Disaboom PhilosopherCrip - All Comments

Many Chinese dwarfs choose to live in an all-dwarf village. Would you?

Beauty, Wheelchair Fashion and Dating - Tiffiny - C6 Quadriplegic — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 15:18:59 GMT

In Kunming, a city in the Hainan province of southern China, lies the Kingdom of the Dwarves , a tiny

re: Revisiting Ashley X: My Struggle as a Philosopher-Activist

MsMcMahon — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 06:07:19 GMT

Socrates wasn't an activist?

An acquaintance and I have had some conversations about philosophy and disability--disability is rarely a topic for philosophers, even those who get geared up to talk about social issues, war and peace, etc etc. By the same token, I'd like to see more philosophy in discussion about disability issues (maybe the activists really are the philosophers in this case. . . or maybe they're just the poets, I don't know)

Anyway, we felt Ashley's story should be written as a kind of Greek tragedy (and with the suicide of her physician it began to become a cyclic tragedy). . . I just came across stuff about Diekema's talk at Calvin college.

If "disability is a natural part of the human experience" then it has universal characteristics and should be a subject for philosophical discussion just as any other human experience that has universal characteristics, right?

Anyway, somebody needs to write the damn play, but I know I can't do it.

re: The Thin Line Between Pity and Violence

ecrowley — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 18:35:41 GMT

We were actually talking about empathy in my Media Effects and Consequences class last night...The teacher was talking about prosocial media effects, and how researchers will try to measure if exposure to certain media makes a person empathetic. Yet, this is a pretty hard thing to measure, and the studies that try to do so are usually criticized. Are the participants really empathetic, or do they just feel pity, or what? Interesting to wonder how one actually can test for empathy...

re: The Thin Line Between Pity and Violence

Attila the Mom — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 18:21:17 GMT

Truly excellent! Jerry Lewis continues to skeeve me out and infuriate me at the same time. grrr

re: The Thin Line Between Pity and Violence

manifesto2000 — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 23:16:07 GMT

Posted by manifesto2000

The Reality of Systemic Abuse of the Disabled

This incident should provoke a serious debate on how to deal with the depersonalization and dehumanization of disabled persons - especially in this age of para-militarism ideology in policing. Stanford University did a huge study in the early 1970s commonly known as "Being Sane in Insane Places". This study showed how widespread the idea is in virtually all custodial institutions that people with disabilities are not to be treated seriously - or humanely.

The most horrific example of police going along with dehumanization of the disabled is the incident on Nov 13, 1997 when the Edmonton Police Service invaded the Annual Meeting of the Handicapped Housing Society of Alberta and told every member entering that meeting that "if they agree with Alan Blanes they would be arrested for assault by trespass". This incredible abuse - which was conspiracy to perpetrate fraud on the members of this agency - was ruled a "trivial" complaint by the Alberta Law Enforcement Review Board [LERB] Decision 038-099. This case has put a chill on any action to straighten out the damage to the democratic rights of the disabled community of Alberta. The only way that this kind of abuse can be corrected is if there is a moderated continent wide discussion on how to take the documented evidence to the perpetrators and formally question those who are providing cover for this systemic abuse.

I invite anyone who would like to help establish a panel of elders who can issue demand notices to authorities who are making excuses rather than face evidence, to communicate on this problem at: "citizensforpeacefulcommunities@yahoogroups.com"

Thanks for your reply,

manifesto2000

re: The Thin Line Between Pity and Violence

Debbie — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 04:12:04 GMT

hi joe, always a pleasure... i agree, you could post a story about brian and what we can do to help try and prevent more incidents like this again. :) xoxo

love to stacey from me too if you talk to her ok? thanks. i hope school is going good.

re: The Thin Line Between Pity and Violence

AdventagousFeminist — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 20:29:00 GMT

I was wondering if you were going to blog on the Florida. It was highly disturbing and angering.

Bringing the discussion to critically examine pity and its relation to empathy is an interesting one. I teach empathy exercises and it is an emotion that is hard for people to grasp. There are even studies that suggest that if a child doesn't learn empathy before the age of 5 then they are never going to learn it at all.

Your blog was thought provoking as usual. Nice work.

re: The Thin Line Between Pity and Violence

Jessie — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 11:48:30 GMT

Nicely done!

re: The Thin Line Between Pity and Violence

Lieslmcq — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 01:00:27 GMT

Excellent post! and w00t for another philo crip. ;) I wrote something about pity awhile ago; maybe I'll post it on my disa blog and we can talk some more about this. I've always been fascinated by pity, too. It's such an uncomfortable sensation.

re: The Disgusting Ableism of Mike Huckabee

YakimaBelle — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 13:48:16 GMT

As someone whose first husband left because of my chronic illness, I'm afraid that I can't get all that upset about what Huckabee said (no, I do not intend to vote for him.) Just this last week I learned that my friend Sylvie was being divorced by her husband because he was unwilling or unable to deal with her congenital spinal problems now that they are limiting her mobility. On an aside, I'm afraid fondness for illegal aliens is inversely correlated to proximity to them; it is one thing to love them in the abstract or find them good employees and quite another to have illegal alien gang members demand that you "pay taxes" to them or have your home invaded. I've had the latter experience and it makes me very fond of the idea of making sure exactly who is in this country and not rewarding those who have broken the law. It's an extremely complex issue since I have legal alien neighbors who had to wait *decades* to get a sibling with high level skills into this country while illegal aliens were amnestied by Reagan. I've spent literally hours consoling a friend whose sister-in-law waits in a refugee camp - and dealt with his families tears whenever they read about someone who entered illegally being given the privelige of staying while their relative lives in horrible conditions.

re: Revisiting Ashley X: My Struggle as a Philosopher-Activist

Attila the Mom — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 07:59:56 GMT

Thanks so much for writing this. I hate this new comment system because everything is going to turn out as one long paragraph, unless my html works. Over the years, we've had several intake workers for services and/or "specialists" inform us that we should think about having our Little Guy sterilzed before he turns 18 because it would "be practically impossible afterwards". Gak! We don't know what the future holds for him. He dreams of being a husband and father, and frankly, it's not beyond his realm. At this time, there's no medical proof to assume that his condition is genetic, and we know quite a few people who have disabilities who've gone on to be successful parents. As much as we love and want to protect him, the idea is really repugnant.

re: Revisiting Ashley X: My Struggle as a Philosopher-Activist

Tim — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 02:25:53 GMT

I have provided medical case management for individuals with severe brain injury for nearly twenty years. I have followed many families who have cared for children injured at five or six for ten or more years. I have two clients now, both young women, who were injured young and have functioned essentially as three month old infants for fifteen years. They have both been cared for at home buy loving families. I can tell you the difficulties for these families are not insignificant. I can also tell you the medical issues mentioned by Ashley's family are quite real and not to be simply dismissed as excuses for "ableist" abuses. It is all to easy to look in at a family like Ashley's and make decisions based on a particular political perspective. It is much more difficult, I can assure you, for parents in such a situation to provide the best quality of life possible for their children. Properly assessing medical necessity for these families is difficult and heart wrenching. The procedures in question were not performed as some quick fix for an immediate situation. The decision were all made base on Ashley's long term needs. Ashley's breast buds were removed base on a reality in her family that the women are very large breasted. At least one family member has had a reduction. This action was taken with Ashley's comfort in mind and in consideration of not being able to properly screen for cancer in the future. Ashley's uterus was removed in order to avoid her menstrual cycles and to limit the possibility of cancer. Although I may not agree with Ashley's family as to there choice of procedures, my experience tells me there concerns are well founded. I don't for a second believe these procedures were performed so Ashley's parent would not have to see their daughter as a sexual being or lacking at all in feminity. The disabled community is the most diverse community in the world; anyone can join and, disabilities range from the inconvenient to the massively medical. There is a problem when anyone lens is applied to the entire group. I do not see Ashley's parents decisions related to their daughters care as a reflection of their personal position related to disability in general. Believe me I have seen parents whose response to having a child with a disability would fit that description. They find much easier ways out.

re: Revisiting Ashley X: My Struggle as a Philosopher-Activist

suebabe — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 02:29:40 GMT

Keep up the fight. I'm feeling old now at 48 almost 49, but there's still a lot of activism that needs to happen. We need all the voices we can muster to keep up the good fight!

re: Conformity and Unity

staceymilbern — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 19:49:18 GMT

this isn't totally related to your post...

i think the "too white" comment may seem really biased/prejudiced from an outside perspective/white perspective and people hate the word sell-out. still, there has to be some kind of accountability for people who DO sell out, like barack obama has many times (which people can argue politicians HAVE to , but there are somethings you never HAVE to do, like having donnie freaking mcclurkin on your tour). this gets spinned as being jealous of success and such but if a community doesn't talk about these issues and hold leaders to their word then the leaders are hurting people more than helping.

my favorite song has this lyric: "I don't look at a few token Latinos and black people in the public eye as some type of achievement for my people as a whole. Most of those successful individuals are sell-outs and house Negros."

re: Conformity and Unity

staceymilbern — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 19:48:54 GMT

this isn't totally related to your post...