#gws300

This unit, Theorizing Citizenship and Identity focused mainly on the identity of those with disabilities and how we without disabilities often categorize and identify them within society. Our first reading for this unit was Rosemarie Garland-Thomson’s excerpt in Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and Literature. Thomson placed emphasis on the issue of how those with disabilities are often represented in literature, “Disabled literary characters usually remain on the margins of fiction as uncomplicated figures or exotic aliens whose bodily configurations operate as spectacles, eliciting responses from other characters or producing rhetorical effects that depend on disability’s cultural resonance. I thought this was very interesting because when you look into different types of literature throughout history, often one with any sort of disability is used in some aspect whether it be for sympathy and emotion or as a different “special” character. Literature and books definitely shape the way we think, our ideas, views, and perceptions and when society is creating these characters with disabilities, they do not need to be presented to us as someone “special,” “exotic,” “alien,” they need to literally just be represented the way the everyday person is within stories. Thomson also writes, “not only is the relationship between text and world not exact, but representation also relies upon cultural assumptions to fill in the missing details.” This is strongly an important line within her reading, because it truly is up to society, text, and culture to fill in what is right versus what is wrong. This unit connects to a lot of readings and movies that are still being put out and popular within today’s society. I know last year there was recently a movie about a boy who had a physical, visible disability and within the movie his character was treated “special” and in the end he so happened to have this “special” uncommon gift.

I love the way this class makes my head spin, the way the readings make my head hurt, and really force me to introspect the foundations of the way I think and view and see the world. I’m not new to this feeling, and actively seek it, because it signals that I’m transforming my mind, my thought processes, my feelings, my instincts, my actions to be more aligned towards allyship and accompliceship. This class and these readings force me to challenge and question my preassumed notions, my ableist perspective, and also to channel the parts of me which put myself on the nondisabled-disabled spectrum/map. I really am grappling with this idea of what constitutes a disabled person, who can claim that identity, and the internal hierarchies that exist within disability communities. I believe that identities which are oppressed (constitute oppressed groups) and constitute the basis of people for systematic oppressions (black people, immigrants, latinx people, muslims/middle eastern people, disabled people, LGTBQI+ people, old people, women, indigenous people, incarcerated people, leftists, etc.) are socially constructed, but that the fact that they are socially constructed does not reduce the materiality and reality of material conditions faced by these identities because they are living people of these identities. Its important that when reading my writing, the reader understands that this is the way in which i navigate my life and analyze the world around me. these identities which fall on the spectrum of oppressed and privileged (and it is never that neat--internal hierarchical power play and oppression is very much real and must be addressed) are a social construction, and we really all exist on a spectrum of the basis of these identities (and binaristic thinking is a social construction). However, binaristic thinking allows us to find common identity among shared experiences, similar conditions and materiality of abuses, discrimination, microaggressions, oppressions felt and which constrain us. this brings up the issues of “passing”--the concept that someone of an oppressed identity (which is contextual) can “pass” as someone of the privileged identity. We most commonly hear the example of “white-passing” i.e. someone who is of not-white background who passes or looks white and is thus pegged or read or clocked as white. Thus a person who is of non-white background but is white-passing faces a unique conundrum in between these worlds of race-is-a-social-construction-and-on-a-spectrum and of material opressions faced by those who are not white and not white-passing.

My favorite reading of this unit is “Un/covering: Making Disability Identity Legible” by Heather Dawn Evans. I have my own experiences with passing and un/covering related to my ‘ambiguous race,’ religion, and ethnicity. It goes beyond these categories, spilling into disability (something I don’t identify as out of respect to those who I think experience harsher material conditions and oppression--a notion I am challenging increasingly with this class), gender, and sexuality. It is through my own experiences, and the experiences of my comrades (specifically trans and nonbinary) that allow me to understand the ideas behind this reading in an intimate, interconnected, and empathetic way. I’ve found myself, as a process of my continuous political awakening and radicalization, asserting myself as a person of color, but more specifically, as a (genderfuck*) womxn** from the middle east, a womxn who is culturally muslim, a womxn who is a first-generation amerikkkan. I have become aware of the ways I’ve internalized westernization and feminization, or in other words, ways I’ve suppressed my ‘natural’ state of being to be more like a woman (which takes on different meanings in both muslim and amerikkan culture, sometimes reinforcing each others’ toxic ideals), to be more civilized, docile, apolitical, amerikkkan. I use natural in quotes because its 9/10 a bullshit term that is rooted in medicalized heteronormative patriarchial western understandings of how humans should be. Perhaps the way I use it is problematic too, that’s something to unpack later. And in my crude politicization, I actively reassert my body as it is and my ideas as they are. And i think defying what the ‘triple three’ expect of me (society/institutions/shaping-ideologies at large, interpersonal relationships esp. family, and internalized expectations/oppressions) is inherently political. For example, vocalizing my experiences and frustrations with birth control and discourse of periods and period pain. For example, not shaving. I’ve shaved or otherwise removed every inch of hair on my body for over 4 years. We’re talking toe hair, finger hair, hand hair, arm hair, underarm hair, leg hair, belly hair, nipple hair, pubic hair, forehead hair, cheek hair, moustache hair, chin hair, ‘stray’ eyebrow hair, you-name-it hair. This is a direct result of the society we live in. It’s capitalism and sexism and white supremacy, working together. It’s telling me that there’s something wrong with me, my hair. It’s telling me that especially since I am not-white, since I am middle eastern, that my more-than-white-women-hair is especially ugly and gross, and thus especially necessary to remove from everyone’s sight. To not shave is political. To not wear a bra when I don’t need to for my own comfort/health is political. To be genderfuck or genderqueer or to accept any set of pronouns is political. Now that I’ve stopped shaving certain parts of my body, my race is less ambiguous. I’ve become more not-white. I am un/covering. I am actively asserting myself as not-feminine-conforming, as not-white, as hairy, as hairy womxn, as middle eastern, as turkish. The same goes with my headscarf, crocheted for me by my relatives in turkiye. I am not a practicing muslim--of my own choice, the only in the family to denounce islam--yet i identify with muslims, especially first-generation muslims,  much more so than I can or do identify with white folk. I am ambiguous-looking--I am not white but I am not muslim, or muslim enough, or middle eastern enough, or arab enough. So I assert myself, by wearing my headscarf, as a political act, as a symbol of resistance to white conformity, as a symbol of assertion of my identity. In such ways, I related to the article a lot. It must be said that asserting race is different from asserting disability. There are different things at stake, different consequences, different material conditions and oppressions faced, different directions of passing and un/covering and assertion, different reasons why, different levels of comfort found in assertion. I understand and take these in fully. I don’t mean to draw similarities in a way that is naive or shallow. Our similarities should bring us together and be foundations for acts of solidarity against the same matrix of domination, against the same matrix of oppressions that confine us and categorize us and center the world around people that are not us. The same is to be said of my trans and non-binary comrades who use they/them pronouns as an act of political resistance against gender categorization, against social constructions. This isn’t to take away from those who face material oppressions and discrimination for non-binary gender expressions. By asserting non-conformation to the privileged identities in society, we are taking pride in who we are, but more importantly, making it important that we access the resources we need and highlight the fundamental shortcomings in current institutions to oppressed people. 

We suck as a society. I’m saying we because I am ~sadly~ a part of the problem. Growing up, I was told that people with physical disables were so strong. They are strong because they get out of bed, brush their teeth, fix their hair, and do other normal things even when their disability makes it hard on them. I was taught that it was okay to be overly nice to people with disables since they were well…disabled. Well that is some Baby Back Bullshit. Throughout this first part of the semester I realized how much crap I have always been fed about people that are disabled. I was told that people with disabilities are almost superheroes. They can do everything we can do… but BETTER because of their disability and blah blah blah...

The REAL tea is that the readings basically called bullshit and made me reflect on my previous actions. I did not know how to talk about people with disabilities or even know when to address individuals overall.  After the first couple of readings I decided to make a list of things we, as a society, need to do.

1.    We need to realize that people with disabilities are not supposed to be an inspiration to people.  (The Supercrip narrative Is just a stereotype in the community. Disabilities do not make you more or less of a person.)

2.    We need to normalize people with disabilities living their everyday lives. (Just because someone with a disability is doing something, that doesn’t make it any more incredible. Ex. Don’t congratulate a person, with a disability, for doing what they usually do)

Yet again, a day late and a dollar short...

Neurodiversity according to Price speaks to a framework where we approach mental disability through a political-relational lens that shows us difference in the way people learn, interact with the world, and live. Neurodiversity is an interesting concept to me, and one that would be difficult to understand without the context of a political-relational model of disability, so I’m glad we’ve covered it late in the semester. Neurodiversity speaks to the inherently fluid nature of mental disability in that there is no monolithic image (despite society’s ignorant images) of mental disability, and a truly accessible society is one that sees this. When we get bogged down in medicalization and individuality, we essentially lose the forest for the trees. We fail to see that there is no one way to approach mental disability and society should recognize this neurodiversity. 

Take for instance manic depression, something I have grappled with in my own life. There are many faces, forms, and manifestations of mania and depression that express themselves in different ways. I can recall rapid mood swings, prolonged periods of deep depression, and stretches of hyper-productive manic energy. There are steady days and wobbly days; days with equal highs and lows; sometimes the highs were incredibly high, and the inevitable fall was equally devastating. Then there’s the medicines... Oh god the medicines... There’s the one that doesn’t work, the one that works 30% of the time, the one that makes you gain 100 pounds, the one that stretches the moods to weeks, the one that makes you feel great some of the time, the one that makes you want to kill yourself, the one that makes you numb, and my personal favorite the expensive one that only works when combined with your choice of three of the others. 

From this perspective, I think it would have been easier on me if society recognized that manic depression isn’t something that should be fought or medicated, but something that is a diversity. I was awful in high school because I could never bring myself to do my work. One slip up made my house of cards crumble, and the snowball effect nearly ruined me. Nobody ever took the time (at least in school, guidance counselor notwithstanding) to try and understand why my grades were awful; I was simply labeled lazy and left to my misery. Granted I never really aspired to be anything beyond what I was labeled as. 

Keyword: Mental Disability/Illness

Often, mental disability is not grouped in under the spectrum of disability. People often shy away from this sort of inclusion due to fear of being grouping into the disabled community which has had many negative stereotypes and media representations. “Although I use mental disability as my own term of choice, I continue to use others as needed, and my overall argument is for deployment of language in a way that operates as inclusively as possible, inviting coalition while also attending to the specific texture of individual experiences,” (Price 298). While people have the right to choose how they wish to be labeled, it’s important to understand that mental illness is a disability. To put this in a real world perspective, in the classroom it’s generally accepted for a student to miss class due to a flare up of their physical disability. But if a student missed class due to an anxiety disorder or other mental illness, teachers and professors might not take that as seriously as someone with a physical disability. This goes back to having “proof” of your disability. Many professors/institutions require something like a doctor’s note in order for the absence to be excused and the student allowed to make up the work. If mental illness was generally accepted as a disability, then more students would be successful in that they don’t fear missing classes or that if they do miss classes they can make up the work and not get behind. 

Throughout our final unit, we expanded on our knowledge of disability, and the connections between mental and physical disability. We also dove further into the topic of trigger warnings, and their role in disability theory.  

In her work, Un/Safe Disclosures: Scenes of Disability and Trauma, Alison Kafer proposes the argument that the failure to address the ties between trauma and disability is constrictive of work done to create safe spaces. Under this context, there is a need to approach theories of trauma mourning, loss, etc. with an intersectional framework, one that includes the complexities of disability and the varying identities under the umbrella of ‘disabled.’ “...trigger warnings are one entry point for developing such theories.” (Kafer, 2016). As seen in the text, an excerpt of the AAUP report on trigger warnings reads as follows:

a student diagnosed with PTSD should, in advance, agree on a plan for treatment with the relevant health advisors who, in some cases, may want to alert teachers to the presence of a trauma victim in their classroom. The Americans with Disabilities Act contains recommendations for reasonable accommodation to be made on an individual basis. (Committee)