Blogging Against Disablism Day 2009
I've been feeling rather burnt out of activist blogging lately. Part of me just doesn't feel like talking about isms of any kind, even ableism. I'm... bored of all that.
At the same time, though, ableism isn't bored of me. I'm sure some of you remember my searching earlier this year for private health insurance. I called several insurance companies, figuring the right thing to do would be to tell them about my disability, and get its affecting my premiums overwith.
Regardless of my repeated insistence that my disability is mild, I got the curt response not that my premiums would cost more, but that I was ineligible for any coverage at all.
I finally got someone to quote me something. Said person suggested what I'd been thinking all along: that coverage shouldn't be denied me.
We talk a lot in the blogoverse about the more subtle effects of isms. We discuss what motivates "offhand" remarks, what drives distasteful social trends, etc. And that can lead to burnout easily, or at least it can for me. I'm tired of the endless "what drives people to do/want/wear X?" discussions.
But the thing to remember, and it's hard to remember when we're in the umpteenth "should women shave their legs?" or "it's not okay to use 'gay' as an insult" discussion, is that isms haven't just become mild annoyances to gab about on blogs. Sometimes big things happen... like not getting health insurance.
It turned out all right for me, but it only did because I proved to some sympathetic guy from some big insurance company that I'm not that disabled after all. This is entirely backwards, and means the only reason I don't have to pay out of pocket for my health care (or crowd ERs) is, essentially, my passing privilege.
That's flat out wrong, and even dangerous.