There is no U in Ableism - or is there?

This is your call to action

When we go on family walks, my super fit husband loves to shout motivational quotes at the rest of us when our energy is waning. “Nike - just do it!” he says enthusiastically, completely oblivious to the fact that I am perilously close to taking off my New Balance size 9 and throwing it at his head.

Yes, reader - I would rather hobble home in one shoe than be reminded that there is no ‘I’ in TEAM. That’s my vibe.

Photo by Victor on Unsplash

Husband absolutely loves his inspirational quotes, he is very driven by targets and is super competitive, which is hilarious that he is married to me, a lone wolf who excels at being defiant.

Recently we were looking at buying some art for our living room wall and he suggested some inspirational quotes (framed, therefore ‘art’ 🤔) for our bare wall… He then went on to describe a retail middle management David Brent-style print with ‘MOTIVATION IS THE KEY TO SUCCESS’ emblazoned across a cliff-face, with a climber hanging on by one hand.

Great! So inspirational! (If we were living in a call centre in the 1990s)

*So we went with the bog standard black & white highland cow print from Kmart instead*

I know those cringey motivational posters well, because my first job outside of study in the late 90s was in a large call centre. It was a great place to work in your early 20s, to do lots of overtime to save money for your OE. Not so great for people like me who hate social hierarchies based on who sucked up to management the best. And especially not great for people like me who hated being valued solely for sales performances and reaching targets rather than service, loyalty and creativity.

They had some pretty terrible motivational techniques, we were all routinely forced to sing S Club 7’s ‘reach for the stars’ along with accompanying dance moves. We all had to stand in a circle singing and clapping along to the music like we really believed that singing ‘Break Out’ by Swing Out Sister was going to transform us into the next sales superstar. In my case, it did not.

“When situations never change
Tomorrow looks unsure
Don't leave your destiny to chance
What are you waiting for?
The time has come to make or break
BREAK OUT.”

Yip, just linked the video on YouTube and yip it still brings back feelings of extreme cringe, but lots of laughs too. Some of their motivational techniques have not aged well at all, I think back to a team building trip to a beautiful wine region, which involved no wine - just subtle psychological torture, to try and weed out the future leaders from the followers from a group of unsuspecting 20-somethings. Two days of berating, belittling and belligerence to see who would still grease up to management at the end of it, aka who should be accelerated into leadership roles. Spoiler alert; It was not me. I was always looked over for promotions, always categorised as ridiculous and a liability - a Snooki, if you will.

I bumped into an old colleague the other day, and we had an awkward laugh over the team building weekend debacle, they commented how the training team back then had a definite ‘experimental phase,’ and that was the height of it.

Oof the 90s were a trip weren’t they?

One of the best things about being my own boss these days is that I can avoid that kind of corporate fuckery. I make my own rules, create my own inspiration. I steer clear of motivational messaging - unless it’s a tongue-in-cheek, opposite of inspiring quote message of the ‘we are all fucked’ genre.

…but then this morning I saw this quote on Facebook: “ABLEISM looks like calling people ‘inspiring’ for navigating a system that is designed for exclusion, while doing nothing to hold the system accountable.”

Stick that on a canvas, tattoo it on my forearm in Times New Roman and print me a matching t-shirt and trucker cap!!!

Credit to: Terence Mayo via Facebook

Granted, this isn’t your stereotypical motivational message - but it speaks to me, like the core of me. To me it is a call to action, as an ally to disabled people and whānau, but also to people who want to support me in my own journey.

This is a commentary on allyship. If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. If you think you are being helpful by simply praising disabled people and their whānau, you are not. By categorising them as ‘good sorts’ of the TV One variety, but stopping short of calling out the system that they are being forced to navigate with great difficulty in the first place, you are not being an ally.

I have never thought of this as ableism until now, but it is very clear to me now that it is. If Internalised Ableism (experienced by a disabled person) is the act of believing the stereotypes society uses to label disability, and projecting negative feelings on themselves, then it is ‘good sort’ attitudes like this that feed directly into this experience.

As a parent, I do my best to create a community that is inclusive and supportive for my daughter. It changes the way I see the world, I am acutely aware of how much blood, sweat and tears are shed just to put reasonable accommodations in place for my daughter. I hide my disappointment at the people, places and processes that should exist and be there to support us, that simply do not exist.

I smile wryly at ‘inclusion’ because I know that even in its watered down version that we currently experience, it would not exist without the hard work of disabled people and their allies. Without them, and their persistence and generosity of time and energy, the rest of the world would rather place them somewhere slightly out of view, somewhere they can be seen and smiled at, and put out on display when someone wants to make themselves feel better or talk about how inclusive they are.

Inclusion is everybody’s responsibility.

This your call to action, it’s time to get your hands dirty and help hold the systems that exclude and marginalise disabled people and their whānau to account. No more Inspiration Porn. No more bullshit inspirational quotes and faux-allyship via social media. We don’t need to stand in circles, clap and sing from a forced song sheet.

We can actually choose to look inwards and call ourselves out for our long held attitudes towards disabled people, just like we have with gender and race in recent years. Yes - it’s scary, but it’s necessary.

Lets take baby steps together in acknowledging our own ableism, and looking at how we can move forward into the future to support an accessible and inclusive future.

There is no U in Ableism, lets keep it that way.