Hey Democratic writers, bloggers, pundits, and the like. Remember when all the headlines were some version of “Bush is the village idiot and he can’t use words”?
I never could really get into politics or take sides back then for a few reasons:
I didn’t follow politics, a privilege I have since shed.
I was young, a privilege I have since lost.
I did try to engage a few times though and specifically remember feeling at risk of being outed as an idiot and felt no compulsion to remain engaged with a bunch of people who were slinging insults (never) left and (always) right. Progressive (the only kind I was ever interested in) politics didn’t strike me as a place to learn, it struck me as a place to point fingers or be eaten alive.
With Trump in office that same feeling sits like a ton of bricks on my chest. How, as a progressive organizer who works for a political company can I still get this feeling? Of course, my own history and background shapes my response. But one thing I have noticed is that my past more closely resembles the voters we are trying to appeal to than that of many of my mentors, colleagues and peers on the professional left. So, in the hopes that my experience can help us reach more folks to create a better world, I have offered it here.
More importantly, we risk far more than hurting feelings with ableist language. We endanger folks who are navigating mental differences in a society that violently neglects anyone who doesn’t think and feel the way “normal” people “should”.
Propping up that societal narrative makes it harder to pass legislation that invests in mental health services, elect people who focus on the elderly or disabled, prosecute perpetrators of crimes against mentally vulnerable people, or create a fully inclusive world where all people are valued for their contribution and cared for through their challenges. And, as in my past self’s case, we decrease self governance in our democracy.
Sure you can respond in the comments that what Republicans do and say is worse. You can take this post and turn it into competition about who can rise just above the worst common denominator.
Or in 2018 we could make small easy changes, like discontinuing the use of ableist language, in order to make our community a more inclusive and inviting place, where voices from all walks of life mingle together to create strategies and futures more lovely than we have yet to imagine.