Ableism
Nathan Pitt
Introduction
Hello everyone, I would like to start with a brief exercise, raise your hand if you have heard of the word ableism or ableist, if you did not raise your hand, you are not alone.
Ableism isn’t much of a known word or topic, and it hasn’t really entered our vocabulary like other terms for different forms of oppression have. For example, when I typed in the word “ableist” it wanted to autocorrect, it hadn't even been entered into whatever dictionary Google was using. In the report, I will cover what it is, issues about it and possible solutions.
Body Paragraph One
What is ableism? Ableism is a form of discrimination in favour of able-bodied people, and discrimination against people with disabilities. Ableism creates a hostile environment for people whose bodies just don’t fit the able-body norm. In my opinion, ableism remains one of the last broad socially acceptable forms of discrimination.
Ableism can look different in many ways, it could just be using a disability as a punchline or students with disabilities having to go to a “special school”. Ableism is linked to the notion that people with disabilities need “fixing” or they are imperfect and the disabled are considered “less than” than people without.
My chosen text is a poem by Tiffany Kittilstved called “A Field Guide To Stares”
I try to hide my stuttering because society says it’s bad
But a part of me dies every time I don’t say what I wish I had
It takes so much courage to just be myself and speak
But I’m sick and tired of people misjudging me as meek
This poem is thoughtful and emotional. Poetry is a powerful form of expression that can help us visualize and connect with challenging content. It is a very creative way to explain how people with disabilities are treated almost everywhere.
Body Paragraph Two
Ableism can affect how you think about physical and mental differences, and it can also damage society as a whole there are plenty of reasons why ableism happens, people might be scared to have a disability, lack of disability awareness, and might have religious or moral beliefs but that doesn’t change the fact that’s discrimination
For example, ableism has been around for a long time, they have been segregated like they were “monsters”, they left them on the streets to beg and left to die knowing there were outcasts in society. In some cases, disabled people got the death sentence.
Ableism can affect access to transportation, Increase levels of unemployment, increase poverty, bullying, harassment of the disabled, and education. Business owners think that people who are disabled lack the necessary skills, abilities, and knowledge that are needed for most jobs and this links to poverty if they can’t be employed, bullying and harassment of disabled can be seen in most places like school and jobs which might leave with thoughts such as “what's wrong with me or “how does it feel to be normal”, and education, 80% of principals in the UK have said that they don’t have enough resources for disabled students in schools and don’t have many opportunities as mainstream students.
Body Paragraph Three
You might feel awkward or uncomfortable around individuals with disabilites. Something essential to recall is that disabled people come in a great many shapes and sizes, and different disabilites can affect individuals in various ways. "Idiot" and "moron" were usually utilized in the mid 1900s to depict individuals with intellectual difficulties. However today we use them in regular discourse without valuing the unfortunate underlying meanings like "retard".
There are many ways we could help with the issue, donating could help associations dedicate to assisting people with inabilities live more full, more comprehensive lives. Participating in protests is a way of getting involved with a community and spreading the word out to the public that everybody has rights.
All of us here are young men, we would have to think of practical solutions instead of protests because how could we start a protest and some protests could lead to violence which is a situation we don’t want to be involved in, we have to think of solutions that are possible, the ones i’ve chosen are Donating, doing a speech and spreading awareness by talking to people.
I think that talking to people is the best solution because it's not bad to have a chat about a problem that is not very known and we could try to convince a teacher or the principal about ableist practices I didn’t choose the others because donating does help but how does that spread awareness but it does help, it depends how much you donate. Speeches can gather a lot of attention and it is a great solution but what are the chances of you doing it, speaking to a large audience.
Conclusion
Envision you unexpectedly became disabled. How might you want individuals should speak to you? Chances are, you would want respect. Sadly, negative generalizations about disabled and biased perspectives have existed for a long time. This long history has brought about outdated, rude language and discrimination.
Everything isn’t going to change by just doing one thing, we need to band together to solve this issue, we have to start using the word ableism first, we have to believe that there is actually a problem before we can go out and fix it, we have to talk about it, start up a conversation about ableism because only then, we all truly engage with the power that each and every one of us has to make the world merely different, Thank you.
PMI Analysis
Bibliography
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Poem:
Kittilstved, Tiffani. “A Poem about Ableism – Tiffani Kittilstved – International Stuttering Awareness Day.” International Stuttering Awareness Day, https://isad.live/isad-2021/papers-presented-by/creative-expression/a-poem-about-ableism-tiffani-kittilstved/. Accessed 19 August 2022.
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“ableism | discrimination | Britannica.” Encyclopedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/topic/ableism. Accessed 19 August 2022.