SF Signal's Disability Car Crash
Feb. 5th, 2016 06:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
davidgillonI noticed a tweet flashing past last night indicating activist and fan Elsa Henry (@snarkbat) was seriously pissed off with something. So I went to check what, and found it was a new post on SF Signal, the SF/F news/magazine site. It was in their 'Special Needs in Strange Worlds' column (a title I loathe) and it was the most utterly bizarre and offensive post I've seen in a long time.
Content warnings for: cure narratives, erasure, offensive stereotyping (especially of autism) magical crips, locking the crip in the attic, and generally being utterly 'special' about us.
It's difficult to give a true flavour, because they pulled the post after the uproar from disabled fans, but imagine this:
I'm a special snowflake with a life-threatening disability: I'm an empath, that's the opposite of being autistic.
I was once on a panel at a con talking about genetic manipulation and someone came up and asked me if I thought they would come up with a cure for autism and he had autism and he didn't wanted their kids to be autistic and I'm sure that God has a plan for autistic people. And isn't it a shame how he'll never feel a thing for another human because he has autism? (She'd already IDd autism guy as married, Logic 101, Failed).
And weren't Temple Grandin's mother and teacher wonderful in the film because they only thought Temple was different?
And did I say I was a special snowflake? And aren't people with paranoia weird? And we only have our wonderful society because of these weird and specially talented autistic kids. And we're going to go to the stars because of people like me. (Yes, she really said that).
And aren't we all cripples really? (Note, she did actually say 'cripples').
And when we see a disabled person in a wheelchair, we should remember the extra perceptions they get, not feel sorry for them! (Yes, she made wheelchair users into magical crips)
And I wrote a famous story that was a rip-off of Ship Who Sang, but the girl didn't get the guy, she just got to be the spaceship, which was way better than being a cripple!
And after writing this I know why I don't like stereotypes anymore (You and me both, lady!)
I've not heard of her before, but the bio said she was a Nebula winner and ex SFWA treasurer.
So anyway, SF Signal pulled the post, but had to be prompted to say they pulled it over disability, and they've now got an apology post up, and the link to that doesn't mention disability either (and is the blandest of bland in a sea of colour). But the problem is pulling the post doesn't erase the damage it did, but does destroy our chance to respond and explain to people where it's going wrong.
So it just happened I snagged a copy (it wouldn't let me save my response, so I had an open copy when they pulled it) and I used that to write my own blog, dissecting it screw-up by screw-up:
Content warnings for: cure narratives, erasure, offensive stereotyping (especially of autism) magical crips, locking the crip in the attic, and generally being utterly 'special' about us.
It's difficult to give a true flavour, because they pulled the post after the uproar from disabled fans, but imagine this:
I'm a special snowflake with a life-threatening disability: I'm an empath, that's the opposite of being autistic.
I was once on a panel at a con talking about genetic manipulation and someone came up and asked me if I thought they would come up with a cure for autism and he had autism and he didn't wanted their kids to be autistic and I'm sure that God has a plan for autistic people. And isn't it a shame how he'll never feel a thing for another human because he has autism? (She'd already IDd autism guy as married, Logic 101, Failed).
And weren't Temple Grandin's mother and teacher wonderful in the film because they only thought Temple was different?
And did I say I was a special snowflake? And aren't people with paranoia weird? And we only have our wonderful society because of these weird and specially talented autistic kids. And we're going to go to the stars because of people like me. (Yes, she really said that).
And aren't we all cripples really? (Note, she did actually say 'cripples').
And when we see a disabled person in a wheelchair, we should remember the extra perceptions they get, not feel sorry for them! (Yes, she made wheelchair users into magical crips)
And I wrote a famous story that was a rip-off of Ship Who Sang, but the girl didn't get the guy, she just got to be the spaceship, which was way better than being a cripple!
And after writing this I know why I don't like stereotypes anymore (You and me both, lady!)
I've not heard of her before, but the bio said she was a Nebula winner and ex SFWA treasurer.
So anyway, SF Signal pulled the post, but had to be prompted to say they pulled it over disability, and they've now got an apology post up, and the link to that doesn't mention disability either (and is the blandest of bland in a sea of colour). But the problem is pulling the post doesn't erase the damage it did, but does destroy our chance to respond and explain to people where it's going wrong.
So it just happened I snagged a copy (it wouldn't let me save my response, so I had an open copy when they pulled it) and I used that to write my own blog, dissecting it screw-up by screw-up:
no subject
Date: 2016-02-05 11:38 pm (UTC)