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Individuality is spoken of, often praised, by the
puritan-minded patriarchal capitalist, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps
world, as if doing things collectively or asking for help is a weakness. In
this mindview – being so-called “disabled” or mentally ill is also seen as a
weakness. It is rooted in the body as a tool of production.
Capitalism needs labor to extract and materialize
wealth from the natural world. If one is “unable”, or limited, in some way to
participate in the machine, one is often disposed of. Eli Clare talks about
disability not as an individuals “handicap” but as a systemic limitation put on
individuals by the able-bodied supremacy, or ableist world.
Infrastructure, laws and discriminatory beliefs are most
often the limitation to a person who has a physical or cognitive “disability”
from living their lives in self-determined ways - it is not the persons fault,
or on ourselves to blame. To suggest this complicates this country’s ideal that
“all are created equal”…the Creator has created all of us as equal, yes, and
every one brilliantly and beauty-fully unique. It is ideas and systems,
however, that continue to create and institutionalize inequality. Beyond these,
it is liberating to re-member, that no matter what the world makes of us, we
are still and forever the magnificent stone, a being of infinite worth.
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