Imani Barbarin
Appearances
It's Been a Minute
The R-word is back. But why?
It is not acceptable to call me a retard or call yourself or your friends retarded when they do something foolish.
It's Been a Minute
The R-word is back. But why?
Because disability is so often forgotten, people don't really realize how effective it is. It's not even just the words themselves. It is the sentiment behind them a lot of the time. And you don't even necessarily need to use the R word to wield power against another person.
It's Been a Minute
The R-word is back. But why?
One of the big examples that I try to give people are conservatorships and guardianships.
It's Been a Minute
The R-word is back. But why?
But yeah, but you know what the weirdest thing is? Now that Britney Spears has her freedom and acts the way that she wants to, now what are people saying? Oh, well, maybe that conservatorship wasn't a bad idea.
It's Been a Minute
The R-word is back. But why?
I think what it really does boil down to is some of our insults towards each other have their own basis in disability. For like the word idiot described people that were public charges that weren't capable enough to live on their own and handle their own affairs. However, were disabled enough that the community had to take care of them.
It's Been a Minute
The R-word is back. But why?
Another one is lame. Like you can find lame in the Bible. Jesus healed the lame man. And that's always kind of been back and forth as a descriptor for disability. And additionally, it's not just like a language thing. It's structural. Like when we look at anti-trans legislation,
It's Been a Minute
The R-word is back. But why?
you can see that they put the provision to have trans people tested for autism because if they're then diagnosed with autism, they are seen as less capable of handling their own medical affairs and could potentially be put in things like conservatorships and guardianships which then could impact their ability to vote.
It's Been a Minute
The R-word is back. But why?
Because in about seven states, there are restrictions on people in conservatorships and guardianships voting. The attachment of things to disability has always kept people and their rights on the chopping block for a very long time. We talk about Buck v. Bell and sterilization and
It's Been a Minute
The R-word is back. But why?
And whenever we decide we want to insult somebody or throw hate to somebody, we attach them to a disability, regardless of whether or not they have one. Even if it's not just saying the word, we see this a lot when it comes to political conversations around competency in office, right?
It's Been a Minute
The R-word is back. But why?
A lot of people want to attach our elected leaders to disabilities to say that they are not capable of being elected leaders. Now, whether or not you agree with them is immaterial. It's the fact that people see disability as one of the most discounting things and a way to take somebody out of the conversation or out of the discourse or out of the power that they have already.
It's Been a Minute
The R-word is back. But why?
Oh, my goodness. Joe Biden all the time. People have always said, oh, you know, he's cognitively impaired. And whether or not he is, isn't material to the fact that, like, you could talk about his policies. You could talk about anything. People see that conversation around competency as a reason why he shouldn't be elected official.
It's Been a Minute
The R-word is back. But why?
Donald Trump, similarly, the kind of this bumbling fool kind of caricature that we have of this man who was still competent enough to get elected a second time.
It's Been a Minute
The R-word is back. But why?
What I find with ableism is that because it can be applied so widely, it never really goes away. When we think of specific insults for certain groups, certain slurs for certain groups of people, they're only applicable to that group of people. True. When we think of the N-word, it's only applicable to Black people.
It's Been a Minute
The R-word is back. But why?
Like, effectively, when we think of other insults for different communities, they're only applicable to those groups of people. But for disability, because you don't have to be disabled to experience ableism, it's applied to everyone.
It's Been a Minute
The R-word is back. But why?
When we think about something becoming so out of the realm of possibility for something to say, being so insulting that nobody wants to say it, it almost never includes disabled people. One of the reasons why is because we don't talk to disabled people as a society.
It's Been a Minute
The R-word is back. But why?
We talk around disabled people. We talk to family members. We talk to medical professionals. We talk to policymakers. And only in recent memory do we actually talk directly to disabled people like they are adults, like we are a group of people willing to have a conversation with rather than everybody talking around us.
It's Been a Minute
The R-word is back. But why?
in this paternalistic manner, telling us what we should and shouldn't want for ourselves, right? And so when we talk about the R word, do they trust us enough to say that this is something we don't want to hear?
It's Been a Minute
The R-word is back. But why?
No diagnosis has automatically made you racist. And the flip side of that, which is very frustrating, is that there are people who genuinely believe that racism should be treated like a diagnosis.
It's Been a Minute
The R-word is back. But why?
No diagnosis has automatically made you racist. And the flip side of that, which is very frustrating, is that there are people who genuinely believe that that racism should be treated like a diagnosis.
It's Been a Minute
The R-word is back. But why?
Somebody once tried to tell me that they wanted racists to get treatment. I almost reached through the phone. What are you talking about? But going back a little bit to your point about, you know, why is this language having an uptick? It has to do with eugenics. Like after pandemics, eugenics increases. We kind of like separate ourselves on the basis of who's worthy and who's not.
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The R-word is back. But why?
And pandemic kind of accelerated our thoughts around disability and eugenics. to a point where like this is now very normalized language.
It's Been a Minute
The R-word is back. But why?
It's always kind of been an undercurrent on social media. It's always been kind of thrown around. Generally speaking, I just see these upticks when it comes to relational politics.
It's Been a Minute
The R-word is back. But why?
They're not just words. They're larger ideas than just an insult that we can hurl back to one another. And you don't even necessarily need to use the R word in order to wield that sort of power. One major...
It's Been a Minute
The R-word is back. But why?
group of people that have been attached to disability are black people you know taking intelligence tests to vote right because they thought black people were inherently unintelligent because of being black it goes into capacity laws and immigration where we're telling people to stand on their own two feet That has implications with disability.
It's Been a Minute
The R-word is back. But why?
There's a reason why women were relegated to institutions and lobotomized and had forced hysterectomies. Because they were attached to a disability. There's a reason why queer men have been historically chemically castrated and experimented on. By being attached to disability, this has been our country's legacy. So it doesn't surprise me in any way, shape or form that the R word is coming back.
It's Been a Minute
The R-word is back. But why?
It doesn't surprise me that people are trying to pinpoint an entire community as the reason why we cannot have progress in this country, whether that be explicitly or implicitly implied through their use of that word.
It's Been a Minute
The R-word is back. But why?
I noticed that the R word had come back, I want to say, in full force around midterm elections in 2022. A lot of times, anybody who displays what we consider deviant behavior, whether that be political opinions that may not agree with the status quo or, you know, societally, We cast them out using ableist language.