What’s Wrong with Disability Awareness
I joined Georgetown University’s disability awareness club, DiversAbility, now in its second year, upon arriving at campus. During one of our previous meetings, one of the club’s officers mentioned that we will be hosting an “Ability Lunch,” which had been done last year, in which people sit at different tables and simulate different disabilities — for example, wearing a blindfold to simulate blindness or having one’s arm tied behind one’s back to simulate inability to use a limb or lack of a limb — while eating lunch. I immediately raised objection to the idea, and was told that the discussion following the lunch included criticism of the event.
If that is so, if the flaws in holding such an event are recognized, then why is this event held?
I am in very strong opposition to the idea of the Ability Lunch for the same reasons that I stood alongside the Autistic community in 2010 when a well-meaning individual decided to declare Nov 1. as “Communication Shutdown Day.” The idea behind Communication Shutdown Day was that non-Autistic people could experience the social isolation and communication difficulties that Autistic people often have by not accessing online social networks or websites for the entire day.
Beside the fact that the Internet has provided an incredible forum and means for Autistic people to communicate with one another about issues that affect our community in ways that we were unable to access prior to the widespread use of social media and e-mail, the idea of Communication Shutdown Day in no way reflects the reality of living as an Autistic person.
A non-Autistic person spending one day without using social media will not understand the inherent differences and difficulties we face in social communication with non-Autistic people, the majority of which occur offline and face to face. A non-Autistic person who spends one day without using social media is not experiencing Autistic life. Autism is more than social challenges. The Autistic experience includes an array of sensory and information processing differences — some of which are disabling — and these are programmed into our neurological systems from birth through death. You cannot simulate being Autistic by shutting down Facebook for a day.
The mere suggestion that this is a way for non-Autistics to empathize with Autistic people is absolutely ludicrous. It is lacking in empathy entirely. If you want to get into our shoes, you need to understand the reality of what it is like to live Autistic day to day for a lifetime, and that is not something that can be done by a one day “simulation” of not accessing social media.
Similarly, it is absolutely ridiculous, if not outright offensive, to think that a non-disabled person can simulate a disability for an hour or two and therefore understand what it is like to live as a disabled person. The idea is well-meaning, but well-meaning people often blunder and harm in their good intentions in the absence of context and greater understanding. No amount of “good intentions” will change the nature of this event.
It is a farce. It is a feel-good opportunity for some non-disabled people to pretend to be disabled for an hour so that they can go home and say, “I understand what it’s like to have a disability.”
It is the equivalent of a non-Catholic attending mass, expecting to come away from the experience with an understanding of what it means to be devoutly Catholic. It might be a nice or interesting or strange experience, but in absolutely no way will this non-Catholic individual have any grasp on what it means to be devoutly Catholic in one’s lifestyle after going to mass once.
None of the non-disabled people coming to the Ability Lunch will have any true grasp on what it means to live as a disabled person in our society because they are not disabled. The very idea or suggestion that this “Ability Lunch” will somehow create this type of “in their shoes” empathy is unfounded and untrue. It won’t. The only way to do that is to have actual dialogues with disabled people to share experiences, coming as peers and equals at the discussion table. To listen to the voices of disabled people discuss what being disabled means in their individual lives. To recognize agency and give respect. To understand that it is impossible for a non-disabled person to truly experience disability, and that it is impossible likewise for a disabled person to truly experience not being disabled. To recognize the limitations of any type of disability “simulation” and to host disability awareness events that do not marginalize, diminish, demean, reduce, and devalue the realities of the varied experiences of disabled people.
No pity. No fear. No patronizing.
Nothing about us without us!
Original post autistichoya.blogspot.com