PhilosopherCrip

Recently, my very good friend Amber took a trip to South Korea to understand how their disability movement in general and their feminist disability movement in particular have developed (http://ambertracker.blogspot.com/). This has gotten me thinking about how culture and political history have shaped our movement in the US. Typically, I tend to be as ethnocentric as the next American and my judgments are certainly still biased by my privilege as a US citizen. However, I have been on a kick the last few days, thinking about how American liberalism shapes our ideas about what it means to resist the oppressive structures that have marginalized us.

When I refer to liberalism, I am not talking about the “liberal left” but rather the political philosophy that tells us that the purpose of government is to preserve our individual freedoms. This is the notion that laws are in place to ensure that our freedoms do not infringe upon the freedoms of others.

Laws like the ADA seem to be directly connected to this notion. Access to public space and employment anti-discrimination are justified by their effects on individuals. Like the romanticized settlers of the western frontier, folks with disabilities are blazing a trail into a new territory, as rugged individuals. Relying on their own mettle, they take risks and reap rewards accordingly.

Of course, this is also somewhat problematic. This emphasis on the value of the individual is a double edge sword as it largely contributes to the very core of the bigotry of ableism. Interconnectedness and interdependence are the values that will free our people, not individualistic, libertarian ideology. In fact, these values are realities for all Americans that are often ignored. American culture tells us there is shame in having someone help you dress if you need it, but having someone else cut your hair is par for the course. We have this mythology that we are individuals that survive in a harsh world on our own. When folks with physical and cognitive differences need help in different ways, their lives are disvalued as having less quality or dignity.

While our freedoms have a uniquely American flavor, so do some of our oppressions. We need to look elsewhere if we are to understand how we can think outside of this box and move away from this kind of marginalization.