Current mood:	sad
Entry tags:	autism, disability, disability fail, fandom & disability, fandom: star trek, non-neurotypical, recommended reading

Recomended Reading: Things That Are On My Mind edition
At starbase_idic, an older post that's on my mind after last night's ... poorly-thought out comment by a nice able-bodied straight white boy who's off to law school in the fall:

Portrayals of People with Disabilities in Star Trek

And finally -- in the 23rd century, is this the best they could do in terms of assistive technology for an honored fleet captain?

Really? A wheelchair with blinking lights?

Geordi La Forge and Ablism Bingo

Gah! I could win at Ablism Bingo just by going through this one paragraph alone:


(B) A life-long disability that could only be "overcome" by the gift of technology.
(I) Living with the painful treatment is better than living with the pain-free disability
(N) "Overcoming" the disability and living with the pain is symbolic of a greater and deeper spiritual strength, and/or intelligence
(G) Being "happy," (or having 'satisfaction with life') even though disabled, makes a person Special
(O) A person's disability is the first, and most important, factor in the development of that person's psychology.

There are... two lights!

The video is particularly appalling, as it demonstrates that the gist of this little "keepsake" is that Kirk and Spock talk to each other over the inert, furniture-like Pike. They discuss Pike's fate and what they'll do with him (he gets no say in the matter), and the most he can do is flash his little light and beep with a vocabulary more limited that R2-D2's.

Moving away from Sci-Fi: The Fear of Disability Writ Large (for the moment):

Katmaki wrote a post about taking her son to his IEP meeting, Awkard! (IEP, if I recall correctly, is Integrated Education Plan?) (I recalled wrong - it's Individualized Education Plan. Thanks sparkymonster) (Movie Boy, her son, has Autism.)

In response to last week’s incident in the bathroom, his case manager pulled a security video (unbenknowst to me) and reviewed it. She reported to me in today’s meeting that instead of “no adults” in the area as Movie Boy reported, she “counted 11 adults in the video.”

This tidbit was thrown out there to emphasize that Movie Boy failed to ask the adults in his environment for help. I was supposed to gasp in awe at this revelation and suddenly understand that its not the school that’s not doing their job, but Movie Boy who is not doing his.

My response?

“If there were 11 adults in proximity, why didn’t any of them help Movie Boy? Why does any child feel empowered to block a bathroom door and slam a child against a wall with so many adults around?”

lauredhel made a comment at Feministe about CFS that I thought particularly interesting, here:

This is virulently damaging to people with CFS not just because of the stigma of malingering and all of the issues that go with that (including denial of disability benefits), but also because we get offered “treatments” that don’t work and/or are actively harmful - inappropriate psychotherapy targeted at “challenging faulty illness beliefs”, graded non-paced exercise programmes, and so on.

I think I need to end this post with something cheerful.

I have nothing cheerful open.

Here, have a picture of a cow: