The human mind must categorize the objects it comes into contact with, thus developing expectations about this kind of object should it be encountered again. Arguably, this is the essence of any kind of learning we do as human beings. We could not function in the world if we could not recognize types of things and then act accordingly. Some of our categories and expectations were learned at a very young age, like not to touch a hot stove. It is useful to sometimes categorize people as well as objects and develop expectations of interaction with them. A very basic example would be the expectation that a member of the category “police officer” will pull you over for speeding.
Of course, this process of categorization and expectation can also be quite harmful when someone bases their expectations on flawed information about the thing they are categorizing. If someone’s only knowledge of polar bears came from Coca Cola ads, they would be in for some serious consequences if they jumped into a zoo exhibit in the hope of getting a cuddle. Of course, in this case, the only consequence experienced by the polar bear is that he gets an exotic lunch. Categories of THINGS are generally not harmed by flawed information that leads to false expectations. The reverse is true when folks develop flawed expectations about entire categories of PEOPLE because the members of that category are typically the ones that are harmed by individualized and institutionalized bigotry. The flawed categorization and expectation of people is perhaps even the definition of prejudice.
Just as Coca Cola commercials feed us false images of polar bears, many different cultural sources represent people with disabilities in inaccurate and harmful ways. People with dwarfism are often portrayed as comical, infantile, or even malicious. My friend Gary over at the blog Common Ground wrote a recent piece describing a situation where a modeling agency contacted the support/advocacy group Little People of America (LPA) to try and recruit 50 people with dwarfism to dress up as the character Chuckie from the Child’s Play film series and run around Manhattan to promote a new DVD release. It never occurred to this modeling agency rep that LPA was something more than a “talent pool” for her exploitation. This is one of many expressions of people’s expectations about dwarfism that have been tainted by bad information about us as a category of people.
Such mistakes in categorization and expectation are everyday occurrences in the lives of people with disabilities and their affects can range from annoying to tragic. Last week, I had just left the building I live in and was headed across campus for a meeting when a man on a bicycle stopped and asked if I was OK or if I needed any help. After checking to make sure that my fly was zipped and that I hadn’t dropped all of the papers out of my notebook, I told him that I was doing just fine. I don’t think I looked any more confused than usual, but this gentleman had some bad information about the category of person with disability and assumed that I must need help, just by virtue of the fact that I was traveling across campus in my power chair alone on a Wednesday afternoon. Perhaps he assumed I had wandered away from my caretakers at the nursing home. Joking aside, these kinds of expectations of dependence and helplessness are exactly what keep people with disabilities from being full members of society. The idea that our category is defined as helpless in the minds of the public places us in a subordinate role in society. We are not the category of person that is a business person or a teacher or a politician or a husband or an engineer or a mother or… a grad student on the way to a meeting with the prof he is TAing for this term.
Sometimes, such expectations are self fulfilling prophecies when a system is set up according to those expectations. For example, last week, I arrived to teach the afternoon discussion sections of the class I am TAing, only to find that the only way to reach the front of the lecture hall was down a flight of stairs. There were accessible seats in the back for students, but the expectation was not that the teacher would have a mobility disability. This case shows how the physically built environment itself can express the ignorant construction of categories and flawed expectations, making it much harder for members of that category to get away from those expectations. Because of the way the room was built, it was impossible for me to take on the traditional perch of the teacher. Such expectations are fulfilled every time a person with a disability is forced into a nursing home because their Medicaid refuses to pay for community attendant support or in the fact that Michigan Rehab Services will pay for someone’s re-training after they acquire a disability, as long as that re-training doesn’t include the pursuit of a college degree. It is expected that people with disabilities would be segregated in nursing homes or incapable of going to college, and so the systems are set up according to that expectation.
How do we resist these flawed category definitions and change people’s expectations of us? Employment law or Medicaid reform can only do so much. We need to redefine some categories if the apparatus of ableism is going to come tumbling down.