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Ania Onion Bula's Ableism Challenge is a little over five years old. We first took it a little under five years ago - July 9th.
...these days, I think it doesn't go far enough. But whether it does or not, it was still an important step for us towards fighting our learned ableism. And we want to share it in case anyone else would get something out of trying it.
- 🎒
content warning: more on ableism stuff (cw: ableist language) re: Ableism Challenge
Something we prodded at for a while after we dropped "stupid" from our vocabulary was the felt contradiction between dropping "stupid" and keeping "intelligent" - they're antonyms, right? The Ableism Challenge doesn't challenge the idea that intelligence is a thing, it just (and justly) points out that the word "stupid" is part of a structure that marginalizes disabled people.
...but honestly?
A piano is not /more musical/ than a theramin because the piano can play more than one note at a time. And a theramin is not /more musical/ than a piano because it can play any note, not just the ones on the scale the piano was tuned to. If intelligence means anything, then it's ability to do thinking-work in the same way that instruments do musicality-work, and /you can make music with anything./ The limits of musical instruments and the limits of minds are not limits of "can do good stuff" and "cannot do good stuff". The shape of these limits have nothing to do with what is valuable.
"Intelligent" is just "stupid" turned upside down, and just as bullshit an idea. It's another way to elevate some people and demean others.
- 🎒 (🐲 ?)
