My partner has disabilities and so they do not help lift the sofa. But they are a lot better at driving a manual truck than I am, so with a few pillows and adaptations in the driver’s cab that is what they do when someone needs a sofa moved. Some disabilities prevent you from driving the truck too, but it’s important as a group of sofa movers to make sure that everyone has something they can fulfill, even if that means planning the move. That can be incredibly helpful.
Comment on How to move a sofa
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 1 week agoCan we do that without the latent ableism that comes along with it, like the idea that if you can’t help people move couches then you don’t deserve anyone else’s help either?
This especially effects people with invisible disabilities, who are already viewed as lazy, but who also might be the most helpless when it comes to moving their own furniture.
infinitesunrise@slrpnk.net 1 week ago
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 1 week ago
Anecdotes and exceptions don’t justify the erasure of marginalia.
Like, why don’t all blind people just become famous musicians so that they can be rich? Ray Charles did it.
No one in their right mind would think that means blind people don’t require assistance/accomodations.
Your partner has disabilities but can drive a stick shift? Great. I guess the rest of us disabled people just need to bootstrap a little harder?
protist@retrofed.com 1 week ago
I don’t think we understand your point or how it relates to this post
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 1 week ago
Exactly. You don’t, and you’re unwilling to hear perspectives that conflict with your own, so you never will. That’s only reinforcing the erasure of already-invisible marginalia. The whole point of what I’m saying.
axx@slrpnk.net 1 week ago
I think we all understand you are angry and I hope respect that. But saying it’s nice and good when people are helpful doesn’t imply that peiple who can’t help are not nice and good. There’s some kind of logical fallacy in that interpretation of it.
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 1 week ago
It’s not just about whether a person can help about and whether that makes them nice and good.
It’s more about, there are people who get left out of society and they would struggle to find the help we need if we leave it entirely up to the good will of people helping their neighbors.
There needs to be more structured support, like taxpayer-funded programs designed to help everyone to receive the support they need, including (and especially) the people who are the most disadvantaged.
Helping your neighbor is good and shouldn’t go away. But we shouldn’t rely on that as a society to help the people who need it most. And we certainly shouldn’t glorify a society that does depend on that, instead of funding structured social support programs that make a point not to leave anyone out who needs help.
GalacticGrapefruit@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Cool thing about being disabled is you become the one who knows the people with a truck and a couple 20-year old children. Or the person who cuts hair for free. Or the person whose cousin does pro bono legal work for certain requests.
In short, you become the key connector in that network: the Guy Who Knows A Guy.
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 1 week ago
It sounds like you’re putting a lot of weight in your own experience and assuming every disabled person will have the same experience.
Maybe you or someone you know is disabled and is that connector who knows a guy. But projecting that and assuming every other disabled person will have that same advantage is a wild thing to do, and I’m surprised that more people don’t see through that.
TessaRekt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 week ago
It’s less an advantage and more a necessity. You either become the person who knows people who can do things or certain things don’t get done.
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 1 week ago
Yes, you’re right about that. And that’s precisely why people who can’t form those connections are at such a disadvantage.
BCsven@lemmy.ca 6 days ago
My wife has a physical disability, she is an “asker”, as in knows she will need help from others and so will ask random people, and also connects a lot of people together. Maybe not everyone becomes that, but it sort of forces you to.
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 5 days ago
Why is everyone relying so hard on using specific counterexamples as a counterargument?
Counterexamples only refute absolute statements. If I said “no one with a disability can find the help they need in this kind of system,” then sure, listing a few people with disabilities who do find the help they need would be enough to refute that statement.
But that’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is “not everyone (including, but not limited to people with disabilities) can find the help they need in this kind of system.”
It’s a completely different statement, because it’s not an absolute. I’m not saying that no exceptions exist. I’m saying that exceptions do exist to the opposite statement, i.e. “everyone (including people with disabilities) can find the help they beed in this kind of system.” Which, by the way, is an absolute statement.
So in fact I’m the one arguing against an absolute, and people try refuting me as if I’m stating an absolute when I’m not.
And unless anyone wants to argue that every single person in this system is able to find the help they need when they need it, then there’s really no way to argue against my point, because my entire point is simply that that’s not true. There are people who get left out, and any attempt to claim otherwise is erasure.
Dozzi92@lemmy.world 1 week ago
You better come with some jokes then. When I’m moving some bulky furniture upstairs and really not having a good time, sometimes a well-timed joke is exactly what we need to drop it and injure ourselves.
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 1 week ago
Was this supposed to be an attempt at a joke?
OryxAndCake@slrpnk.net 1 week ago
If you want to be included by people, try to be less of a dick.
This isn’t me talking about the wider disabled community, of which I am part of, when I say this btw, this is me talking to you.
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 1 week ago
Okay, while you’re jerking off the dicks driving big-ass little-dick trucks, I guess I’ll try being nicer to those assholes while they honk their horns at pedestrians, double-park or park on crosswalks, and all that other shit that they do and everyone knows they do because they’re doing it in big-ass trucks and it’s not subtle.
Especially the ones rolling coal and flying trump flags. Should I try to be less of a dick to them to? I don’t want to be included in whatever they’ve got going on. I certainly would never ask one to help move furniture. Their trucks are only for show anyway…
FudgyMcTubbs@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Kevin and Tony would definitely move a sofa for a person with disabilities. No doubt in my mind. They’d still expect pizza and beer tho, that’s non-negotiable.
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 1 week ago
Okay well what about when they ask that person later if they’ll help move Tony’s fridge? Like this un-negotiated yet obligatory repayment. If you say “sorry, I can’t” then they’ll immediately lose respect for you, and probably tell everyone they know not to help you in the future. Even if you explain that you have a condition that prevents you, if that condition isn’t visible to them they’ll think you’re just selfish and making excuses.
Also, are you willing to guarantee that Kevin and Tony aren’t racist or homophobic? Are you willing to guarantee they would help move a sofa for someone who’s gay or black? This is about more than just disabilities.
This is about “good ole boy” culture and relying on the benevolence and altruism of people who likely as not only care about helping people they view as a part of their in-group. And if you think that’s not a real problem in america, then you must not live here because it’s literally all over the place here.
FudgyMcTubbs@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Maybe they’d judge you, maybe they wouldn’t. No way of knowing. Sorry that you feel so mistreated by hypothetical strangers. I wasn’t attempting to drum up any sort of trauma for you. I’m sending some lovingkindness out into the world for all living beings right now, and I hope you can get a little hit of it too. Be well.
Boost@lemmy.world 1 week ago
I think it’s kind of ablist to assume a disabled person has nothing of value to offer, like if they can’t move a couch then they are excluded. “Moving a couch” could be anything, it could be filing taxes or cooking a meal. Disabled people are good at stuff too. I think it’s really weird for you to make this assumption.
ricecake@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
Honestly it’s both. Plenty of people with disabilities have plenty to offer. A lot actually don’t though, and they still deserve that helping hand.
A family aquatintance has some mental and physical disabilities. They’re just not going to be able to help in any way that isn’t superficial. And that’s okay. Their worth isn’t defined by their utility.
Attaching how worthwhile it is to help someone to their ability to provide a service inherently says the person who can’t isn’t worthy of help.
We should be good to people because it’s the right thing to do, not out of the expectation of a future repayment. More pragmatically, we should help based on the assumption that the other person would, and that if everyone acted like that the world would be better.
I think the other person read a bit much into it, but their base point isn’t wrong.
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 1 week ago
Thank you! You phrased it better than I could.
I find it wild that most people here can’t see through their own assumptions. Like, everyone else needs to examine their own biases. Not them though, they could never be biased. It shows such a lack of self-awareness on their part.
ricecake@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
My dad had a prosthetic leg, and he bristled at some of the polite or accepting ways that people would talk about disability in a way that stuck with me because he explained it. Basically a dislike of “handicapable” or the notion that you “make up for it” in other ways. To paraphrase: “getting my foot cut off in a car accident didn’t come with some perk that balanced things out”.
I think a lot of the pushback you got came not from a place of rejecting that they could have a bias, but from the topic being broached as a confrontation of bias instead of an explanation of ignorance.
People, like the poster above, who are being conscientious according to their understanding will get indignant or frustrated when that’s met with an unmatched response.
Assuming positive intent colors implicit “positive abelism”, or other “positive -isms” that I’m personally less knowledgeable about, as unfamiliarity or ignorance rather than callousness or rudeness.
In those cases, the person is very unlikely to disagree or pushback if informed about their blind spot. The key part in their head was “disabled people are just as important”, sitting right next to “good people chip in and contribute”. So they respond to “disabled people can’t always contribute” with “disabled people are important!” phrased as "disabled people can contribute!”.
Addressing it as a bias against disabled people doesn’t fit because that part is correct. Need to address it at where the problem is: a misconception about the relationship between human worth, labor and utility.
axx@slrpnk.net 1 week ago
I agree. Even if the task at hand really is moving a couch, coordinatin, organising, etc. are crucial contributions that dont require physical strength or ableness to do.
Postmortal_Pop@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Just because you can’t lift the couch doesn’t mean you can’t help. Someone has to pick up the beer, someone has to drive the truck. Someone needs to hold the doors while they carry it in, someone needs to know a guy who can help, the list of things goes on for miles.
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 1 week ago
What I think is ableist is that you would try to pretend that disabled people don’t get excluded due to society devaluing the things they can offer.
It’s also ableist for you to suggest that a disabled person should be expected to file someone else’s taxes if they need help moving furniture.
You just gave a master class in missing the point.
NihilsineNefas@slrpnk.net 1 week ago
The same way it isn’t about the couch, it isn’t about the taxes
To each according to their means, to each according to their needs was
Or in brocialism terms “Autism be damned my boy can work a grill”
Every metaphor breaks down if you read it at face value
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 1 week ago
Okay, that’s fine and all, but “brocialism” will never be enough because it depends so strongly on a person’s personal connection. It’s not “to each accord to their needs” it’s “to each according to their connections.”
If you don’t see how that disproportionally benefits and privileges in-groups then I don’t know how much clearer I can break it down for you. A socialist society needs mechanisms in place to take care of those who would be forgotten by “brocialism” alone.
Maybe the system works for autistic people who can grill, but what about autistic people who can spend two hours explaining the history of North Rhine-Westphalia or Star Trek lore or any other special interest? You think someone with a truck will view that as an equivalent exchange?
Mind you, I’m not saying their talents are worthless. I’m telling you my experience as a neurodivergent person that most people view these things as lacking value and will marginalize anyone whose contributions consist exclusively of talents that most people consider worthless.
Assuming every autistic person can grill or contribute something that neurotypical people value as having worth is wrong because it marginalizes those who fall outside of that limited group, and because it reinforces the system and the idea that people need to be able to contribute something deemed valuable before they deserve to receive help.
And if you can’t see how that disadvantages the people whose disabilities are the most severe, then I don’t know what will get through to you.