Not to take away at all from the main point here -- first and foremost it seems an issue of prejudice -- but I think it's also good to mention that "You can choose to be offended" has been a right wing talking point since at least the Reagan backlash when really there is simple disagreeing. It's a good defense tactic because it makes the disagree-er seem one-note and petty, while the original speaker is thinking big picture and expansively. At this point I think it is also deeply embedded in internet culture which of course came of age after 20+ years of this culture war.
If they are successful, it's PERSEVERANCE! AN Inspiring drive to overcome
Unless they have something invisible and denigrated/minimized -- of course I'm thinking of CFS, but also lupus and other illnesses that are hard to spot, especially if the ones that are more common in women. (Except maybe for breast cancer, which has its own special weird little cultural industry.) It's kind of double-edged: we can pass or cover (and boy do we), but on the other hand, our status as disabled people is both challengeable and challenged, by others and by ourselves. That produces, I think, a whole new domain of stereotype.
If we're successful, it's because finally we're acting normal for once, jeez: finally we've come to believe that we can live normal lives. Why, we just needed to buck up! We were hystericrips.
Come to think of it, being a hystericrip is a little like being a charity case, and a little more like being an angrycrip. The angrycrip-types I've met haven't actually been all that angry; mostly they've been clear. But their clarity
( ... )
And having done the superblink thing on occasion, I can tell you, it's not all that great a gig
Oh, I hear you. I overstated the case there -- I have been the supergimp on rare occasion, among ablebodied people whose personal lives have led them to have the first clue about CFS. And, uh, ick.
It was a thoroughly weird feeling when I got my one and only, "You are so braaaave!" (I was trying to figure out if the local Curves gym, with its regimented program, was going to work for me. That turned out not to matter for other reasons.) I guess maybe I would have responded to that with gratitude in the first few years. But at that point, I was just trying to get shit done without getting sidetracked into conversations with random gym reps about my flaws and virtues, you know?
This reminds me -- I can't remember if you were the person I was telling about this podcast from The Moth, but here's something with some on-topic bits that I've been meaning to put up for wider consumption for a while now: Greg Walloch telling the story, "How to Receive"
Yes! We had talked about this piece! It is so excellent! Thank you!
And it triggers all kinds of memories about "helpful" people who were really hurting me, intrusive Christian prosteletizers (sp), dating situations that made me feel horrible about myself, and weird ass situations with creative writing and theater instructors (and one director) who were far too obsessed with their concept of my reality. Oh, and the point in college when I realized that "Need any help?" (in far less provacative circumstances) was sometimes the only line a guy could figure out how to use, so I'd say yes even when it was completely untrue.
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Unless they have something invisible and denigrated/minimized -- of course I'm thinking of CFS, but also lupus and other illnesses that are hard to spot, especially if the ones that are more common in women. (Except maybe for breast cancer, which has its own special weird little cultural industry.) It's kind of double-edged: we can pass or cover (and boy do we), but on the other hand, our status as disabled people is both challengeable and challenged, by others and by ourselves. That produces, I think, a whole new domain of stereotype.
If we're successful, it's because finally we're acting normal for once, jeez: finally we've come to believe that we can live normal lives. Why, we just needed to buck up! We were hystericrips.
Come to think of it, being a hystericrip is a little like being a charity case, and a little more like being an angrycrip. The angrycrip-types I've met haven't actually been all that angry; mostly they've been clear. But their clarity ( ... )
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Oh, I hear you. I overstated the case there -- I have been the supergimp on rare occasion, among ablebodied people whose personal lives have led them to have the first clue about CFS. And, uh, ick.
It was a thoroughly weird feeling when I got my one and only, "You are so braaaave!" (I was trying to figure out if the local Curves gym, with its regimented program, was going to work for me. That turned out not to matter for other reasons.) I guess maybe I would have responded to that with gratitude in the first few years. But at that point, I was just trying to get shit done without getting sidetracked into conversations with random gym reps about my flaws and virtues, you know?
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Oh yes, do I ever know.
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Greg Walloch telling the story, "How to Receive"
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And it triggers all kinds of memories about "helpful" people who were really hurting me, intrusive Christian prosteletizers (sp), dating situations that made me feel horrible about myself, and weird ass situations with creative writing and theater instructors (and one director) who were far too obsessed with their concept of my reality. Oh, and the point in college when I realized that "Need any help?" (in far less provacative circumstances) was sometimes the only line a guy could figure out how to use, so I'd say yes even when it was completely untrue.
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