Disability Studies

The NPR podcast about the sterilization of women covers a lot of horrifying stuff. I am aware of the inhumane practices of mental asylums back in the day, since I did an internship last summer doing research on the racist practices in asylums in the pre-Civil War era. Patients were often isolated from others and physically constricted using straps and other tools, and the patients who experienced the worst treatment were those in public asylums that were overcrowded and underfunded. But I didn't know about the practice of sterilization in asylums, though, unfortunately, it doesn't surprise me at this point.

In this post, I wanted to reflect on Unspeakable Conversations and how the disabled community, both from the article and my own experiences, treat each other within activist circles. 

Out of all the pieces we read this past week about disability identity and justice, the one which resonated the most with me was Sins Invalid's Ten Principles of Disability Justice, and in particular the ideas of sustainability and interdependence. Throughout my life, I have been exposed to disability in the unfortunately standard way in the US: if you are disabled, you either "fix yourself" so as to become independent and productive in society, or become a burden to your family, social services, etc. if you are unable to do so. I became very detached from that label and community of disability, being conditioned to see it as only inclusive of that supposed latter group who "could not fix themselves" and became something a little less than human in the eyes of society.

TL;DR: The pandemic has demanded new ways for everyone to access the world. Some of these forms were more accessible for disabled people than the pre-pandemic world. Can we keep what we have gained in an ableist society that wants to return to "normal"?

Moses's Speech Disorder in Commentaries on the Torah

Here are a few pages from "The Gene: An Intimate History" by Siddhartha Mukherjee that I found relevant after today's discussion.

If this sample isn't too technical for you, this is a great book that both goes into the details of how genetics works and does an excellent job of covering the eugenics movement in America (and elsewhere, but primarily America). The author himself had several schizophrenic relatives, who he talks about a bit in the book. 

Dissociative identity disorder (DID) is an often-misunderstood mental disorder caused by overwhelming childhood abuse. To survive the abuse, the child will adopt different identities/personalities that protect their 'main' identity from having to experience it all at once. In popular media, DID is usually a simple 'multiple personalities' shtick, used for horror, with most of the causes not being discussed. 

Hi, everyone! I came across a podcast from Short Wave discussing inaccessibility in the lab and other spaces in STEM fields. Krystal Vasquez, a disabled scientist, speaks about how her relationship with science changed when she became disabled and how we can make science more accessible to everyone. I especially recommend this listen to fellow STEM students! Vasquez talks about we can use universal design in the lab, which I think would be very valuable to both disabled and non-disabled folks conducting research. Throughout this past semester, I noticed that I always felt really tired and somewhat achy after my chemistry lab. We often had to stand for hours at a time by the fume hood.

Some of my thoughts over the course of the semester have led me to discover the right-to-repair movement. Organized from mostly farmers who could not repair their equipment without paying companies like John Deere to repair it for them, putting them in an unfair power dynamic with a machine that is necessary to their liveliehood and that they own. Recent platforming of the issue has allowed for a multiplicity of right-to-repair coalitions in support of the rights to repair medical equipment, electronics, industrial equipment, and manufacturing apparatuses, inducing an impetus for the intersection of disability advocacy into the movement.

I went from having almost no knowledge of disability studies before taking this class, and now I feel as though I cannot unsee the intersections at every turn in my academic and personal life. I don’t exaggerate when I say this; I am familiar with disability but have never had the language to explain, describe, or enunciate what I have experienced. Repeating many others, the current public lexicon is woefully equipped to address the diversity of human experiences, especially when it manifests itself as disability. Taking this class and holding on to several questions important to me throughout the semester has led to my understanding of disability being expanded upon in many ways.