#this is ok to reblog because seeing posts like this actually helped me to reframe my own experiences

[disabledunitypunk]

[Image ID: a post by wolfmoonjournal with a picture of a page reading: (title)"Two Beers and a Puppy": A Helpful Test for Determining How You Feel About Someone (body)"Two Beers and a Puppy" is a test that I devel oped while working on an Esquire story on the American "son of a bitch. The test is: In order to find out how you actually feel about someone, ask yourself, "Would I have two beers with this person!" And: "Would I allow this person to look after my puppy over a weekend?" Some people are no and no. These people are to be avoided at all costs. Some people are yes and no. These peo- ple are to be cautiously trusted. Some people are no and ye. These people are no fun but they make the world a better place-for puppies, especially. And some people are yes and yes. These people are wonderful people and your fe and work are better for having them in your life. Seek them out. Collaborate with them. Enjoy their company wolfmoonjournal then comments This has been going around my work and friend group on other platforms, and I thought it deserved a place here too. archdemoning then reblogs with tags saying #fit's a good limitus test. take out the specifics of drinking or not drinking alcohol vs owning a dog or not #it's basically 1) would you spend an evening laughing and enjoying conversation with someone and walking away like that was good: #and 2) do you trust this person has a basic level of willingness and ability to care for others and repay your trusting in them? Wit's just getting you to tap into the unconscious micro-tells our brains collect about other people #which are by far the most accurate assessment tools we have to judge peoples' characters on the fly and in general (via purplehawke) thegreenmeridian then says Shoutout to that time someone posted this on one of my servers and multiple people were going "this is exclusionary to people who don't drink/are allergic to dogs, also it is ableist to expect me to understand the concept of an analogy" Like yes ok I would definitely have neither 2 beers with you nor leave a puppy with any of you /end ID]

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Okay, but were they saying "it's ableist to expect me to understand the concept of an analogy" or were they rightfully upset that when they took it literally you made fun of them, shit on them, or got overly angry at them for MISSING a metaphor, which some people in fact DO struggle to catch and understand? If you had just said "hey, I get what you mean, but what I meant was [good explanation that was provided in the tags], if you reframe it that way does that help? It was meant as a metaphor" would they have been chill?

Because if they'd still be bitey about it, yeah, I wouldn't share a beverage, food, OR time with them OR trust them with a task involving caring for others. But I'm SO USED TO people twisting the words of disabled people and taking them out of context to make it look like we're saying something completely ridiculous and shut down discussions of our actual struggles and oppression than I'm willing to bet I wouldn't even consider giving you the time of day after seeing which one it was. -_-

Also literally, EXPECTING everyone to get metaphors without being told they are not literally, especially when phrased in a way that a literal read makes sense, and then making fun of them or getting mad at them for making a single damn MISTAKE based on the way their brain naturally interprets things??? Yeah, that's fucking ableism.

You ever listened to a neurodivergent person talk about the trauma they went through as kids? This is one of the main. fucking. things!! We had to be explicitly TAUGHT to recognize and understand metaphors, and some of us still struggle with it! Hell, neurotypical kids had to be taught too, their brains are just naturally more able to "get it" in some cases.

Don't @ me about this because I struggled as a kid but in fact I do get, use (even overuse), and love metaphors nowadays! But I spent YEARS dealing with adults going "why don't you get it. it's obvious. you should know this already," when I DIDN'T AND COULDN'T AND THAT WAS THEIR FAILURE, NOT MINE.

Perpetuating that treatment with traumatized adults because they made a mistake, or yes, even are truly incapable of understanding metaphor, is ableism, asshat.

"Is it ableism to expect an adult to [be able to] do/understand-"

Let me stop you right there. If you're asking if it's ableism to expect someone to do something - mentally or physically, as even something like understanding is a neurological process - then yes! It's fucking ableism! Because there's virtually nothing that's impossible for a disabled person to be unABLE to do, and especially one of the neurodivergent DISABILITY symptoms that's so common as to be a stereotype.

(No, it's not a false stereotype. It's less common than the stereotype suggests, mind you, but I'm not going to throw my siblings with that symptom under the bus because of it.)

Next time maybe just take the time to EXPLAIN to someone instead of basically saying "lol these id*ots think it's ableist to judge them for not being able to immediately understand this actually fairly complex concept that requires significant critical thought without help just because I falsely think I'm really good at the same concept (which, even if they were good at reading comprehension would be just as bad, but it adds some irony due to their hypocrisy)".

Anyway tl;dr I wouldn't share a cup of piss or entrust a pet rock to the person saying that, given that they are in fact a massive ableist and are likely even worse than we have full context for given the prevalence of the ableism bad faith misinterpretations and manipulative reframing of them as a form of ableism itself used to shut down discussions of ableism overall.

Oh, and bonus, aside from the whole "this isn't a clear metaphor and I'm reinterpreting your words in the worst faith possible and making fun of you for not understanding something...

Some people are incapable of the puppy one, even at a metaphorical level, because they are too disabled to take care of even the simplest living creature. Hell, "trust to do a task" can be something you can't do with severely disabled people. AND some people are often unable to give you their time, especially in person nowadays but sometimes even over safely distanced video calls and such. They should be ACTIVELY AVOIDED because they're not able to spend time with you?

I get that this wasn't the point the original was making, because it didn't consider the nuances of the disabled experience. People rarely do. This is about abled people. And yes, you can make an argument about "people I want to spend time with even if they can't always" vs "people I don't" or "people I need to rely on for tasks" vs "people I don't", but perhaps you should check and make SURE you're not in fact being biased by ableism into not wanting to hang out with good caring friends because they can't often do so, or relying on them for tasks they've told you they can't do but you're putting on them anyway.

Nearly every disabled person with more than minimal support needs has experienced the "friend exodus" when they become disabled/chronically ill. A video call becomes an "inconvenience" when it's really just that the abled person has a preference to hang out in person despite doing so quite literally being less convenient (and often, they are not safe for an immunocompromised person to be around).

Many of the same people have also experienced the "oh of course you can do it/you used to be able to so you need to now/you're the only one who can do it so you need to magically overcome your disability and do so/well do you just not do [chore] in your own home (what do you think home help aides are for?!?)/well you did it the other day (yes, with serious health consequences, and/or as someone whose abilities fluctuate from day to day".

Like I'm not sorry that I'm not sorry. Abled people shut up forever. Disabled people with low support needs and relative privilege? Stay in your lane and STOP with the assimilationist "well I'm disabled and I can do this/don't need this/don't think I'm perpetrating lateral ableism against disabled people with higher support needs". If you've been guilty of this (as I myself have been in the past!) just fucking apologize and do better! Don't DOUBLE DOWN because you refuse to face up to your own guilt and remorse!

Yes, all that is a reading of what the author said that wasn't intended and isn't present in the text. Knowing that is reading comprehension, and how's that for critical thought? Expanding on how a passage exhibits indirect bias influenced by disabled erasure and influences and shapes the attitudes of people who ARE ableist because of THEIR pre-existing biases... y'know, I get the urge to make fun, because I'm also pissed the fuck off, but actually I'll not give into the urge to do so because that would be hypocritical and ableist.

Instead I will say if you would like me to expand on that, or explain it better, or honestly use simpler language because I know I use high level words all the time, I am genuinely ALWAYS happy to talk about it with you and help people understand.

My frustration is with the people who do understand but wilfully refuse to genuinely engage with it and listen and have a real dialogue, and instead get defensive and double down on their ableism - and the second part is the part I have an issue with. I can't actually tell if someone is being ableist because they genuinely don't understand - in which case they need to ask questions or simply not speak over us as if they are an expert - or because they are pretending not to (which is a behavior I recognize from my past self, hence naming it at all).

It's not really about the understanding. It's about how you respond to it. Naming both is important because to be better, people need to respond to them differently. They need to recognize whether they are getting defensive over a genuine struggle to understand what someone means or over a denying a recognition of their own complicity in ableism. Each has a slightly different solution, but both boil down to not asserting that the person complaining about ableism is wrong and either asking questions or doing some damn introspection to make sure you root out your OWN ableist biases and are a better ally (as an abled person) or not hindering disabled liberation by being an assimilationist (as a disabled person).

Anyway look out for an essay eventually on the specific phenomenon of this manipulation of disabled people's conversations on ableism to shut them down. We will have it up as soon as the hyperfocus strikes.

#ableism #we changed the ID format slightly so feel free to give us feedback #if you're here to whine about how 'everything is ableism' btw yeah. ableism is in fact super pervasive. it is in fact everywhere #the more you listen to disabled people of all kinds the more you realize just how badly ableist our world is #and then you start to realize that YOU'VE been ableist and yeah that fucking sucks #the RIGHT thing to do though is say 'oh fuck I'm sorry' and then work to do better #I don't exactly believe in simplifying people to 'good' and 'bad' but in that moment that you double down instead of doing the right thing #you are in fact not ACTING as a 'good' person and are in fact DOING a bad thing