On Saturday, I went to the beach with my family. While I had a wonderful time, that is not what this blog is about. When I was in the car on the way to the beach, my sister was telling me about how she had made a wheelchair joke about me. I had posted a picture to Facebook of me at the March For Life, holding the #IStand4Life sign. My sister quipped that that was not true, and that I did not stand for anything. Her friends proceeded to tell her that “that’s really [screwed] up” because she had made a joke about her brother using a wheelchair. My sister and I were, of course, laughing at the ridiculousness of someone who does not even have a disability taking offense at something that, at least for me, is a staple of my everyday life and makes my life much more fun and ultimately better: a joke. This got me thinking. On the ableism scale, where is a facetious remark about an individual with a disability compared to disability-selective abortion rates past 90 percent in some countries? From what my sister told me, most of her friends are pro-choice, and asked about a pre-natal diagnosis, would probably find nothing wrong with an abortion in that case and for that reason. Where there is outrage over “offensive” jokes, there is seemingly none over deciding that one ought not to live because of the way that one would be born, based on, to be quite frank, bigoted assumptions about quality of life. Richard Dawkins just recently defended disability selective abortion, saying, “It’s about the avoidance of individual human suffering”. I would not consider myself suffering, nor would a great many people with disabilities, thanks for not asking us ever, Dawkins. This is an ableist statement in defense of an ableist practice. One might even call it “really [screwed] up.” But no, that designation is for jokes.
If I’m being completely honest here, I love wheelchair jokes. They are my favorite kind of joke. My proudest moment in high school was when I was in auditions for the musical and we were doing the singing part of the audition. The director called on a kid who had never sang in front of anybody before so he was nervous and asked if he could sing sitting down. He sang sitting down and the director called on me next. In the same tone as the other kid, I asked the same question: “Can I sit?” I have never been happier with myself. That is the extent to which I love wheelchair jokes, so maybe I am a bit biased here, but to me, a joke seems harmless, good even. Most wheelchair jokes, I am not even giving 1 out of 10 on the ableism scale. The argument some would use is that it would be okay for me to say because I am part of the “in-group” but members of the “out-group” are not allowed to say that. I am against telling anyone to not make wheelchair jokes. My friends have made wheelchair jokes to my face before. I love it. What is most definitely not harmless is finding out that a developing human is not developing like most others and deciding to rip said developing human’s limbs off as a result. Why is it that the outrage machine is at full force for the former, but not the latter? If you think that there is absolutely no problem with violently dismembering nearly anyone who you find out might have a disability, then you cannot honestly say that you are protesting whichever comedian because their jokes compromise the dignity of people with disabilities. It might be true that the jokes of some comedians compromise the dignity of people with disabilities. Scottish comedian Frankie Boyle’s jokes about the Paralympics probably did go too far, and they elicited an angry enough reaction from across the UK that he had to take to Twitter to respond to the controversy. The country where this happened is one of the countries where the Down Syndrome abortion rates is past 90 percent, the United Kingdom also being the country whose courts condemned Alfie Evans to death. Were there protests over Alfie’s death? Yes. Do some people speak out about the Down Syndrome abortion rate? Of course. But the indignation that these warrant is much more often placed on a joke deemed offensive. Both the abortion rate and the state-sanctioned killing of Alfie Evans are much more offensive, at least to this person with a disability, than any joke that anyone could make. It is past time that we, as a society, worry less about whether a group is the target of a joke and more about whether the group is the target of mass slaughter.
Sources:
https://www.dailywire.com/news/32028/richard-dawkins-defends-eugenics-abortion-its-paul-bois
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/aug/31/frankie-boyle-paralympics-twitter-jokes
http://www.thejournal.ie/factcheck-babies-abortion-3823611-Feb2018/
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