Did he look disabled?
Admittedly, my ears are trained to hear ableism. If I wrote down every ableist thing I heard throughout the day, I would do nothing but write down all of the ableist things I heard all day.
So I try to share examples of the most common ableist things I hear. One example is inquiring about whether someone “looks” disabled. Invisible disabilities are still novel for most of society.
The title of this post is a real question that a new aquatinance asked me when I told her that my disabled son was 8 and a half when he passed away.
“Gosh, did he look disabled?” was her FIRST, and really only question.
Upon reflection, the question is so heavily offensive it is is soul crushing. But arguably, my response was worse. I have been trained to answer questions posed to me quickly and decisively, so reflexively, I hastily answered, “no!” I accepted the premise of her question and I want to go back in time and respond differently but all I can do is better next time.
Her next response was even more emphatic, that our child’s death was indeed, tragic because he did not appear disabled.
“That IS SO sad!”
Because if someone doesn’t LOOK disabled, then their lives matter more. But if someone DOES LOOK disabled, well then, we all accept their lives should be truncated. As my friend Adana would say, when we say the quiet part outloud, there is a huge emphasis in our society that permeates schools and child development in general on not “looking” disabled.
Looking disabled= bad. Not looking disabled= good.
This brief exchange has deep historical roots. In our country and abroad, we used to have laws on the books collectively referred to as “ugly laws.” Created to keep people who appeared disabled from being seen in the community, these laws set the stage for creating institutions for the disposal and abuse of disabled people, and fertilizing community norms and beliefs that blossom like noxious weeds to this day. Laws intended to keep homeless people off of streets, out of parks, and that allow for their arrest, stem from the crime of being ugly in public. These laws originated in part as a way to insulate the non-disabled people from the discomfort of knowing that “ugly” or disabled people, simply exist.
If you look disabled, it is NORMAL that your life will end early. Our society has internalized that belief system and it’s so pervasive that even I, a passionate advocate for disability justice, can still fall into the ableist trap that is so engrained in our culture.
By answering this new acquaintance’s question, I gave the impression that I agreed there is a “disabled appearance” and that in my view, my son did not APPEAR to be disabled, and therefore, we both mutually agreed that it was even more tragic that his life was cut short, at the tender age of 8 and a half years old.
I implore each of us to double our efforts to refine our ears, our eyes, and our hearts. Our world needs more examination of these beliefs, and a collective agreement to root them out where we find them.
