People are Complicated!

[davidgillon]

Today's achievement was almost destroying the "Fans for Accessible Conventions" facebook group. Whoops.

There had been several incidents of disabled congoers being attacked in the group for being angry (not for being angry at people, just for being angry).

So I put up a post saying (at greater length) "Disabled people have a huge number of access issues to be legitimately angry at. Please allow us the space to articulate that rather than trying to tone police us."

It got a lot of likes, it also got a lot of people convinced I'm the Prince of Darkness.

Quite a few conrunners don't seem to understand that not being able to afford or otherwise provide an accomodation doesn't mean disabled people are magically not being excluded. Apparently telling them this is attacking all the work they do. It got ugly. At least one person flounced out of the group in a huff.

I think it needed saying, I'm just hugely surprised it was so controversial.

The bit I regret is that one of the people I reacted to, for stating people shouldn't vent, and who was accusing me of being 'vicious' towards her for explaining why we were legitimately angry, which left me frantically trying to work out what I was saying that she was reacting to, turns out to have PTSD. *headdesk*  I don't know that I could have avoided triggering her, but I could have handled it better if I'd known.

Comments

[lilysea]

Quite a few conrunners don't seem to understand that not being able to afford or otherwise provide an accomodation doesn't mean disabled people are magically not being excluded.

This is very true, and important to say, and keep saying, until people understand it.

[redbird]

I am, alas, not very surprised: a lot of people want to be given as much credit for meaning well as they would get for actually doing the right things.

[sasha_feather]

Yeah this is why I left that group. I couldn't take it. Kudos to you for trying.

[davidgillon]

And you aren't the only one to have left :(

It's not a problem for me as yet, and I think it helps balance the group to have someone pushing from the activist side of the disability spectrum and able to talk about theory like the Social Model, not just the purely practical side.

OTOH, I'd prefer not to have any more days like yesterday!

[liv]

Without wanting to draw inappropriate parallels, I remember this coming up in Racefail. Lots of white people were very upset that fans of color were "angry" when they talked about racism, and some of that was tone policing and defensiveness and some of it was that some of the white fans did in fact have PTSD and other mental health issues meaning that they couldn't cope with angry criticism. I am not going to go down the road of saying that people make up disabilities in order to get preferential treatment, so I'm taking it as a given that the PTSD etc were real, but "your anger is triggering me" can't be a trump card when people are legitimately angry about the discrimination they face. And of course it would be wrong to assume that none of the people perceived as "angry" had PTSD and mental health issues themselves. So I do sympathize with your regret for triggering someone, but I think your original point still stands, that you and other disabled people have the right to be angry about exclusion, even if that creates problems for other disabled people.

[davidgillon]

"your anger is triggering me" can't be a trump card when people are legitimately angry about the discrimination they face.

Thank you! I think I needed to see someone say that.

I missed racefail, but I'd well believe it triggering similar responses.

And of course it would be wrong to assume that none of the people perceived as "angry" had PTSD and mental health issues themselves.

In fact we did have someone identifying not being allowed legitimate anger as one of their triggers. So very much this.

[jesse_the_k]

I came late to these particular discussions on the FB group, after the furious (huh!) posting frenzy of the last 36 hours.

I totally support your activist stance. When you explain why we're angry, how the social model obliterates the charity mentality, why having our rights subject to cost-benefit analysis is morally bankrupt -- I'm thrilled to see these crucial points. I appreciate your rhetorical skills, always finding a way in to a conversation.

As you've probably noticed my posts are aimed at discovering common ground. (I'm surprised that I'm calm enough now to be able to wave olive branches. Partly this comes from seven years of working this issue with WisCon. Yet when it comes to other barriers in my life, I'm in the too-angry-to-do-anything-but-scream-stage.)

I believe that maintaining pressure by forcefully raising these points once in each thread is fabulous. There are some members of the group who disagree with you. In addition, they don't understand the social model, at all. They don't get the ground you're writing from. I hope that all our persistence in advocacy will help folks get it over time.

Over time being the crucial element here. Most of the folks participating in the group don't think they're interested in theoretical debate. (I do believe that our writing, and that of other disability justice folks, will help them come to understand that theory is indeed relevant to the discussion.)

Most of them also present with female identities (as far as I can tell over the internet). When faced with a male person persistently arguing a point in the same thread, many females reflexively feel threatened. I'm not saying you're threatening them, but it may be useful to understand this dynamic.

Because I believe these things, I try to make my posts offer a specific technique or approach to any accoms under discussion. Then I try to connect that suggestion to why I believe it's the right one. So, social model rides the cat-tails of specific action steps.

Serendipitously, I just read this on the latest thread (re con organizers giving up and putting all the burdens on disabled fans):

quote begins

---

Is there a useful outcome to repeating what very nearly everyone already knows (conventions need volunteers to do stuff) in a way that some people find unwelcoming (if you want access do it yourself - which not everyone can do) every time the topic comes up..?

---

quote ends

This is the same dynamic some folks take from your repeated posts. (Of course, this quote deals with the opposite pair of propositions.)

I invite vigorous discussion of my points :,)

[davidgillon]

Wise comments. Given my own history, I have problems with backing down if pushed. In the one case where I could see it was distressing someone I tried to de-escalate, but she found that even worse. That she has PTSD only came up hours later :(

Probably the worst of the anti-camp was male, and flounced out of the group, deleting several threads as he went, I think just prior to you liking my 'we're angry' post. Equally the person annoying me most with their "we can't do that, all the budget is equally important' posts is male, so I wasn't being deliberately oppositional to female posters, though it may well have seemed that way.

why having our rights subject to cost-benefit analysis is morally bankrupt

I'm totally stealing that!

[jesse_the_k]

Steal away!

(I'll admit I stressed for a while worrying that I'd put your back up. Wisdom all around, and we're well rid of that guy.)

[davidgillon]

I don't think you've ever done more than make me stop and think when needed.

I may occasionally need to think for a while before I actually get it....