Tempestuous Return

Hello Lovelies! Breaking my prolonged, depression-related silence to address a couple things. The prominence of Ableism in this country seems to be on an upswing, and as usual, NOT A WORD is being said about it. Once again, during this month of Pride in the LGBTQ+ community that is well-deserved and hard fought, to be certain, the Disabled community is just supposed to be grateful for what it has. I give you Travor Noah's description of a controversy over Lizzo's lyric change recently. Here's what happened intially, as reported by CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/14/entertainment/lizzo-grrrls-lyric/index.html That reporting, in my opinion, was the right kind. The bare bones, the facts, nothing opinionated or editorialized. They let you make up your own mind. The problem I see is in the following coverage, by Trevor Noah on his show "The Daily Show" on Comedy Central, where granted they have a different rule book for reporting, and a lot of liberties were taken in terms of what was said. The footage is not available yet online, so let me summarize, with sincerest apologies if it sounds slanted or unfair, but this IS a blog with a sympathetic eye toward the Disabled community, who in this particular instance were discriminated against. Since a huge number of us cannot advocate for ourselves in a world that was NOT made or intended for us--but that we still have a right to exist in--HERE. I. GO: Noah's initial comments were detailing the controversy, much like CNN, that Lizzo wrote a song and was called out by a Twitter user in Australia as Ableist because it referred to spazzing out, which in Australian is a derogatory term for spasticity. First of all, I also have spasticity. A LOT of us do. Whether it's Cerebral Palsy, MS, Epilepsy, or any number of neuro-muscular disorders that are medically diagnosable and treatable, the problems of spasticity are not singular to any one vulnerability. So the twitter user, who is not at fault and neither is Lizzo (let me say that right out and make it crystal clear that this is not a complaint about either individual's handling of the incident) made a bit of a generalization. Noah then goes on to say that Lizzo did the right thing and changed the lyric once she was called out for her mistake, which she absolutely, unequivocally, undeniably and respectably DID. The problem I have is that Noah then asserted "and that should have been the end of it." You think so do you? Throw us a bone and we're supposed to just roll over? Hmmm. Then Mr. Noah elaborated that Twitter (meaning other users) "piled on" Lizzo saying how dare she and how wrong she was and what a hurtful thing--they were not wrong. The issue I have personally is with Noah essentially prevailing upon the Disabled community and its advcates (***salute***) to be grateful and shut up. Mr. Noah himself is from a minority. In this country the majority of us are! And we should NOT be silencing each other, nor telling anybody else to shut up and take it. That would be setting us all back to the age of "Oliver Twist" and telling that character NO, absolutely NOT, you will not get any more; you should just eat however little food you get and be happy. It would be like telling the LGBTQ community: "you have the right to marry in SOME states; why should we make it legal all over?" That is like the struggle that people of color have endured for CENTURIES and struggled against. A little bit is NOT ENOUGH. And nobody but the victims of such discrimination have a right to say when efforts to repair the damage are enough. Yes, great strides have been made. It's wonderful that Lizzo even DID what she did. But the fact that other media can broadcast Ableism to the world and the world is okay with it--says that we are not anywhere near where we need to be. I could go on and on. I could turn this into an entry that is several pages long and comes off as an attack--but honestly, Lovelies, I don't have the fight in me right now. I just wanted to detail this moment of Ableism that boiled my blood, and let you all know that there are those of us who still care. And I will always call it to somebody's attention; I'm getting older and talking slower, but I am not stupid. I am losing my ability to swallow bullshit.