Jessica PingThe Presidential Debate on Tuesday night was embarrassing to watch as an American citizen for many reasons. But, almost more troubling than the screaming match itself was America’s response to the two candidates.
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To the best of my ability, I intend for this article to be unbiased in nature. Many of you who follow me across multiple platforms most likely already know my political leanings. That said, I would like to use this space to comment on the response to the presidential debate, rather than the content of the debate itself.
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As a digital marketing professional and lifestyle blogger, I spend a lot of time on social media. I love connecting with my community online, but when you’re scrolling, there is no telling what you will come across. Immediately following the debate on Tuesday night, I jumped on Facebook and Twitter to see what my friends, family, and favorite personalities had to say about the event.
I was appalled by what I saw.
Ableism. Ableism Everywhere.
According to Merriam-Webster, Ableism is the “discrimination or prejudice against individuals with disabilities”
I’ve provided this statistic in multiple articles here on The Rolling Explorer, but 1 in 4 people in the United States are disabled. That equates to about 61 million Americans (CDC). Systemic ableism is a very real problem that has yet to be combatted properly anywhere in the world, the United States included. Our society upholds many ableist ideologies, but two, specifically, have been shared and supported by thousands on social media in the last 36 hours.
Below, I will outline these two very problematic ways of thinking and provide alternatives that are safe to use instead.
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Stop Equating Intelligence With Ability
Following the presidential debate on Tuesday night, I saw many people on both sides of the political spectrum questioning, mocking, and theorizing why Joe Biden struggled to get his thoughts across during his “uninterrupted” two minutes. I, myself, as someone who outwardly denounces ableism and who is constantly seeking out education about the disability community, had a conversation with my family on the subject. We all agreed that it could have gone better and pretty much left it at that.
Flash forward to the following afternoon, and I came across an article that explained Biden’s lifelong stuttering problem. Regardless of your thoughts on career politicians, Joe Biden has served the country as a Senator and Vice President while having this speech impediment. It has not once prevented him from doing his job, yet thousands of people were ready to call him ableist names like “dumb” and “stupid” the minute he left the stage.
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If you support Joe Biden’s campaign and you wish he had done a better job, I encourage you to reevaluate the basis of these feelings. Do you wish he has spent more time during the presidential debate discussing his views and policies, or do you just wish he hadn’t jumbled up his words? If its the latter, I encourage you to think about why you believe physical ability (speaking without flaws) and actual ability to perform a job (be president) go hand in hand. Systems of belief such as this are inherently ableist and present many problems for millions of Americans just like you.
If you support Donald Trump’s campaign and you believe that Joe Biden’s inability to speak flawlessly is:
- hilarious
- beneficial to your ideal candidate’s position in the polls
- further proof that you have chosen correctly this election season
I urge you to grapple with the subject of ability as it relates to employment. Millions of people in the United States have a stutter, maybe even someone in your inner circle. If you truly believe that a speaking impediment makes someone ill-fit to do their job, yes, even the president’s job, that is ableism.
Stop Trying To Diagnosis Someone Else
This specific problem has been occurring since the previous presidential election. I have seen President Trump diagnosed online with everything from Dementia, to Bipolar Disorder, to Dissociative Identity Disorder. Regardless of whether or not you are a medical professional, if you are not someone’s personal doctor, you have no business trying to diagnose another person with a mental or physical disorder.
Passively diagnosing someone simplifies these very complex diseases that millions of people around the world deal with every single day. When you sit behind your computer and declare that Donald Trump is “mental” or is “bipolar” because of how he handled a specific situation, YOU are not making a valid case to argue your point. Not only is what you said offensive but it, more often than not, is incorrect. Additionally, you’re equating views that differ from your own with unavoidable health conditions. People that actually have a mental illness don’t develop them because of their beliefs and values. Most are born with their conditions or develop them later in life due to biological or environmental factors (trauma). Therefore, when you diagnose someone as “crazy” because their ideas are different from your own, you further isolate everyone with an actual mental illness.
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By placing such negative connotations around these disorders, you are helping perpetuate the stigmas associated with them, which is, at its core, ableist in nature.
If you support Joe Biden’s campaign and you have labeled Donald Trump as “crazy,” “psycho,” “mental,” or some other ableist slur, I would encourage you to not do so anymore. If you would like other, more specific words that could help you build your case against our current president, I write a biweekly series called the Ableist Language Series where I provide alternative words and phrases to common ableist terms. You can check out previous posts at the following link: https://therollingexplorer.com/category/disability-advocacy/ableist-language-series/
Now, if you have taken it a step further and diagnosed Trump with a specific disorder, not only do I encourage you to avoid doing this in the future, but I also ask that you take some time to identify why you uphold such a negative view of mental illness. During this reflection, my hope for you is that you come to terms with your own ableism and work to reroute these negative thoughts and feelings. If you’d like more information on mental illness, feel free to reach out to me directly and I would be happy to point you in the direction of some good people to follow on social media that openly discuss their lived experiences.
If you support Donald Trump’s Campaign and use ableist language to describe people you don’t get along with or with whom you disagree, I encourage you to work to change your vocabulary to be more inclusive. Diagnosing another person is not just harmful to the disability community when applied to the President of the United States. Passive diagnosis is always harmful, no matter the subject. If you find yourself participating in this behavior in your daily life, please take some time to reflect on why you use mental illness as a verbal weapon and how you can avoid doing so in the future.
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