Piss On Pity

How I wish I'd made up that phrase. It's just so raw and pithy. How it stands up to the telethon and to all of those who would patronize, denigrate, and otherwise unload their prejudice on disabled people. As it is, however, Johnny Crescendo seems to be its originator; my 10 cents of verbal fame will have to wait for a more inspired day. In the meantime, onto the topic of my 2009 BADD post.

So, OK. No. No pity. No need to get your juices going, the tearducts flowing. No pity. And certainly not sympathy. Not at least as we most frequently and colloquially use it: a kind of sad feeling to express how you are affected (moved, even -- link to Goldfish's post on Susan Boyle) by the sorrow, suffering, and affliction of a disabled person. No. Not sympathy or pity. I'mfunnytoo has a great post for BADD on not assuming. No, don't do that either.

But what about empathy, you say? That's a good thing, right? That just means "feel with," "understand," "see from your point of view?" Empathy: the idea that you can understand, get, feel with, etc. someone else's feelings.

Be careful with that whole empathy thing, I say. It's not just about you walking a mile in my shoes. The risk comes with how you get there, how you shoehorn yourself into those objects of art and how you tie the laces.

As I see it, there are two approaches, two kinds of empathy. The OED describes the first as "[t]he power of projecting one's personality into (and so fully comprehending) the object of contemplation" (subscription only). It's a risky approach, because the more you project your personality into whatever, the more likely it is that the "fully comprehending" part will fail. In other words, if you put yourself in my shoes, you have done nothing more than put yourself in my shoes. You are still yourself, with all your graces and flaws. Shoes don't make the person. Lord knows, I've tried buying myself a pair of shoes for every different/possible imagining of myself; it just doesn't work: personhood isn't born in footwear.

Oh, what, you totally identify? No, please don't. Get outta ma junk. Eeeuw. Identifying with me, with my disability doesn't do it, either. Mostly for the same reasons. You identify -- but is that because you see me or is it because you blend and thereby erase me into some extended version of you? In which direction is the movement?

That last phrase is important to me. Because other descriptions of empathy mention vicarious experience. This one is from Merriam Webster: "the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner..." As I see it -- yeah, I know. It's not how it's usually done. As I see it, the idea of vicarious experience takes you from you to me. There's no projection or identification or putting of self in shoes. There's an idea of experience -- imaginative participation in, imaginatively realized.

Let me break it down a little. At first glance, it looks like a finicky line and useless distinction. After all, imaginatively living something vicariously doesn't half run the risk of allowing the imaginer to imagine unrestrictedly with all that ableist baggage running amok. No. My version of vicarious experience has a little more action and a little less self.

You wanna know? Really? You wanna know? Get yourself in touch with a disabled colleague. What? No one? For real? How about a family member? Come on. Seriously? OK, then. How about you sign yourself up for some kind of awareness/diversity training.

STOP. No! Geez Louise (whoever she may be!) Not the kind where you sit in a wheelchair, tie a bandanna around your head, and wear earplugs all at once for a day. That's the same kind of thing. That's you running around without the skills to live, without the awareness of the history and culture, that's YOU running around in YOUR self-built nightmare. That's not the world we live in. Disability is so inaccessible? (chokes). Oh, the irony. Oh, the goddam bitter irony. (breathes).

Disability, as we know it, is inaccessible to you because you -- yes, you -- cannot see it; you can only see you; your underdeveloped empathy is the source of this block.

You wanna know?

Get out of your head; get with a real disabled person.

You are not honouring us with your imaginations.

If your job is to write a story about disability, listen to what that person says -- write it. Don't change a word.

BUT also do your research. That's one person's experience; how does it fit with other people's experience?

If your job is to work with a disabled client, let them set the terms. Truly, they will always know their disability better than you.

If you are on the street and you see a disabled person coming towards you; look her in the eye as you speak to her.

Make someone's acquaintance. Walk alongside her -- she'll wear her shoes, you can wear yours. Together, you can piss on the pity of others. You don't have to take their crap.

I wish I had the power to coin slogans and catchphrases. If I did, I would probably work on Madison Avenue (location of many ad offices). Piss on Pity. By all means. Excrete on Empathy? no. Evacuate Empathy? Probably not. Except when you take yourself, your fears, your prejudices, your shit out of the picture.



post contains a picture of a small pile of some of my shoes.