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LC Sharkey (they/them)'s avatar

Thank you for this. As a multiply disabled person, I appreciate how eloquently you have described how - and why - ableism is so virulent and insidious in our culture. And also why, even as our cultural understanding and intolerance of systemic oppression is crawling slowly in the direction of increased visibility and equity, ableism is rarely considered as urgent or important to address as most other forms of oppression. We (disabled people) are the most readily disposable because cultural bias claims that we are unlikely to be "productive" (fuel for the capitalist engine). We are also the most likely to need access to healthcare, but because of a perception that we don't do anything to deserve it, what little assistance some of us manage to get is considered a charitable handout for which we owe a debt of gratitude that we are expected to express as unconditional compliance, grace even as we are robbed of our dignity and agency, and resignation with the increased likelihood of a relatively short life of poverty followed by an early death. You have explained so clearly how the status quo cultural attitude towards disability (which includes the implicit assumption that we have brought this on ourselves) sets our status as undeserving, requiring that we keep quiet and be grateful for any small scraps we are thrown.

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Elaine the Mean Old Feminist's avatar

As a feminist and an abortion rights activist I am often accused of being "angry" or "hateful" by the christofascists that I shout down every weekend as they attempt to interfere with patients at the local Planned Parenthood. And yeah, they're right about the anger, anyway. Hate is too important an emotion to be wasted on them. What they are is beneath contempt, for all the reasons you so eloquently describe here.

I've been doing this for most of my adult life. I was angry in 1985 when I first stood against these protesters and I'm angry now.

I'm not a Christian anymore, and in fact I wouldn't mind if religion were wiped from the face of the earth. Its principal purpose is to control people's thinking and usurp their resources, and the proportion of good it does is far less than the harm it causes.

Your book arrived Friday. I'm just getting into it this afternoon. You, Jeff Tiedrich, Lee Judge, Beau of the Fifth Column, and Trae Crowder have become my safety points in an increasingly frightening world. Thank you for that.

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