Attitudes - about disability - episode 2

Angel 00:02

Welcome to the Attitudes podcast. This podcast is the brainchild of Attitude Foundation and Northcott to chat about attitudes about disability. In 2021, the University of Melbourne published a nationwide survey on Australia's attitudes on disability, which will be the focal point of our season one.

I'm your host, Angel Dixon. I'm a person with disability. I dedicate my time to furthering the inclusion of people with disability. I'm a model and the former CEO of Attitude Foundation. In an effort to bring life to the numbers in the survey, each week I'll be joined by current and former board members and one friend of Attitude Foundation to discuss one of the survey's findings.

Today, I'm joined by Emma Benison and we'll be discussing the topic that 61% of people agreed that people make fun of people with disability. Welcome, Emma. Thank you.

Emma 00:51

Thanks for having me, Angel. I'm in Nipaluna, Hobart, and I am the Chair of the Attitude Foundation, which is a huge privilege. And I'm also an advocate. I am Chief Innovation Officer at Life Without Barriers, which is one of Australia's largest service providers, disability service providers, but human service providers as well. And I, in another life, I'm also a singer and a songwriter as well.

Angel 01:25

I don't think that's in another life. It's in a, it's a co-existing space.

Emma 01:32

I get to I can do all these things all at once.

Angel 01:34

The reason we're doing this podcast is because of the Attitude Matters Survey that came out some time ago, that obviously Attitude Foundation has a vested interest in anything that has the label attitude on it we've got something to say about. And Emma, today we're talking about the topic of the survey, which is 61% of people agree that people make fun of disability. And I'm so excited to hear what you have to say about this particular topic.

Emma 02:08

Well, I had the opportunity to choose which topic I wanted to focus on, which is really nice. And I chose this one for a very particular reason, and it almost slapped me in the face because the same day as I got the email and had to make this decision about which topic, my daughter, who is 16, had an experience where some of her friends were making fun of the fact that she has blind parents.

Emma 02:46

And I just thought, oh gosh, well, you know, I mean, it's just, it was terrible. And I, it's not the first time it's happened. It's been happening to both my children since they were very young. And but every time it happens, it just, it just makes me feel just sick, really, because I just think, gosh, you know, how, how is it that that happens at all but particularly, how is it that, you know, these are young people. And I kind of hope that we're doing better in educating our young people about, you know, disability and inclusion and all of those things. And it just makes me sad because clearly we're not doing as well as we might have hoped.

Angel 03:38

That's quite an encounter. There are so many things that I'm thinking about, particularly while I'm raising a toddler to do all those things and be as inclusive in our household as we possibly can.

Angel 03:56

It actually, it terrifies me the idea of Chet growing up and encountering those people and those things, but I mean, that's the nature of life. There are going to be different perspectives out there. How did you deal with it?

Emma 04:15

I don't think I dealt with it particularly well actually when I look back on it. I mean, certainly when the kids were younger, I used to sort of try to give them strategies. I'd say, well, you know, just walk away or you don't need to have a response. It's okay if you just don't want to engage. That's fine. But if you do, make sure you, you know, you do it in a constructive way. Try not to get angry because, you know, people are just ignorant because they haven't had exposure to people with disability before.

Emma 04:55

But, you know, she's older now. And I actually just said to her, I said, look, I just want to say, I'm really sorry. I'm sorry that you had to experience that. And she, her response to me was, well, isn't it, you know, I should be saying sorry to you because the ignorance is directed at you. And I said, yeah, but, you know, you're the recipient of it and it's purely because you happen to have, you know, me and my husband as parents. And she sort of made a lovely comment and said, oh, well, but I know the truth.

Emma 05:34

I know that you, you know, you're the best parents ever. And I was like, oh, you want money, but, but no, she didn't, she didn't want money. But, but yeah, I just, I just felt so responsible, you know, even though it's totally not my fault. And, you know, I work really hard every day to, to not internalize, you know, ableism. But when, when it happens to me, it's, it's very different to when it happens to my child. And, and I have no control over that response. And I just have to watch it and kind of give the best advice I can and be the best version of myself that I can be. Like that's the only, the only solution really, I think, but it's hard.

Angel 06:23

I think that response as a mum of a small child who was a complete baby newbie. I have done several parenting courses and I feel like your response was so psychologically on point as well.

Angel 06:41

I feel that nurturing your child's or even just the person who has received that kind of hit or been the recipient of that hit, nurturing that understanding that compassion piece psychologically is really nourishing for them as well. It sort of bolsters them for the next experience rather than triggering any trauma that might be there. So I love that response, just making sure that she's okay and saying, you know, it's not you and it's not me and I think that's fantastic.

Angel 07:21

So other than that very recent experience, are there any other motivating reasons why you chose this topic?

Emma 07:32

Um, yeah, I mean, look, yeah, I've, I've, I've been blind since birth and, um, I don't know, I've always experienced this, like this was not a surprise to me at all, that this was, this was rated highly. Um, you know, when I was at school, I, I went to a segregated school for the first four or five years of my education and, um, you know, preschooled so sort of year three. And then I was, um, I was moved to a mainstream school environment, which for the most part I would say was absolutely the best thing that could, could have happened, um, for me.

Emma 08:14

But the reality is that kids are cruel and I did definitely get, you know, my share of teasing and, and bullying and, you know, those sorts of behaviors. And I did learn very early on to reframe those behaviors and recognize that actually they weren't, they weren't really about me.

Emma 08:40

I mean, they were, but they weren't, the motivation behind those behaviors and they, that need to kind of make fun of people who are different is, I think is actually a fear response. Um, I think people are very fearful of difference. They're very fearful of what they don't know, of what, of life experience that they don't understand. You know, the simple kind of way of I guess, um, exemplifying that is, you know if someone walks around with their eyes closed, it scares them because they're not used to it.

Emma 09:17

And of course, what people forget is that, um, you know, when you would, when you are actually a person with disability, obviously you, you have training and you have support and you learn how to, you know, adapt, but that's not really taken into account by society most of the time.

Emma 09:34

And so, you know, I realized fairly early on that, yeah, this was, this was a fear response. Didn't make it any less hurtful. Um, it didn't, didn't, um, make me sort of immune to kind of wanting to respond to it. But it did sort of give me a, a reframing so that I could kind of live with it and also come through it, uh, not feeling completely unworthy or devalued. Cause I mean, I think that's the biggest danger of this kind of behavior is that it, you know, people start to internalize it.

Emma 10:13

I know I've internalized a lot of it. I've internalized more of it than I think I, you know, am probably prepared to admit. Um, so it becomes a part of you. You can't, you can't just wipe it away. So I think, you know, it's, um, it does leave scars, but I think, you know, being able to reframe it and recognizing that it's actually more about them than it is about you is a really helpful sort of opportunity.

Angel 10:39

There are so many things in what you've just said that I'm trying really hard to pick them apart. I think leaning into what you're talking about, about the coping strategy is not being taken into consideration when people come from that fear based perspective is something that we could probably talk about for a long time. But it's so true. It's, you know, I've watched so many people, you know, you go to those training days or workshops on disability and inclusion and they're throwing people without disability in wheelchairs and asking them to push themselves around. I have watched so many people stand up out of those chairs, sobbing and go, they turn to me and they say, Oh my God, I don't know how you do this every day. I hope that never happens to me.

Emma 11:34

It just reinforces it, doesn't it?

Angel 11:37

That trauma that they're taking on just, and then the conversation is so hard. It's so much harder to be able to say to them, actually, no, that's not what our existence is every day. We, you know, when you live with this every day, yes, of course, the instant change of someone who acquires an impairment later on or who has it from birth and their family goes through that. Of course, there's, you know, change and trauma and things that come with all of that. But the coping strategies and adapting to things happens almost instantly. So it's a really interesting piece and something that I think isn't talked about often enough.

Angel 12:26

I agree. So I'm really glad you brought that up. Something that I wanted to do is kind of delineate between the two things that I feel are in this particular statistic. And one of them is making fun of people with disability as individuals, but also the phrasing is actually just making fun of disability. And I wonder what you have to say about that.

Emma 12:54

Yeah, I picked up on that too, actually, making fun of disability. And I think that's a really interesting phrasing because, you know, if you take the person out of it and you just talk about making fun of disability, is that what makes it more acceptable?

Emma 13:17

You know, I don't know, but I'm just trying to kind of tease it out because I just feel like, is it acceptable for people to make fun of disability? For example, you know, some of our language innately actually makes fun of, maybe making fun of this too strong, but it certainly diminishes disability. You know, people talk about, if you want to talk about phrases like, you know, “you'd have to be blind not to know that such and such is happening” or, you know, “turn a blind eye to that” or, you know, it's very diminishing.

Emma 13:59

People would not see use of that kind of language as making fun of disability. But it's, the line is pretty blurred, isn't it? Like, where does it stop? So I feel like there is something in that that it's okay to make fun of disability because it's something that happens to someone else. It's not something that happens to people that we need to concern ourselves with. It's just a thing that happens to somebody over there, so we don't have to worry about it. That's kind of the sense I got from it.

Angel 14:37

There's something interesting that happens too, and I guess it's very impairment based where some diagnoses or some language wrapped around certain impairments come up more in those kinds of phrases or jokes than others.

Emma 15:00

Absolutely. I mean, I think a lot of phrases that are associated with particularly, you know, intellectual disability come up a lot. Mental health, you know, comes up a lot. It does seem like there are some impairments that it's more kind of acceptable to make fun of, because oftentimes it's assumed, well, I think the reason is that it's assumed that people who, with those impairments, are not necessarily able to have a voice and respond, and therefore it's considered to be safer to make fun of people with those particular impairment types. It's really concerning to me that we're even having this conversation, by the way, in 2023, but we are.

Angel 15:56

Well, I mean, we have to go to that statistic, like 61% is not a small number. Emma, there's something else that I think we need to talk about when we're talking about people without disability who are making fun of a person with disability or just disability in general. When those phrases, colloquialisms, jokes are happening, there seems to be the assumption that they're not in the presence of a person with disability.

Emma 16:23

Yeah, well, I think that's what it's predicated on. It's a little bit like people who rant on social media or make comments on social media and can hide behind anonymity because they don't need to actually put themselves out there.

Emma 16:44

I think it's the same kind of approach where people think, oh, well, I can say this because, you know, there's nobody with a disability in the room. Well, I mean, I think that the question you have to ask yourself is, well, how do you know?

You know, many, many impairments are not visible. That's the first thing. And also, I think it's really important to remember that many people, even if they're non-disabled people, they've often got friends or family who are people with disability too.

Emma 17:16

So in both of those instances, they are hearing those comments and feeling, I think, a double dose of disadvantage and despair because they're having to process the comments which are inappropriate in and of themselves. But then they're also having to process the fact that, you know, once again, they're being reminded that their impairment is invisible and therefore, you know, it's not something that perhaps they feel that they can talk about and they're less likely to talk about it once somebody's made a comment like that.

So, you know, it's just a double whammy of exclusion, really, isn't it?

Angel 18:08

I feel like I'd really like to go back to some personal stories, if you're okay with that, to give life to some of the examples that we've been discussing. I personally totally agree with you about the people with cognitive impairment seem to be the butt of a lot of jokes.

And a lot of the time it's not even conscious. It is just they can just be intellectual-based insults that just are thrown around commonly. It's cringe-worthy when you're a person with disability and you go, oh, you just don't know what you're saying.

Emma 18:52

Well, I was just thinking actually about what you just said, and it just reminded me, I mean, I've thought about this a lot. I've had the privilege of working with a lot of people with intellectual disability.

I'm so glad that I have. And honestly, I have learnt an enormous amount from people with intellectual disability. And honestly, some of the people I've worked with, you know, they're some of the most insightful, articulate, intelligent people that I know, and it just makes me so disappointed that this kind of insulting behaviour occurs.

Emma 19:27

And sure, I absolutely agree with you that it's not conscious, but we just don't even talk about it, you know, unless some celebrity comes up in that context of a celebrity. But we very rarely talk about it. And I don't really get the sense that our society is ready to call people out for this kind of behaviour, which is what I think we need to do, by the way. I mean, it's a little bit like racism or any other form of diminishing exclusionary behaviour. We need to start calling it out because the behaviour that we walk past is the behaviour we accept. So, you know, we really, we have that responsibility.

Angel 20:14

My chat with Emma was so robust that we needed a part two. So tune in next time to hear more from Emma Bennison. Thanks for joining us. This has been the Attitudes podcast. If you'd like to learn more about the survey, visit the University of Melbourne website or head to the Attitude Foundation website for more information on us.

Angel 20:32

This podcast wouldn't have been possible without Matt Field from the Attitude Foundation and Alex Varley from Northcock, hosted by me, Angel Dixon, produced by Lucy Griffin and edited by Simon McCulloch and Evan Munro Smith.