Privilege and Intersectionality
Dis(ability) and Ableism
Able-ism is a form of discrimination or prejudice against individuals with disabilities (mental, emotional, and/or physical). Able-ism maintains an assumption that people with physical and/or mental disabilities are not normal individuals. An able-ism society is said to be one that treats nondisabled individuals as the standard of “normal living,” which results in public and private places and services, education, and social work that are built to serve “standard, normal” people, thereby inherently excluding those with various disabilities. Examples of able-ism include inaccessible public buildings, inflexible height of tables and counters, unusable transportation systems, and segregated education. Examples of ability privilege include the certainty that theaters, mass transportation, and entertainment venues will provide comfortable and convenient seating arrangements for “normal” people.
From: Thompson, Sherwood. "Able-ism." In Encyclopedia of Diversity and Social Justice, edited by Sherwood Thompson. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2014. https://rider.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/rowmandasj/able_ism/0?institutionId=3526
Six disabled people of color smile and pose in front of a concrete wall. Five people stand in the back, with the Black woman in the center holding up a chalkboard sign reading "disabled and here." A South Asian person in a wheelchair sits in front. CC 4.0 by Disabled and Here.
Explorations in Diversity: Examining the Complexities of Privilege, Discrimination, and Oppression by Call Number: EBOOK and LC205 .A52 2018 (Moore Stacks)ISBN: 0190617047Publication Date: 2018-01-09See chapters: Stories of Differently Abled and Ableism. Diving greatly : reflections on ableism / Jessica Lloyd-Hazlett -- Dirty secrets, unholy unions, and death sentences : disability-based oppression and privilege / Paul E. Priester with Karla Ivankovich
A Disability History of the United States by
The first book to cover the entirety of disability history, from pre-1492 to the present Disability is not just the story of someone we love or the story of whom we may become; rather it is undoubtedly the story of our nation. Covering the entirety of US history from pre-1492 to the present, A Disability History of the United States is the first book to place the experiences of people with disabilities at the center of the American narrative. In many ways, it's a familiar telling. In other ways, however, it is a radical repositioning of US history. By doing so, the book casts new light on familiar stories, such as slavery and immigration, while breaking ground about the ties between nativism and oralism in the late nineteenth century and the role of ableism in the development of democracy. A Disability History of the United States pulls from primary-source documents and social histories to retell American history through the eyes, words, and impressions of the people who lived it. As historian and disability scholar Nielsen argues, to understand disability history isn't to narrowly focus on a series of individual triumphs but rather to examine mass movements and pivotal daily events through the lens of varied experiences. Throughout the book, Nielsen deftly illustrates how concepts of disability have deeply shaped the American experience-from deciding who was allowed to immigrate to establishing labor laws and justifying slavery and gender discrimination. Included are absorbing-at times horrific-narratives of blinded slaves being thrown overboard and women being involuntarily sterilized, as well as triumphant accounts of disabled miners organizing strikes and disability rights activists picketing Washington. Engrossing and profound, A Disability History of the United States fundamentally reinterprets how we view our nation's past- from a stifling master narrative to a shared history that encompasses us all.
Call Number: HV1553 .N54 2012 (Moore Stacks)ISBN: 0807022020Publication Date: 2012-10-02
Academic Ableism: Disability and Higher Education by Call Number: EBOOKISBN: 047205371XPublication Date: 2017-11-22Academic Ableism brings together disability studies and institutional critique to recognize the ways that disability is composed in and by higher education, and rewrites the spaces, times, and economies of disability in higher education to place disability front and center. For too long, argues Jay Timothy Dolmage, disability has been constructed as the antithesis of higher education, often positioned as a distraction, a drain, a problem to be solved. The ethic of higher education encourages students and teachers alike to accentuate ability, valorize perfection, and stigmatize anything that hints at intellectual, mental, or physical weakness, even as we gesture toward the value of diversity and innovation. Examining everything from campus accommodation processes, to architecture, to popular films about college life, Dolmage argues that disability is central to higher education, and that building more inclusive schools allows better education for all.
