Listening: It really isn't that hard.
Psychophobia.
Also called mentalism. Both are terms I learned just recently. They describe far better than more generic terms like "ableism" the deeply-rooted societal prejudice against, fear of, and hatred for people who have or are perceived to have brain disorders/mental illnesses. The prejudice that keeps many people like me trapped in poverty, powerless before family and doctors and socially silenced and ostracized.
There are many facets to this evil, but one that I see the most is the cavalier way in which people throw around terms like "crazy," "psycho," "psychopath," "nuts," "loony," etc. I am by no means innocent of this, and few people are. That's how deeply instilled psychophobia is in all of us, even those of us who live with mental illnesses.
Still, it doesn't hurt or upset me any less when I see people using these words. Particularly when they do it -- intentionally or not -- in anti-racism, anti-sexism, anti-homophobia, anti-any -ism work. And tonight, when I saw a casual mention of the word over on
racebending, a community set up to address racist casting in the live action movie of Avatar: The Last Airbender, my tolerance just came to an end. And I called the moderator out -- politely, you know me -- saying that this was psychophobic, hurtful and actually detrimental to the cause, because it alienated one underprivileged group while trying to fight against that very same thing.
Given how disrespectfully I and many mentally ill people are treated when we try to stand up for ourselves, I expected a lot of blustering from other community members, accusations that I was being oversensitive, that the word "wasn't used that way." You know the drill.
Instead, I got a simple apology from the mod (who made the post), and an edit. Immediately. No "buts" about it.
Folks, I can't tell you how amazingly classy and right on that was.
I don't know anything at all about
teh_boulder. Except this: s/he's a very awesome person who not only owns her/his words, but is courageous and upright enough not to freak out when s/he has made an (entirely innocent, I'm sure) error. And someone who is willing to welcome "crazies" like me into the protest of the live action film, and admit that our struggle for dignity and respect is valid.
That is how you change things, I think. One person at a time who is willing to, as they say it, "OMG Whitey/Guy/Hetero/Normie, STFU and listen!"teh_boulder edited the post instead of arguing with me or getting defensive. How many people watching racebending saw him/her do that who are mentally ill themselves (or have a loved one who is), or who had never thought about prejudice against the mentally ill being real and who are now rethinking things?
For everyone complaining about how listening to people of color is OMG SO IMPOSSIBLE in Racefail: take a look at this. Do you see how easy and painless this was? And how it validated me as a person? And how it built a bridge between anti-racism work and anti-psychophobia work?
Sorry I'm getting so emotional, here. It's just not very often that I'm taken seriously (outside of my own blog) when I bring up topics like this in conversation. It tends to give a girl a bit of a "complex."
I wish that we could have more conversations like this, more listening, and more respect regardless of the -ism or -phobia we're talking about.
And though I don't believe in giving cookies, I do believe in thanking people for doing the right thing when it would have been very easy to just walk all over someone's soul. And hey, it has been a terrible week, I've been depressed for most of it, and this made my night, so why not be thankful? So, thank you,teh_boulder. You're good people.
Also called mentalism. Both are terms I learned just recently. They describe far better than more generic terms like "ableism" the deeply-rooted societal prejudice against, fear of, and hatred for people who have or are perceived to have brain disorders/mental illnesses. The prejudice that keeps many people like me trapped in poverty, powerless before family and doctors and socially silenced and ostracized.
There are many facets to this evil, but one that I see the most is the cavalier way in which people throw around terms like "crazy," "psycho," "psychopath," "nuts," "loony," etc. I am by no means innocent of this, and few people are. That's how deeply instilled psychophobia is in all of us, even those of us who live with mental illnesses.
Still, it doesn't hurt or upset me any less when I see people using these words. Particularly when they do it -- intentionally or not -- in anti-racism, anti-sexism, anti-homophobia, anti-any -ism work. And tonight, when I saw a casual mention of the word over on
racebending, a community set up to address racist casting in the live action movie of Avatar: The Last Airbender, my tolerance just came to an end. And I called the moderator out -- politely, you know me -- saying that this was psychophobic, hurtful and actually detrimental to the cause, because it alienated one underprivileged group while trying to fight against that very same thing.Given how disrespectfully I and many mentally ill people are treated when we try to stand up for ourselves, I expected a lot of blustering from other community members, accusations that I was being oversensitive, that the word "wasn't used that way." You know the drill.
Instead, I got a simple apology from the mod (who made the post), and an edit. Immediately. No "buts" about it.
Folks, I can't tell you how amazingly classy and right on that was.
I don't know anything at all about
teh_boulder. Except this: s/he's a very awesome person who not only owns her/his words, but is courageous and upright enough not to freak out when s/he has made an (entirely innocent, I'm sure) error. And someone who is willing to welcome "crazies" like me into the protest of the live action film, and admit that our struggle for dignity and respect is valid.That is how you change things, I think. One person at a time who is willing to, as they say it, "OMG Whitey/Guy/Hetero/Normie, STFU and listen!"
teh_boulder edited the post instead of arguing with me or getting defensive. How many people watching racebending saw him/her do that who are mentally ill themselves (or have a loved one who is), or who had never thought about prejudice against the mentally ill being real and who are now rethinking things?For everyone complaining about how listening to people of color is OMG SO IMPOSSIBLE in Racefail: take a look at this. Do you see how easy and painless this was? And how it validated me as a person? And how it built a bridge between anti-racism work and anti-psychophobia work?
Sorry I'm getting so emotional, here. It's just not very often that I'm taken seriously (outside of my own blog) when I bring up topics like this in conversation. It tends to give a girl a bit of a "complex."
I wish that we could have more conversations like this, more listening, and more respect regardless of the -ism or -phobia we're talking about.
And though I don't believe in giving cookies, I do believe in thanking people for doing the right thing when it would have been very easy to just walk all over someone's soul. And hey, it has been a terrible week, I've been depressed for most of it, and this made my night, so why not be thankful? So, thank you,
teh_boulder. You're good people.