Sick Day Thoughts: Ableism Is Physical Violence
Ableism is violence.
Sit with that a minute. Give it fair contemplation before dismissing it.
(Adding a warning here from a year later that this post is rather rambling and probably should have been broken up into several. Readers who would be annoyed by that might want to check out some of my more current posts which are more to the point. The fundamental underlying assertion that comes through for me now as I reread what I wrote over a year ago, is that ableism cannot be separated from capitalism, or at least our Western industrialized practice of it. Knowing that may help make the disparate examples come together. But still, it is definitely rambling so fair warning).
It is the driver of systems that place groups and individuals as nothing more than parts in the machine of progress. That stifles their natural needs, desires, and rights to enough time to tend to their homes, spend time with friends, family, and by themselves both resting and engaging in leisure activities, and to spend time outdoors in nature. It stifles their natural drive to want to learn, do, think, and feel about meaningful topics that matter to them because what is the point, if you have to "get a real job" and have to devote unhealthy hours to it while neglecting ourselves, our friends, family, and loved ones. But it is also more directly physically violent.
Consider the case of myself, a person whose immune system is somewhat compromised, and the several people who chose to go to a non-essential event while sick. That decision led to me being exposed to their illness and to getting sick myself. Though it is true nobody punched me in the face, if they had, I'd have a black eye but at least I could be on campus today studying, and they would likely be held responsible for their actions. I wouldn't be looking at a week or more of illness and asthmatic involvement because several people had too much pride to stay home from a non-essential activity while sick. I get that its not quite the same as if someone punched me directly, but the physical effects on me are longer lasting and worse than if they had (this is not to speak of the emotional effects which is a whole different ball of wax). But my cold/asthmatic bronchitis did not arise out of nothing. I have this because several people sitting near me made a thoughtless choice to take pride in being able to "power through".
Or, if the idea of harm being done to a woman who identifies as having an invisible illness doesn't serve as a convincing example, how about considering the harm done to my best friend in the name of ableism. His company's need to have concrete broken up, without the expense of a respirator to protect him from the tiny, vaporized particles apparently supersedes his need to breathe well and be healthy enough to work. The weeks that they've put him on that job over the years, each time, results in him losing days of work (and pay) while dealing with bronchitis from all the stuff he has breathed in. We are expendable to this system, and are only valuable to it, in what we loyally and faithfully give to it, with zero expectation of loyalty or care for our persons on the part of the corporations and businesses that fuel the system.
I realize to people with little exposure to the ways privilege of all types impacts those who don't have it, or to the ideas in critical theories, to say what I am saying, that ableism is violence and can be directly physically violent, may sound absurd and extreme, but their choice and healthy privilege means I am sick and resting today, and maybe for several more days (or if I am really unlucky, weeks) and that my physical body is damaged and trying to heal because of their choices. My choices and physical capability have been limited by their direct actions to go and expose others while sick. The ableist privilege of so many businesses to be careless and seek profit over human value and human life, and has resulted in the injuries and deaths of so many workers over the years, and that will only get worse as Unions and regulations continue to be stigmatized and dismantled. Ableism is physically violent.
This is violence in a way that I haven't really been able to see or articulate before. And an even worse part of the nuance in my own situation, is that I had to go to class yesterday while sick, knowing that I could expose others who are like me (that essentially, in coming, I was betraying them and doing possible violence to them if they got sick) but that due to the attendance policies and the likelihood that I will have other and probably worse reasons to be absent this semester and need to save absences, I had to go.
Ableism is physical violence also and even to physically healthy and neurotypical people. Because ableism reduces us to a commodity. To a system. And that reduction and the behaviors that arise from it, result in increasing stress, unhealthy diets, and unhealthy lifestyles in order to have a chance to make a reasonable living, or even just to get by. This does actual damage to our bodies and minds. Even if you are healthy. Even if you are proudly working full time and haven't taken a day off in years (please do, you need that time to stay healthy, and so do your family, friends, and community!)
It is violent that even if we have given quality and loyal work over years and decades, that someone coming along who is younger and better (or who seems that way) that our right to security and job security means nothing and should be given over to "progress" and be willing to suddenly forfeit our jobs, the security, and future that we thought we would have. That the needs and healthy expectations of groups and individuals that these systems will be as loyal to them, as they have been to these systems, are subsumbed to "progress".
That everyone's right to make a life worth living, and be able to spend time with family and friends, and have time to oneself is dependent on the type of work that you do (the type of work that those in power decide deserves this time and remuneration), it essentially says that the only people who get to be people and who get to have their work deemed worthy, as opposed to being machines for the system and capital production are those that are in power and high enough on the chain to be deemed worthy. And even, if you scratch too deeply under that surface, every one of them is expendable to this system, given the right circumstances. It is wrong that people have to kill themselves working two jobs, to try to make enough to live on for themselves and their families. And this violence isn't just psychological. It carries effects directly to our bodies. Healthy living, self-care, and the chance of it are privileges, economic, health, and ableist privileges.
The relational disposability (interested readers can look to works by Dr. Omri Gillath, among others) that researchers are finding is a direct outgrowth of ableism, We are so beholden to jobs and opportunity that we will, in a heartbeat, leave our friends, our communities, our lovers and even our pets (furrrever homes should be sacrosanct, people!) because a job demands us to leave our community. We are so willing to sever ties of friendship and loyalty to each other for the sake of work which often doesn't leave us enough to really enjoy the most important things for human health and a sense of meaning (like time with others, relaxation, and leisure pursuits) not because we want to be, but because we have to be willing to survive. Though ideals of adventure, opportunity, and exploration that we in the U.S. have, likely begin this trend, the necessity of living in our economy, the development and manipulation of our capitalist system to make it nearly impossible to work or start your own business without someone else's permission have made relational disposability essential to surviving our system without losing our minds. This fuels the intense loneliness so many in our society feel. The intense loneliness that studies have shown has direct physical effects on people and increases their likelihood of mortality. Ableism is physically violent.
With that premise in mind though, ableism absolutely depends on us. Without us contributing to it by continuing to work, by allowing ourselves and our power and our voices and our natural and God-given rights to be able to make enough to live, to not have our wages stolen in service of making CEO's richer, to not have to give up time with family, friends, and time outside, and actual leisure time over and above our basic living needs (like cleaning house, clothes, and making meals) in order to "stay competitive," without us doing the work that mostly profits others, the system grinds to a halt. It stops.
If we're willing to stop.
Ableism continues to deny the incredible wealth in individuals in their many and varied contexts and communities and the wealth that comes from loyalty too and among people within a community (whether it is a job-site community, a town, church or social group, state, or nation). Ableism removes this balance, placing all of the weight of loyalty on individual employees and individual citizens to their nations and corporations, while removing the onus of loyalty on the part of corporations, business, states or nations to us (over and above short-term questions of will we buy their product or vote for them). We have to remember that if we all stop working, If we all just stop. The system stops and then would have to listen to our voices.
What if we all remember who and what we are and what is important to us and truly meaningful outside of ableism?
What if we all just stopped?
*A small note to indicate that I do realize that intersections of identity and race likely mean that disabled people who are minorities of all types (race, sexual identity, and gender) likely bear even more of the brunt of ableism than I, but given my positionality, I probably have difficulty seeing or writing clearly about it, them, or their experiences, and believe that their voices deserve to be heard directly and should not be diluted by my privilege.*
Sit with that a minute. Give it fair contemplation before dismissing it.
(Adding a warning here from a year later that this post is rather rambling and probably should have been broken up into several. Readers who would be annoyed by that might want to check out some of my more current posts which are more to the point. The fundamental underlying assertion that comes through for me now as I reread what I wrote over a year ago, is that ableism cannot be separated from capitalism, or at least our Western industrialized practice of it. Knowing that may help make the disparate examples come together. But still, it is definitely rambling so fair warning).
It is the driver of systems that place groups and individuals as nothing more than parts in the machine of progress. That stifles their natural needs, desires, and rights to enough time to tend to their homes, spend time with friends, family, and by themselves both resting and engaging in leisure activities, and to spend time outdoors in nature. It stifles their natural drive to want to learn, do, think, and feel about meaningful topics that matter to them because what is the point, if you have to "get a real job" and have to devote unhealthy hours to it while neglecting ourselves, our friends, family, and loved ones. But it is also more directly physically violent.
Consider the case of myself, a person whose immune system is somewhat compromised, and the several people who chose to go to a non-essential event while sick. That decision led to me being exposed to their illness and to getting sick myself. Though it is true nobody punched me in the face, if they had, I'd have a black eye but at least I could be on campus today studying, and they would likely be held responsible for their actions. I wouldn't be looking at a week or more of illness and asthmatic involvement because several people had too much pride to stay home from a non-essential activity while sick. I get that its not quite the same as if someone punched me directly, but the physical effects on me are longer lasting and worse than if they had (this is not to speak of the emotional effects which is a whole different ball of wax). But my cold/asthmatic bronchitis did not arise out of nothing. I have this because several people sitting near me made a thoughtless choice to take pride in being able to "power through".
Or, if the idea of harm being done to a woman who identifies as having an invisible illness doesn't serve as a convincing example, how about considering the harm done to my best friend in the name of ableism. His company's need to have concrete broken up, without the expense of a respirator to protect him from the tiny, vaporized particles apparently supersedes his need to breathe well and be healthy enough to work. The weeks that they've put him on that job over the years, each time, results in him losing days of work (and pay) while dealing with bronchitis from all the stuff he has breathed in. We are expendable to this system, and are only valuable to it, in what we loyally and faithfully give to it, with zero expectation of loyalty or care for our persons on the part of the corporations and businesses that fuel the system.
I realize to people with little exposure to the ways privilege of all types impacts those who don't have it, or to the ideas in critical theories, to say what I am saying, that ableism is violence and can be directly physically violent, may sound absurd and extreme, but their choice and healthy privilege means I am sick and resting today, and maybe for several more days (or if I am really unlucky, weeks) and that my physical body is damaged and trying to heal because of their choices. My choices and physical capability have been limited by their direct actions to go and expose others while sick. The ableist privilege of so many businesses to be careless and seek profit over human value and human life, and has resulted in the injuries and deaths of so many workers over the years, and that will only get worse as Unions and regulations continue to be stigmatized and dismantled. Ableism is physically violent.
This is violence in a way that I haven't really been able to see or articulate before. And an even worse part of the nuance in my own situation, is that I had to go to class yesterday while sick, knowing that I could expose others who are like me (that essentially, in coming, I was betraying them and doing possible violence to them if they got sick) but that due to the attendance policies and the likelihood that I will have other and probably worse reasons to be absent this semester and need to save absences, I had to go.
Ableism is physical violence also and even to physically healthy and neurotypical people. Because ableism reduces us to a commodity. To a system. And that reduction and the behaviors that arise from it, result in increasing stress, unhealthy diets, and unhealthy lifestyles in order to have a chance to make a reasonable living, or even just to get by. This does actual damage to our bodies and minds. Even if you are healthy. Even if you are proudly working full time and haven't taken a day off in years (please do, you need that time to stay healthy, and so do your family, friends, and community!)
It is violent that even if we have given quality and loyal work over years and decades, that someone coming along who is younger and better (or who seems that way) that our right to security and job security means nothing and should be given over to "progress" and be willing to suddenly forfeit our jobs, the security, and future that we thought we would have. That the needs and healthy expectations of groups and individuals that these systems will be as loyal to them, as they have been to these systems, are subsumbed to "progress".
That everyone's right to make a life worth living, and be able to spend time with family and friends, and have time to oneself is dependent on the type of work that you do (the type of work that those in power decide deserves this time and remuneration), it essentially says that the only people who get to be people and who get to have their work deemed worthy, as opposed to being machines for the system and capital production are those that are in power and high enough on the chain to be deemed worthy. And even, if you scratch too deeply under that surface, every one of them is expendable to this system, given the right circumstances. It is wrong that people have to kill themselves working two jobs, to try to make enough to live on for themselves and their families. And this violence isn't just psychological. It carries effects directly to our bodies. Healthy living, self-care, and the chance of it are privileges, economic, health, and ableist privileges.
The relational disposability (interested readers can look to works by Dr. Omri Gillath, among others) that researchers are finding is a direct outgrowth of ableism, We are so beholden to jobs and opportunity that we will, in a heartbeat, leave our friends, our communities, our lovers and even our pets (furrrever homes should be sacrosanct, people!) because a job demands us to leave our community. We are so willing to sever ties of friendship and loyalty to each other for the sake of work which often doesn't leave us enough to really enjoy the most important things for human health and a sense of meaning (like time with others, relaxation, and leisure pursuits) not because we want to be, but because we have to be willing to survive. Though ideals of adventure, opportunity, and exploration that we in the U.S. have, likely begin this trend, the necessity of living in our economy, the development and manipulation of our capitalist system to make it nearly impossible to work or start your own business without someone else's permission have made relational disposability essential to surviving our system without losing our minds. This fuels the intense loneliness so many in our society feel. The intense loneliness that studies have shown has direct physical effects on people and increases their likelihood of mortality. Ableism is physically violent.
With that premise in mind though, ableism absolutely depends on us. Without us contributing to it by continuing to work, by allowing ourselves and our power and our voices and our natural and God-given rights to be able to make enough to live, to not have our wages stolen in service of making CEO's richer, to not have to give up time with family, friends, and time outside, and actual leisure time over and above our basic living needs (like cleaning house, clothes, and making meals) in order to "stay competitive," without us doing the work that mostly profits others, the system grinds to a halt. It stops.
If we're willing to stop.
Ableism continues to deny the incredible wealth in individuals in their many and varied contexts and communities and the wealth that comes from loyalty too and among people within a community (whether it is a job-site community, a town, church or social group, state, or nation). Ableism removes this balance, placing all of the weight of loyalty on individual employees and individual citizens to their nations and corporations, while removing the onus of loyalty on the part of corporations, business, states or nations to us (over and above short-term questions of will we buy their product or vote for them). We have to remember that if we all stop working, If we all just stop. The system stops and then would have to listen to our voices.
What if we all remember who and what we are and what is important to us and truly meaningful outside of ableism?
What if we all just stopped?
*A small note to indicate that I do realize that intersections of identity and race likely mean that disabled people who are minorities of all types (race, sexual identity, and gender) likely bear even more of the brunt of ableism than I, but given my positionality, I probably have difficulty seeing or writing clearly about it, them, or their experiences, and believe that their voices deserve to be heard directly and should not be diluted by my privilege.*
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