Decompiling Oppression #40
Sam McVeety
This week, I thought we could explore the contours of advocacy movements in the I/DD community (intellectual/developmentally disabled), and explore some of the parallels and intersections with other movements for justice. One of our guides this week will be Liat Ben-Moshe's Decarcerating Disability, which explores the intersections between the deinstitutionalization movement in the disability community and our modern fight against mass incarceration in the criminal system.
Fundamentally, this space is shaped by a (false) binary between innocent/dangerous, where both halves are deployed in negative ways against I/DD individuals. On the "innocent" side, Ben-Moshe writes how "[people] with I/DD were seen as 'forever children' and in need of guardianship, protection, and education[.]" One of the problems with being assigned this childlike status is that it is perpetual, with no apparent recourse or means of appeal. Even if someone has access to the legal means to challenge their status, they are still subject to the judgement of the legal and/or medical system.
On the "dangerous" side, mental difference is instead characterized as "mental illness":
[This] is seen as analogous to danger -- for example, in connection with mass shooters or mad [religious] terrorists and therefore containment and segregation are legitimized, as those labeled as "mentally ill” are seen as posing “a danger to themselves or others.”
A core problem with this binary, then, is the catch-22 that an individual (or advocates for them) faces. They can either be viewed as in need of protection and unable to care for themselves (and thus have their rights restricted) or viewed as a threat to others in need of containment (and thus have their rights restricted). Incarceration is essentially the outcome of both paths, although it might take different forms. Also, an implicit subtext of this binary is that, innocent or dangerous, the subject is still fundamentally "other", creating barriers to empathy and understanding.
These halves (and a dynamic of "otherness") collide in City of Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center, Inc. (warning, triggering language), where the Court addresses the siting of a home for I/DD individuals that a local municipality is attempting to prevent. Paradoxically, the City argues both sides of the binary:
It was concerned that the facility was across the street from a junior high school, and it feared that the students might harass the occupants of the Featherston home.
vs.
[It was also] concerned with the negative attitude of the majority of property owners located within 200 feet of the Featherston facility, as well as with the fears of elderly residents of the neighborhood.
Of course, restricting who can live in a neighborhood recalls racially restrictive covenants and redlining, which deployed similar arguments of "local attitudes" in defense of white supremacist housing policies. This cage of protection also echoes struggles for justice and agency across gender. If we recall the way that white women have been used as a symbol of helpless innocence (and in need of protection -- think Birth of a Nation) in the service of white supremacy and racial violence, we can see some of the same disabling rhetoric. Ben-Moshe refers to these restrictions as "carceral ableism", drawing explicit parallels to imprisonment:
Carceral ableism is the praxis and belief that people with disabilities need special or extra protections, in ways that often expand and legitimate their further marginalization and incarceration.
In the context of this binary, one of the most disruptive movements in the I/DD community is self-advocacy, which traces its roots to Sweden. We've seen this theme of self-advocacy in the Deaf community before, as well, which contested the idea that a group is dependent on others to advocate on their behalf. Self-advocacy argues for "nothing about us, without us", which is particularly resonant in the I/DD community, where agency is especially fraught and contested. By their very presence, self-advocates trouble this binary and show its harmful limitations.
Here are this week's invitations:
Personal: How do you think about I/DD individuals, particularly overlaid with dynamics of race, gender, and class? Do you see yourself falling into the innocent/dangerous binary?
Communal: What community norms and standards inform your answers to the above? How are these issues discussed in the context of local politics and interests?
Solidarity: Support People First (Washington) and their work to build a society where we are all equal citizens in our communities.
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