Jill(?) writes:

Accessibility is not and should not be just about ramps and elevators (though these things are certainly a lifesaver for me personally), but it should also be about addressing mental needs, emotional needs, spiritual needs.

I.

Our society, right now, is structured around the needs and expectations of a young (but not too young), white, cisgender, male, heteronormative, fully abled person. When issues of accessibility present themselves, the defense is: “We couldn’t have expected a sick person would try to” use this service, be in this place, pursue an education, seek elected office, petition its government for fair treatment.

Put another way, the majority people are abled in pretty much every way, and even the disabled as a whole are not disabled in the exact way that each individual disabled person is — so of course individual institutions, from the largest to the smallest and most localized, could not have prepared for [insert whichever specific disability the person trying to access has].

The same concept comes into play when a city has installed a wheelchair ramp some place, somewhere, and a person with a disability is petitioning for access in some other way. Well, we already do this much for you — what more could you people possibly want?!

What an unfortunate and narrow view of the world! How small a world these people experience. We are closing off contact from a great many people who have so much to add. As we restrict access to institutions and continually narrow our performed roles, we lose more and more richness and depth in our individual lives.

Things could be different. We could recognize that a person can have something to contribute even as sie benefits from support and assistance that most do not require. We could recognize that it would be in our own benefit! to provide that support and assistance, and that even beside that, these people deserve to be included by merit of their personhood.

Right now, though, for a good many people, the fundamental personhood of the disabled is a hard pill to swallow. Maybe someday.

II.

There is an all-too-common attitude across the population. Simplified, it says: Don’t make me feel uncomfortable, thinking about your differences.

Ew, you bleed from a hole between your legs? And it happens every month? That’s gross! Don’t make me feel uncomfortable!

You say your voice as a person of color is systemically silenced in favored of white persons? That’s ridiculous! That would mean that the due given to my voice is unmerited and that I should change how I speak to make way for people of color — that’s too much for me to deal with! Don’t make me feel uncomfortable.

Prosperity is solely a matter of motivation and effort. You say that I was privileged by my birth into a stable middle/upper class family? But I’ve worked so hard, and that would mean that what gains I’ve realized weren’t the result of my hard work. Don’t make me feel uncomfortable!

And so forth.

As I’ve insisted in the past, it even manifests in more progressive persons. Consider the argument that periodically crops up when a person is told that no matter what they do, they still bear some culpability: but that means that I can’t make it go away by saying the right words or joining the right groups or buying the right things! Don’t make me feel uncomfortable!

Well, bully for you, because guess what? We live that “discomfort” every single day.

It takes various different forms for various classifications in various sets of people. Some seem far more innocuous; some bear that evident stench of bigotry. Neither is any less problematic. Both dismiss the experiences of members of the historically oppressed group, simply because they aren’t pleasant to think about.

Which is why women are reminded to smile by men who regard them as decorative elements and don’t want to be bothered by the thought of their personhood. Which is why sick people are urged to “lighten up” and to “learn to see the silver lining” and to “think positive” by people who think of sickness primarily as either the death of the person inside the body. Which is why people of color are told to stop being so angry by people who actually think it is possible to be “colorblind.” And so forth.

Wouldn’t want to make someone uncomfortable, after all.