through most anything) and get through even a vaguely normal day. I acquire them through completely legal means, and there has never been any solid inquiry regarding my integrity. By “no solid inquiry” I, of course, mean other than the default suspicion that accompanies using opiates in the first place!

I take a very strong opiate, and still I do not have pain free days.

People dependant on opiates go through withdraw just like addicts do. The difference between dependent and addicted is not a physical one, in my experience, but a moral one. Unless you are willing to break the law and either buy off the street, or doctor shop, or whatever – there is nothing you can do but wait for the duly appointed authority figure in the matter to get off their DAMN ASS and take care of business.

It is not as if I am the one that insists that I need opiates to control my pain. I tried, both through my own suggestion, the suggestions of friends and strangers, and my DEA worried docs’ suggestions just about every non-opiate pain killer out there. I have also, a very few times, drunk myself into a stupor as a last resort escape from consciousness, if not pain. My liver is still not happy about any of that. To be honest, if killing a chicken in the light of the full moon could relieve my pain, I would probably do it. Nothing works but opiates, and I had a truckload of Nancy Reagan to get out of my damn head before I could even begin to be okay with that.

Extreme, unrelenting pain is insane making. No, I am not taking a poke at folks that qualify as insane – I mean that extreme pain can cause symptoms similar to several diagnosable mental illnesses. Pain can lead to shortness of temper, irritability, paranoia, loss of cognitive function, loss of memory, compulsive behavior, self-harm (in my opinion, this is an attempt to set off the CNS’s pain gate function), loss of physical ability, and unpredictable bouts of extreme anger, frustration, guilt, morose, ennui, and pissed-off-ness. Yeah, ahh, those would be, you know, industry terms…

As I write this, I am coming up on missing my first dose. Within a day after that, if it goes that far, I will have extra super flu-like symptoms (lupus is kind of like having the flu all the time anyway), I will hate the whole damn world, and my vocabulary with mainly consist of the kind of language people use when they tell the Aristocrats joke. It is all I can do right now to try to accomplish all the things that will need to be done for a little while in case I need to retreat to my bed, curl up under a blanket I will then play Too Hot Too Cold with, and spit random curses at the world.

There are a lot of side effects I experience that I am not, and will probably not go into here or with much of anyone that does not need to know. And my experience with this may not the same as anyone else’s, let alone everyone else’s.

Oh, and every six months I have to go though a “Do you still really need these pills?” appointment. Look, if I was all better one of the first things I would do is call all the docs that have been humane, recognized my humanity and sing their praises; then call the other docs and describe, in loud detail, what anatomically impossible feats I would like them to perform for me.

***

As of today, the day I post this, everything is fine. If you were kind enough to have a thought about my well being… well, first, bless you heart! Caring about people on the internet! You are an exemplary human being, Gentle Reader. Second, I am okay. This article was written early, in order to make sure I had something to post even if my doc did not get back to me in time to take away my short term ticket to hell. My doc was still gone, but my old doc is in the same office, was in attendance, and she did come through. So I am okay, and no more likely to explode at anyone than I am on any other regular.

To Violently Induce Empathy

I originally wrote this in May, 2010, when I felt particularly injured by people in my life that just were not getting it. I think that acknowledging when I feel like a bitter, embattled bad crip is important. While I was busy drawing analogies, I lost site of how violent this post really is, so you have been warned.

Originally posted elsewhere on May 7, 2010

I needed to get this out of my head.

Some days I am almost fine. I get up early, I get stuff done, maybe I go out, and maybe I fuck. These days are rare.

Some days I am incapable of almost anything. I stay in bed, or turn the couch into my bed, and veg out to news so I do not feel totally disconnected from everything. I do not fuck with anything on these days, nor do I appreciate getting fucked with by anyone. I can barely move, I can barely read, I have almost no recall and can barely follow a conversation. If I am actually trying to do something while like this, then I place a great amount of importance on whatever that may be, and even then I will probably screw it up.

Most days I am somewhere in-between and either blow all my spoons far too early, or end up doing very little "in case" I need my spoons later that day.

Only if I place a great deal of trust in you will I tell you what kind of day today is when you ask "How are you?” I am so tired of being shut down by people that ask how I am but do not really give a damn.

I "pass" most of the time. People do not know I am disabled unless I tell them. Yes, even with the cane -- this is weird to me. So when I go out with the wheelchair it is almost always a gimp circus. People think that since I do not look disabled (whatever the hell that is supposed to mean!), that I must be faking or something. Fates forbid I actually stand up out of my chair for any reason.

I am tired of being a "good cripple."

Don't touch my wheelchair without gaining my permission first. Do not imply it must be nice to "sit around" everywhere. Yes, I can make those jokes, and you can laugh when I do if you want to laugh. Do not explain to me how good I have it, or how bad you feel for me. Just like I do not get to appropriate the experiences of a person with Autism, you do not get to appropriate mine with lupus/SLE and chronic pain (and SI joint dysfunction, and compressed disks, and non-specific brain damage, and...). Do not lecture me about my behavior, my drugs, or my coping mechanisms. Do not excuse places that are not accessible to me, or accessible to the people that society has labeled the same as me.

Do not "congratulate" me when I am not in the chair. I know you mean well, but just stop it. I may be having a good day, or I may be someplace that simply would not accommodate what I actually need that day.

Do not tell me you know "how I feel" unless you really want to. While there would be no complete equivalent, I could give it my best effort...

I cannot fuck with your genes to make your body attack itself, but I can take a baseball bat to your chest, your lower spine, your SI joint. If it is a rainy day or the weather fronts are changing, I will just wail on every joint you have from your knuckles to your toes to your spine. I will wrap your head in batting so tight that the very thought of light in your eyes will make you cry. I will stuff your ears so that you can barely hear, and cannot make sense of the things you do hear -- only later to remove it all and subject you to such noise that you long for the stuffing. I will knock your legs out from under you when you try to walk, move everything so that it is just out of reach, and recite long numbers as you try to remember your address or someone's birthday or phone number.

I will alienate your friends and family, canceling important events without notice or apparent cause. If they will not come see you, then fuck them because that is the only way you will socialize most of the time. I will make you doubt yourself, the people around you, your ability to do or think a damn thing, and then make you feel bad for being angry about your situation. I may let you go out every once in a while, but I will fill that time with so much fear, doubt, and shame that you will wish you stayed home. Your doctors will become your only major contacts outside of your home, and even then I will not always let you go -- and only the really good ones will even listen to you, let alone believe you.

Whatever heaven you believe in help you if you dare shut me down and try to pretend everything is okay. I do not get to do that, so neither do you.

Most folks that will actually read this never have to worry about any of it. You are kind folks that express sympathy without pity, and accommodate without fanfare -- and as you can probably see, that means a lot to me. This just would not leave my head and I needed to rant.

Crip Rage Internet Adventures

So, in April I joined an interest specific geek message board. Since it is related to gaming, the first thing (after the mandatory forum newbie/intro threads) I went looking for was disability stuff.  Here is what came of some of my interaction there. I have redacted links and whatnot because I do not hold the site owners responsible for what a handful of assholes do on their board. I do hold web site owners responsible for leaving bigoted stuff up without a least a nod to the fact that the bigotry is not acceptable.

-

There Goes the Warm Fuzzy

So I was reading a thread about handling disabilities while playing {custom game type}, and that had me feeling pretty good. Folks were honest about ability level, trading tips on helpful gear, and there was zero acrimony. Then I saw this: Abused Handicapped Permits {link redacted}.

Wow. Just wow. What the hell is wrong with people?

"Since I cannot determine your level of ability myself on one single, few second viewing you should not be parking there! Walk your fat ass!" I know that this sentiment is not restricted to this forum, or to gaming culture - that it is rampant throughout USian society. It still makes me sick every time I see it. I was really, really hoping not to see it here.

PSA for Fools: Some disabilities are "invisible." No, no one has to justify their parking tag to you. The documents have to be filled out by the patient, certified by a doc, and approved by the DMV - they are not nearly as easy to fake one's way into possession as you think. {While the specifics can vary, the generalized procedure here is a good guide-line.} I could have read Penn & Teller the riot act over their ADA episode. It was so full of ignorance as to boggle the mind. And if you have a relative with a tag, and you believe them to be able-bodied then you should take a long hard look at yourself - they probably did not want to tell you that they now belong to a group you are bigoted against. Would you do so in their place?

Oh my, the all-you-can-eat buffet of fat hatred. First off, noneyadamnbusiness. Seriously. If your disgusting, self-important curiosity must be satisfied, consider this: how on earth do you do full-body cardio from a damn wheelchair or scooter? Never mind that several conditions (and numerous medications) cause weight gain. Never mind the obvious lack of physical ability. If you must make your putrid assumptions, keep them to your damn ignorant self. Even if none of that applies, and one of my fellow 'wheelers has decided that food is one of the few unimpeded pleasures they have, then more power to them!

I say all this as a wheelchair user also at her "ideal" spot on the BMI (which is crap, anyway). Which, by the way, helps earn me the damn “WTF, lady, you aren’t disabled!” stares when I use a handicapped parking spot or my wheelchair.

There's also the ageism, which is disgusting. Old people should not drive! Hahaha! Oh, please, tell me another, won't you? Oh, oh, can you tell me a funny "old people should never have sex joke" too please? I wish you long life, so you can deal with the same bullshit discrimination.

When your TAB ass parks in one of those spots - that is abusing the privilege. With the hell you people put us through with your stairs and your clunky room transitions and your high tables and counter tops and your narrow doorways and your no ASL interpreter services and your jokes about Braille ATMs and your stupid, stupid bathrooms and your dumbass handling of  assistant animals and your disregard for the ADA and your broken elevators and your blocked handicapped parking spots and your putting your baby strollers in the wheelchair spots on buses and your I know disability when I see it attitudes - it is a wonder we put up with any of you at all.

Ahh, I see! You all built those high cabinets for job security - very clever.

The disabled are one of the fastest growing demographics on the planet - live long enough, you will likely join our ranks.

You get the whole rest of the damn world - leave us the wildly insufficient blue parking spaces and the occasional bathroom stall. The disabled are one of the fastest growing demographics on the planet. Pray you do not get old or fat or crippled and have to deal with someone like you were thirty years ago.

Heh.

Whew, that rant felt good. This was probably not the best time or place for this kind of journal entry, but there it is none-the-less.

-

So there is a bit of what comes out when I am disappointed enough, frustrated enough, and just a little angry. Yes, just a little.

Slurs Are Slurs But Are Not Other Slurs

So, Glee is doing things again – or so I thought. Sigh. I have not talked about Glee here because I do not watch it. Yes, I am aware of it as a subcultural phenomenon. That fact actually upsets me somewhat – I find their treatment of the issues of people of disabilities to be atrocious and disgusting. I know stupid, hateful people I can hang out around if I want to feel that way, thank you very much. So no Glee here, outside of watching clips to share solidarity with the people that are hurt when they watch it.

On Twitter I saw that Elon James White had tweeted about an article describing Glee’s latest screw up.

I completely agree that these slurs are not equal.

Now normally I am in the first wave of people to jump on Glee’s ass and point and laugh at the hole. This is not Glee’s project, though, it is the R-word’s project, part of the foundation that supports the Special Olympics, so I took a breath, went to their site, combed through it,  and thought about it some more…

My brain pan, let me open it for you.

First, I think that both the creators of the clip and some of the people decrying it seem to be ignoring all of the intersections at play. There are people with intellectual disabilities or neuroatypical lesbians, gays, Germans, Latina/Latinos, and blacks; I want to acknowledge that here.

Second, I went through their available content, and I think their point is poorly made but valid. The point is not a moral equivalency, but a resultant equivalency, I think. I believe that what they wanted to do was show people that may not otherwise consider it that this slur also delivers that sick, just punched in the gut feeling. That this word instantly conjures up a history of discrimination and oppressive so odious that even now people refuse to acknowledge that it even exists... if they even know about it in the first place.

Third, it is hard not to feel alienated by the line of reasoning used by some critics. Apparently, some folk feel that “retarded”, and likely also “lame,” “gimp,” “crip,” etc., are just not “as bad.” This is exactly the same wrong reasoning the commercial itself uses! The fact that there is no moral equivalency works both ways – it is hate speech. It hurts. That purpose is to wound. Do not try to feed me that “Oh, but I don’t mean it that way!” bullshit – if it was not meant negatively, you would not be using it to describe something you view negatively, okay? Okay.

For those of you thinking that “retard” and “retarded” simply do not have the same impact because they lack history, you are mistaken.  Retard is a word that went from a specific diagnosis to slur in our most recent century – but discrimination against folks with mental disabilities has a long and sordid history. This is just one of the more recent slang insults used in conjunction with a fear and hatred that is so old and so widespread that the origins of it may never be found (the above link sites the first technical writing about it to 5 B.C.E.).
 

(I am not even going into all the bullshite that still happens today to people with disabilities: the discrimination, the forced treatment, the "good cripple" and super-crip memetic weapons, the "mercy" killings, the astonishing rape, abuse and murder statistics, "angel babies," and so on and so on... The fact that this is still mostly invisible disgusts me.)

People perceived as being outside of some generally accepted social norm of mental capacity and thought have been discriminated against forever – tactics have extended to banishment, forced sterilization, torture, and even death. And until fairly recently (historically speaking) other “trouble makers” such as homosexuals, uppity women, and political minorities (to name but a few) have been labeled mentally incompetent in order to silence and discredit them while also subjecting them to the same treatment.
 
Forth: remember what you learned about the Holocaust? Do you remember learning about the six million Jews, a terrible atrocity that should have never been allowed to happen, right? Right. But you should have also been told that the grand total of people slaughtered was closer to ELEVEN TO SEVENTEEN MILLION.  I am not even going into the military and civilian deaths caused by the war itself; just about purposeful exterminations at this moment. All those other people included, but are not limited to the following: homosexuals, political dissidents, other religious dissidents, Romani, and… people with disabilities! It is a sorrowful thing to see all of those people forgotten almost every time the Holocaust is mentioned. I will never, ever degrade the suffering of the Jewish people during the Holocaust – I want people to remember that they were not alone. 


Are disability slurs the same as racial slurs? No.

Are sexual orientation slurs the same as disability slurs? No.  

Each slur is unique, designed to hurt one specific group of people in specific ways - to justify atrocious treatment with little to no guilt on the part of the abuser.

Do they all carry long, dark histories of discrimination, oppression, and murder? Do they all carry the inherent intent to dehumanize, to "other", to separate?

Yes.

They are all wrong.

Thank you for sticking with me through this piece, I appreciate it. Please do not see my limited linking above as a indicator of sparse information - there is plenty out there if you make even a basic effort to look for it. I am just out of spoons...

Stating the Obvious on Medical Costs

In editing this piece, I realize that it is fairly hot and heavy handed. I simply cannot apologize for my vehemence, but now you know that it is there.

Many don’t take prescriptions because of the cost

I saw this on abbyjean's Tumblr.

Wow, LA Times, really?!? Gee, next they will find out that people break compliance with follow up or specialist visits due to money or circumstance. Holy fuck, do folks really have their heads buried quite that deeply up their own asses?

Yes, people want to follow up with their doctor’s orders, recommendations, prescriptions, suggestions, and referrals. This is why low income folks have such terrible compliance levels. Fucking hell. I can think of three big roadblocks right off the top of my head: no money, no time off from work or childcare, and no ride. We can dig deeper: some people are neglected and abused, at home and maybe at previous providers. Have you shamed a patient away because they were fat, slutty, or sloppy*? Did you do it with some snide comment in the hallway you thought they couldn’t hear?

We want to get better, just like everyone else does, dammit! There’s just a lot in the way that you cannot see, because you see a diagnosis waiting to be made, not a whole person. Can you just take one damn minute before you put your hand on the blasted door knob, and deliberately employ a gestalt point of view for just sixty bloody seconds? Are they seeing you on Medicare, Medicaid, or their own dimes? If the patient has transportation programs, sliding scales, pharmacy discounts, and/or drug manufacturer discounts available to them do they even know? Because it is just as bad as having no options if you do not know they exist.

Sure, maybe you and your staff just cannot handle trying to keep track of that on top of every thing else you have to manage. I get that, I really do. So help the economy by hiring someone to do it for you – all they would need is a high school degree, some empathy, and some tenacity. With the additional people you can help, maybe it will even cover an additional employee.

* Fat, slutty, or sloppy were just a few adjectives I have heard office or hospital staff use regarding patients. I offer no judgments to folks that are fat, appear to numerous sexual partners (people suck), or folks who have a hard time bringing themselves around to what their community considers acceptable appearance standards. Neither should their damn medical professionals!