Hey look, I'm hosting a blog carnival!!!

Hey all, I am THRILLED to be hosting the January edition of the Disability Blog Carnival!!!!!!!!!! What is the DBC, you ask??? Oh, my dear, you have been deprived! The DBC is, quite frankly, a collection of posts on disability and a specific theme. The theme, and the host, changes from month to month, and I am humbled and honored to be hosting the first disability blog carnival of the new year. The theme I have chosen is LET YOUR FREAK FLAG FLY, taken from the title of a song in one of the Shrek movies, and one of my favorite songs of all time. Write about a time when you openly and proudly identified as a person with a disabilty, or, if you're a non-disabled ally, write about a time when you were proud to stand by us. Or....you could make it into a musing on the word "freak" itself, and related words. Do they help us? Hurt us? Is it wrong to call ourselves freaks, spazzes, and gimps? Or is it empowering? Or......something else!! I'm flexible - as long as you can justify it fitting the theme, I'm good. I'm aiming to get the blog carnival up on Martin Luther King day, to honor a great activist. That is January 17th, so try and get the posts to me by then. But I know as well as anybody how writer's block and other obligations can delay a post, so if you can't get the post to me by then, no biggie, I'll just add it to the lineup later. And if the muse is on your side this month, and you want to do more than one post, by all means, go for it! Post the link to your submissions as a comment to this post, or if there's some sort of problem with that, you can email me at caraliebowitz@gmail.com. Happy blogging!!!!!

"We spend our whole lives wishing,

we weren't so freaking strange.
They made us feel that way,

but it's they who need to change.

The way they think, that is.

It's time to stop the hiding.

It's time to stand up tall.
Sing hey world, I'm different,

and here I am splinters and all!

Let your freak flag wave
Let your freak flag fly
Never take it down, never take it down
Raise it way up high!

Let your freak flag fly!

Let it fly, fly, fly!"

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Long Nights and A Beautiful Sunrise

Once upon a time.....

Once upon a time, I was scared and lonely. A lot of changes were happening in my life. I was eight years old and just coming to terms with my own disability. I realized that I was always going to be this way. I didn't have any friends who really self-identified as a person with a disability and I felt very isolated. No one could understand what I was going through, especially not my able-bodied friends at school. I broke down and cried a lot, with what I now know was a lot of anxiety. I had no disabled role models, no one to look up to, no one to tell me that things were going to be okay, and that I didn't have to feel ashamed to be this way.

My mother realized that I needed a friend like me. So, with her guidance, I traipsed into the still-fairly-mystical world of the Internet and began posting on a messageboard for kids with CP. I stipulated that I was looking for someone with mild CP, because those issues were unique to me and really what I was struggling with at the time - looking so "normal" yet still being different. A few people posted back, but no one I really connected with. And then Fate dropped an amazing gift practically in my lap. A boy with mild CP named Nate replied to my post - he was looking for someone like him, too. We struck up a lengthy correspondence first on the messageboard; then we moved to email. Eventually, I found out that he lived in my state, barely an hour away from me. We had to meet.

The first time I met Nate, I remember us both being really shy. He brought along the science project he had done on CP, where he had various able-bodied people try and accomplish various tasks while "CP-ized" in some way: i.e: fine motor tasks with gloves on, saying the Pledge of Allegiance with their tongues behind their teeth to simulate speech impairment, etc. I thought it was really cool. For the first time, I had someone who knew what it was like to "walk funny" and have difficulty with the simplest tasks. It was that day that my sun began to rise, and my metaphorical "long night" began to end.

Over the years, Nate and I grew closer and closer. He became one of my best friends, and our families became friends as well. We had many adventures together, me, Nate, my sister, and his sister. Nate and I wrote a small "book" about what it's like having CP. We roasted marshmallows together in his backyard and taught each other our favorite computer game tricks. One summer, our two families shared a rustic cabin vacation. When I made my first website, Abilities4u, Nate made t-shirts for the site and helped out in any way he could. Up until I met a few others at age 12, Nate was my only CP friend, and that made him special.

When I was 15, I convinced Nate to come to camp with me, and it changed his life in the same way it changed mine. Although we both branched out and met others with CP along the way, we never stopped being each other's best friends. And when I was 17, a close friendship suddenly blossomed into something more. Nate and I have been dating for about a year and a half and I couldn't be happier. He is the love of my life, and I will never forget that he was there for me during one of the darkest periods of my life.

Along the way, a lot of opportunities came for me through the Internet and social networking. My first website expanded and grew into something more, eventually acquiring a domain name, and helping many disabled kids and their parents, who weren't sure what to do during their dark nights. I gave them advice from personal experience, because I knew all too well what it was like to know nothing. I moved from CPKids onto other boards, like the Ouch! messageboards. I networked with other like-minded crips through Facebook. Almost a year ago, I created my second website, Mosaic Webzine. To this day, the Internet and social networking is how I keep my finger on the pulse of the crip community.

The theme for the December Disability Blog Carnival is "long nights and what we need to get through them". Initially, I had no idea what to write. I thought about writing how my anxiety has caused me many long nights in the past few months, but I couldn't find the words. I posted my dilemma on Facebook and within minutes, Stacey Milburn, better known as cripchick in the disability blogging world, suggested an idea. So this post wouldn't have happened without social networking. I feel so blessed to be a part of a community that has the ability to stay in touch, no matter where we are. I've come a long way from the scared little girl of eight, but my life is so much fuller. None of this would've happened without Nate and CPKids, and I am reminded of that every day. Now I not only have a wonderful boyfriend with CP, but countless others around the world who have come into my life. My sun has truly risen now, and I have come out of those long nights. I hope it never sets.

Me and Nate at our senior prom last June!

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International Day of Persons With Disabilities

Today is International Day of Persons With Disabilities. On this day, I encourage you all to be out and proud disabled persons, or if you are non-disabled, allies and friends of disabled persons. I know that on this day I am extremely proud to be disabled, however many hardships that may bring me, it also brings me a unique, beautiful perspective on the world and infinite opportunities I wouldn't have had otherwise.

Today we celebrate OUR history, OUR culture, and OUR accomplishments that are so often belittled and forgotten by the rest of society. Instead of remembering Rosa Parks in the front of the bus, we remember the first ADAPT action, where a bunch of feisty crips blocked the road with their chairs, demanding buses with lifts. We remember Ed Roberts, who fought for the right to go to college and have personal attendant services - and won. We mourn the loss of Laura Hershey, who contributed some of the most striking and beautiful poetry as well as a rip-roaring activist spirit to our movement.

Today we soak in OUR art and OUR talent. We dance, we sing, we create. We acknowledge that people with disabilities have contributed more than some may think to the arts and society as a whole. We are Shameless.

Today we recognize how very far we have come - and realize that we still have a long way to go. We applaud the strides that laws like the Rehabilitation Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act have made for us. But we are sobered by the fact that our civil rights - which should be set in stone - unfortunately are not, and even now our rights are threatened every day by inaccessible public places, crappy transportation, and separate and unequal treatment. On this day and every day, we continue to fight for those rights, and we will fight until we have the rights we deserve - both in principle AND in practice.

On this day, we celebrate all across the world. On this day, we are not pitied, ashamed, stereotyped or patronized. We are proud.

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Three strikes, yerrrrrrrr out!!!

My post for the November Disability Blog Carnival. Enjoy!

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Our society is very rigid in its expectations of a "normal" person. A "normal" person is white, male, straight/comfortable in their own gender and able-bodied, and very little deviance from this Norm is tolerated. It's when someone deviates from two or more of these standards that we get intersection theory - where, in a nutshell, you get treated differently the more "strikes" you have against you in society. So for instance, a lower class black woman would have three strikes against her, where as a man in the same situation would only have two.

Disability can definitely count as a strike against you. Do women with disabilities get treated differently than men with disabilities? Hell yeah!!! Women are still regarded in our society as weaker and often less capable then men - disability just adds an extra layer onto that. We have this image of a "gentleman" always helping the ladies and saving the "damsels in distress". And who is more "in distress" then a poor crippled girl? I say "girl" because I believe women with disabilities often have trouble with getting people to acknowledge their femininity, more than men and masculinity. Now, I may be biased because I am a woman with a disability; I acknowledge that. But let's face it, the stereotypical image of disability is a man using a manual wheelchair with a perfectly functional upper body. And that's so because men who have big muscles from pushing themselves around are regarded as more masculine because big muscles are a symbol of masculinity in our society. Masculinity doesn't depend so much on the lower body as femininity does. The "ideal man" is tall, dark and handsome, and has big muscles. The legs don't matter so much (as long as they're clad in a pair of sleek, form-fitting blue jeans). Whereas with women, the "ideal woman" has to be thin and beautiful, with lots of makeup, big boobs, long legs and high heels. You don't think high heels are instrumental for the "perfect woman"? Try finding a pair of shoes for senior prom that don't have any heel whatsoever and then talk to me. This "ideal man/woman" concept is also part of the reason why we have a hierarchy of disability. The image of the man using a manual chair is a lot more respected in our society then, say, a man with CP who uses a powerchair, drools, and has slurred speech. It's all about presentabiliity. As long as your legs are all that's "wrong" with you, it's a lot easier for people to accept. But move up the body, and the higher you get, the less accepted the impairment is, especially when it involves more than one part of the body. Throw gender into the mix and this hierarchy is amplified tenfold.

And what about race? I know there are a few crip bloggers out there who blog about being black or another race/ethnicity and disabled - Wheelchair Dancer comes to mind. People definitely treat black and disabled people differently then white, disabled people. Again, it doesn't fit the stereotypical image of a disabled person. Also, especially with black, disabled men, there are a lot of assumptions and misconceptions about gang violence. As Keith Jones puts it so nicely in the documentary Including Samuel, "People say, '...When did you get shot?' Black man in a wheelchair, had to be an act of violence." So being of a different race/ethnicity and disabled is definitely another "strike" against you.

Being gay/lesbian/trans/bi and disabled is an interesting intersection, I think. Because being GBLTQ strays so far from our image of the typical, "normal" person, man or woman, to begin with, and then disability is another "strike", so to speak. Also, I think the GBLTQ community and the disability community have a lot in common. GBLTQ people are still fighting so hard for the rights they deserve, and so are disabled people. GBLTQ people are also regarded as more "freakish" than other minorities and so are disabled people. The intersection of being queer and disabled was explored a little bit in one of my favorite crip documentaries, Shameless: The Art of Disability. There are also a couple of great queer/disabled bloggers out there. There's one blog that I read recently that's two lesbian lovers that are both physically disabled and live far from each other writing letters back and forth. I'm pretty sure the womens' names were Stacy and Mia but I could be wrong. Can't find it again for the life of me. This is why I favorite things.....but then the favorites list gets too long and I can never find anything! Anyway. Getting off track.

The point is disability is an interesting enough societal issue as it is, when it's combined with other "strikes", so to speak, it becomes even more interesting. Intersection theory, as we learned in sociology, explores the meeting point between social class, gender, race, etc. Of course disability was nowhere mentioned, but then again, that's our job as disability bloggers, to bring disability out of the woodwork. We're highlighting disability as a unique sociological issue, an issue as important as social class, gender, and race. We are shedding light on one of the experiences most feared by society - and providing insight into a striking new world.

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A Musing on the Word "Disabled"

....or "The Social Model in A Nutshell".

Lately I've been musing a lot on the language used to describe myself or other people in regards to ability/lack thereof. Let's face it, there is no good word to describe us. I regard all of them as fairly horrible, with some being less horrible than others. So in that regard, I usually use the word "disabled" or some variation of it. But what does "disabled" really mean?

According to dictionary.com (which is my savior on all things word-related), the word "disable" means "to make unable or unfit". But we're not unable to do things, we just do things in a different way. We are still able to move, eat, breathe, and do all the functions of daily living - just differently. Even those of us who need personal care attendants are still doing all those things - they're just having someone else help them do those things.

By contrast, society's barriers are what makes us unable to do things. When a building has steps, but no ramp, wheelchair users are unable to get into the building. When textbooks are not provided in an alternate format, blind people and other PWDs who use textbooks in alternative formats are unable to read the textbook. But with reasonable accommodations, we are able to do everything AB people can do. So are we really disabled? Or, perhaps more appropriately, what is it that disables us?

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Up De-nial River Without A Paddle

....wow that was bad. Please forgive me for what I'm sure is the poor quality of this post. Given the events of the past few weeks, I'm shocked I managed to pull together a coherant post for the September Disability Blog Carnival at all. I really wanted to write a post about my changing identity now that I'm a college student with a disability instead of a high school student with a disability. That was before I left. However, when I got here, it was a bit like being plunged into freezing cold water - utterly shocking and totally unexpected in more ways than one. To say I've been having adjustment problems is an understatement. Things have gotten better for me but they're by no means all better. Someday I will write that post about my new college identity, but it's going to take awhile before I can look back on these events with a clear, rational head. So please bear with me and try to enjoy this post.

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"I don't consider myself disabled". I see this phrase a lot in the news, especially when it's a young person with a disability. The ironic part is, the article is almost always about their disability, whether it's a discrimination story or a "heroic super-crip climbs mountains" type story. This line is frequently accompanied by "I'm just like anyone else.", which I hate even more.


How utterly boring. Why would you want to be just like anyone else, first of all? It's ironic that our culture emphasizes diversity and the "big melting pot" way of thinking, and yet people feel this intense pressure to conform to the norm. A line like "I'm just anyone else." is frequently inserted at the end of an article, I guess to leave readers thinking that PWDs are just like everyone else, which just annoys me. See my previous post on the topic, I think for the February DBC??

Second of all, you do have a disability. If you have an impairment that prevents you from doing "one or more major life activity" or makes it difficult to do said activities, THAT IS A DISABILITY. I don't think I can spell it out any clearer than that. And THERE IS NOTHING BAD ABOUT THAT. Having a disability is hard at time, I will be the first to admit that, especially after the past few weeks. But it's not a horrible experience. At times it is even beautiful. And it really shapes who you are. People act like denying their disability deserves some badge of honor, when it's really very destructive. Not only are you denying a fundamental part of your identity, you are also denying yourself services that could help you. And taking services doesn't make you lazy or less - it makes you able to be a functional human being. It makes you able to do the same things as able-bodied people. It's leveling the playing field, for god's sake! If you deny your disability, then you shouldn't complain when things are hard for you.

Another one I heard on TV the other night when I was watching a special on progeria, a disability that causes rapid aging, so that kids look like they're about eighty when they're about five. It's very sad because these kids don't usually live past the age of 13 or so. But that's not the point. Anyway, one of the girl's parents in the special said, basically: "When I look at her, I don't see progeria." And that annoys me.

Am I being too nit-picky here with my distate for words/phrases? I agree that disability shouldn't be all you see, but it's gotta be part of it, especially if you are visibly disabled/different. Yeah, you see the person, but the disability is part of the person, just like brown hair or blue eyes is. You wouldn't say "When I look at her, I don't see brown hair." would you? That would be ridiculous. You see the brown hair as part of the whole person. Same with disability - it is a part of a whole.

The thing with these phrases that I don't get is that this denial is tacitly applauded and even encouraged. When someone says "I don't consider myself disabled" or "I'm just like everyone else", they are generally lauded over how much they've overcome their disability (another phrase/stereotype I want to bash to pieces - a disability is not something to be overcome, it is something to be worked with to find alternate ways of doing things) and isn't that so great. Which, of course, reinforces the stereotype that a disability is a shameful, evil thing to have and it should be hidden and suppressed whenever possible. And of course it is those images of disability that make it into the media, rather than the images of disability pride and culture.

Seriously. I implore you. Don't deny your disability. You don't have to love it. You don't have to be into disability culture. You can even hate it. But when you acknowledge it, you are admitting that there is something that makes it harder for you to do certain things, and that that is okay. There is nothing bad about disability. If we were all "out of the closet", so to speak, maybe disability wouldn't be such a taboo topic in our society.

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Check me out at Love On Wheels!

I was recently honored to be interviewed by Ekiwah Adler-Belendez for his blog Love On Wheels. Ekiwah has cerebral palsy and is an extraordinary poet. Ekiwah was one of my earliest heroes and inspired a lot of my own writing, so I was extremely honored when he asked me for an interview. His blog, Love On Wheels, deals with the complex issues of sex, sexuality, and relationships in relation to disability. You can check out my interview with Ekiwah here at Love On Wheels!

Note that my interview/bio reveals my real name. I've blogged under the name Spaz Girl for a very long time and I've tried very hard to keep myself anonymous for a number of reasons. But as I'm moving more and more into the blogging realm, I want to make my blog more public and more associated with me as an activist. In this interview, specifically, I wanted my bio to reflect the work I've done as a disability activist. Not to mention that with a little googling and connecting the dots, it wouldn't be that hard to figure out who I am based on what I reveal in my posts. So...I'm revealing myself. It's a big leap of faith for me and one that I was a little reluctant to make. I can only hope that good things come out of this decision.

On an unrelated note....I've changed the text color for my posts to make them (hopefully) easier to read. Let me know what you think.

(.....three posts in one month, what is this...?!?)

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