#MakeAbleistsUncomfortable pretty much all of abled culture…

All the ways abled culture idealises ability and non-disabled ways of being, valorises the super-able (e.g. in superheroes and athletes) and envisions the future as a place of enhanced abilities, the worship of certain kinds of communicative ability as "charisma" - all this

unquestioning adoration of ability and idealisation of super-ability contributes to the degradation of disabled people, is at least eugenics-adjacent in its idea of whose bodies and minds are better, and if it continues to go unquestioned disabled people will continue to be

perceived as having lesser bodies and minds, lesser lives, lesser value (that people have differing levels of "value" is an icky concept in general), and the future will continue to be built of the same ableist crap as the past and the present.

Question what you value and idealise, in yourself and others and your ideas about the future and what society should be, what humans should be and could be. Are you factoring disabled people - in all our radical, nuanced, diverse existence - into it? Have you looked to see if

anyone in the field of Disability Studies, or within the disabled community in general, has written about that topic? Are you making assumptions about disabled people's position, our ideas and ideals, and concluding that we must want to be super-able too?

This culture is built on ableism (and other kinds of prejudice). Capitalism has certainly contributed to that massively, but it's not the origin of it. For a good look into the Western world's deeply-embedded cultural ableism, I recommend the book 'A Historical Sociology Of

Disability: Human Validity And Invalidity From Antiquity To Early Modernity' by Bill Hughes.

Question what you - even if you think you're radical and non-conformist and anti-capitalist - value, recognise, and understand. And start seeing all the ways even leftists frequently

contribute to a culture that treats the many manifestations of disability as Less Than, as Worse, as the thing no-one wants to be and the child no-one wants to have and the partner no-one wants to love and the protagonist no-one wants to read about.

And here's the thing - if you actually care about learning about disabled people, then you're gonna have to learn about yourself. Don't just study and observe us; study yourself and your people and your culture, because you won't understand us until you've really examined

abled culture, abled ideas/ideals, and abled supremacy. You have to recognise yourselves in order to truly recognise us. Start today. We've been waiting long enough for you all to face yourselves.

The #MakeAbleistsUncomfortable hashtag is by
@MizTeeFranklin. As thanks for it, you can support her fundraiser here (CW: domestic violence, attempted kidnapping):
https://t.co/9gMpaN8bCp

#MakeAbleistsUncomfortable pretty much all of abled culture's ideas and ideals about humanity and society are profoundly ableist. Read what disabled people have written. Listen to what we have said. Start unlearning that shit now, and continue doing so.

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