Flippin more than words!

Changing conversations

I hope you’ll notice the s on ‘conversations’ above. This blog is inspired by to the one written by Elly Chapple & Dr. Kristen Liesch [blog]. The following isn’t said in opposition, I hope it is a complementary storytelling, in both senses of the word, I hope to agree before I add. Thank you @JillBerry102, I’m so pleased you thought to bring us together.  I’m left wondering what would have changed in 30 years if as survivors we had been heard, listened to and acknowledged. Could  pain have been avoided? Could the harm inflicted by a system have been addressed, minimised or avoided? We’ll never know, in a story not so much told badly, but miss-authored by tellers who more widely held a voice in a storytelling that denies truth for so many of us. Disabled people described as faulty, within a grander narrative, dropped from a history that vilified their reaction to harm.

I think #FlippingTheNarrative is a great idea, but how we do this is still up for expansion. Certainly, when it comes to education and inclusive practice much still needs flipping to reinstated a sense of belonging often shattered by convention. A number of decades ago I was accused of being a ‘walking contradiction’, a title I still love, because as an articulation it still speaks to my work as an activist. Being at the end of a challenging PhD journey exploring conversations, Human Rights and disabled people’s voices, I feel have I bit to say. Foremost, I think we need more words, and better-defined ones, with which to challenge an existing culture that keeps silencing, or gate-keeping, the voice of the disabled population. Stripping mainstream storytelling of a group’s shared experience, specific sensitivity and trustworthy knowledge.  As Elly Chapple says in her TED Talk, her daughter Ella was only seven years old when she lost her eyes; surely we don’t need more people to be robbed of their sight for perspectives to change about common humanity.

 I agree with tidal waves, certainly we need a seismic shake up in the ideas that define an on-going injustice in our landscape. Thus proposing a different narrative, an alternative storytelling in the histories that affect the way we talk about people like Ely’s daughter Ella. the myths and distortions in storytelling.  We need to change conversations about those marginalised by language in classrooms, schools, professions and society.  So what prevents what Elly states as " that difference lies every possible solution we could need, and the ability to share our space to be able to include everyone. Somehow, along the way this has become a ‘problem’ or a stumbling block”? 

Yes, we could wait for every person to guide each professional in one conversation at a time. With positive experience thus dependent on the willingness of a singular judgement to cede power in favour of change. A precarious proposition in a system blighted by variation. But how does this flip the narratives that sit beyond each individual: beyond the year group, beyond the school, or beyond education as an institution within society? Surely each flip needs to oppose a different meaning at every level to address all the ideas in a layering of conversations. All of which ultimately impact on Ella if left unstated.

Civil rights campaigners have over many decades introduced us to words that help define what silences young people, parents, teachers, and citizens? Some Disabled others not.  As Kirsten reflects: "Ella is someone who doesn’t fit neatly into the social infrastructure we’ve created around us, whether they’re built into our health care, education or social supports… This inequality of opportunity creates a significant missed opportunity, because our organizations, institutions and communities can’t achieve their full potential if the people working inside them are thwarted."  I would say silenced rather than thwarted, or told what to say, how to say it, and when… the price of mainstreaming is a belonging denied by an imperceptible but disempowering rephrasing at multiple levels. Almost indiscernible to the naked ear. 

So we come to the word ‘vulnerable’. No longer used in Brown’s words to define the human qualities of openness, trust and kindness; a choice we’re all entitled to as human beings (2012). No, vulnerable, has become a euphemistic allusion to those who don’t fit in – those who speak against a more acceptable truth – one that's as widespread as it is toxic. Voices that dare disrupt the acceptability of injustice so commonplace it is lost in conversation. Irrespective of a system build on the assumptions of an age where disabled people were locked away, we mute the challenging with a language no longer fit for today’s reality. Acronyms replacing learning that could potentially aid vision in a culture that would foster an alternative reality for those currently rejected...  

In using vulnerable, we’ve stopped saying who is in receipt of disdain, shame and pain; in a conversation that avoids naming who’s disadvantaged and by what. We’ve lumped marginalised groups together, erasing the lines of privilege, and getting rid of the words that define sexism, ageism, homophobia, racism, bigotry, intolerance, and hate speech. No longer can we state how our systems fail individuals, nor can we state those ideas that are harmful and why they hurt. By labouring the least offensive option, we are no longer able to voice our opposition to what harms our daughters and our sons. 

How do we tackle the ablism that justifies the removal of Disabled people across communities, without nuanced words to articulate the culture in which such hate is deemed ok? We need a richer vocabulary to describe the personal prejudice, private indifference, institutional barriers, professional mindsets and societal inequality imposed on named groups.  As a disabled person I do not need a positive spin, particularly not one based on someone else’s privileged view of me as less broken. I need more allies to speak of impairment with respect, and against disablism, abuse and ablism with knowledge and power. At each level of storytelling, the misrepresentation of Disabled people needs to change significantly to oppose negative bias, with multiple layers of conversation speaking with clarity to the global unsustainably, economic growth, greed and privilege that leaves disabled people unfairly treated. #RudeWordKlaxon “I’m not vulnerable, I’ve had the shit kicked out of me, so I’m sensitive… possibly, but angry definitely!”

I started my work as an activist without a language to describe the horror of being harmed. Being silenced stopped the shouting, the crying, the screaming, the kicking, and spitting against a pain inflicted in the name of schooling. My challenging behaviour was due to the condition they said, not a reaction to the violence I experienced. “Be quiet!” they said later, “don't say nasty things about the nice man”.  Apparently the rage and guilt of the middle-aged is far less attractive and easier to dismiss. Eradicating many vile tale from the sanitised lens of society’s storytelling…