Anti-Bias Anti-Racism

Don't make assumptions about a person or their disability. It is not for you to determine what a person wants, feels, needs, can or can’t do. If you are unsure about what assistance to offer, how to help, what to do, how to do it or what terminology or language to use, ask. The person with the disability is your best resource. It is also important to remember that what works for one person may not work for another.

Ask before you help. Always receive permission before you help a person with a disability. What you view as struggling might be their way of getting things done. If you do get permission to help, ask the person how they want the help. You can actually cause more problems by helping if the person is not expecting the help.

Be aware of personal space. Mobility aids are part of their user’s personal space. Moving, touching, or leaning on a mobility aid is the same as moving a person without their permission and can interfere with a person’s safety.

Talk directly to the user. While a person with a disability may have friends, family, or a helper with them, don’t talk to them. You don’t need to ignore the others, but focus on the person you are interacting with.

Speak normally.  If you are talking to an adult with a disability, talk to them the same as you would any other non-disabled adult. If you are talking to a child, make sure you speak to them the same as you would a non-disabled child of the same age. There is no need to talk louder or slower (unless requested), and while a person with a disability may have troubles communicating verbally, don’t assume that is connected to their ability to understand.

You can also use normal language like look and see without offending a person who is blind. When introducing a person with a disability to others, just use their name. There is no reason to include their disability in the introduction.

Use "people-first" language when talking about people with disabilities. This means putting the emphasis on the person and not their abilities, mobility devices, medical diagnosis or condition. Language has power and older descriptions of people with disabilities continue stereotypes and act as attitudinal barriers. A person has a condition, they are not the condition. A person uses or needs a mobility device, they are not confined or imprisoned by it.

Avoid potentially offensive terms or euphemisms. Continuing with the people-first language; many people find the following phrases annoying or offensive: restricted to a wheelchair, victim of, suffers from, retarded, deformed, crippled, and euphemisms such as physically challenged. If you are unsure, ask the person with a disability what terminology he prefers.

References

The term ableism evolved from the Disabled People's rights movements in the United States and Britain during the 1960s and 1970s. Ableism questioned and highlighted the prejudice and discrimination persons experience whose body structure and ability functioning was labeled as “impaired” as sub species-typical (Wolbring, 2008). An ableist society is said to be one that treats non-disabled individuals as the standard of ‘normal living’ which results in public and private places and services, education and social work that are built to serve ‘standard’ people, thereby inherently excluding those with various disabilities (Stop Ableism, 2018). Ableism is one of the most societally entrenched and accepted ‘isms’ and it exists in many forms where other ‘isms' like racism, sexism and heterosexism have been spurned by society.

Historically, people with disabilities or who were otherwise different from society’s typical were thought of as cursed by witchcraft,  possessed by demons, or punished by God for wrongdoing by themselves or their parents. Through history, societies evolved from killing their deformed or disabled young to institutionalizing those who could not be cured or rehabilitated. The Disabled People’s Movement has labeled the deficit point of view against normality as the ‘medical model’ or ‘individual model’, which is the assessments of impairments is viewed as what one cannot do, instead of what one can do (Attitudes2disability, 2007). 

The medical model sees disabled people as the problem and believes they need to be adapted to fit in the world as it is (Stop Ableism, 2018). The emphasis is on dependence, and that is reinforced by the stereotypes of disability that bring out pity, fear, and patronizing attitudes. The drive and power to change disabled people seem to lie with the medical and associated professions, with their talk of cures, normalization, and science (Attitudes2disability, 2007).  Often people with disabilities have their lives run by these professionals as their decisions affect where people with disabilities go to school; what support they get; where they live; what benefits they are entitled to; whether they can work; and even, at times, whether they are born at all, or allowed to have children themselves (Stop Ableism, 2018).

In addition, the built environment limits people with disabilities as they have been built with ‘standard’ people in mind. Medical model thinking would believe these problems are due to disabled person’s lack of rehabilitation, while the Disability Movement perceives these difficulties as the barriers that disable them and curtail their life chances (Attitudes2disability, 2007). For, if the environments were built to include all abilities, there would be no need for labels like disabled.

References