Social justice 101: When you have more privilege (look it up) than members of a marginalized group — some of whose members are talking about something problematic or offensive — you do not get to decide what is offensive or not to some members of a marginalized group when you are not a member of that group yourself (ie: non-disabled people do not get to decide what is offensive and not to people with disabilities). Asking me “what’s wrong with you” (as one unpublished comment did), telling me that I need to chill, that this is not important, that you’re able bodied and don’t find this offensive, that I am somehow disrespectful of your rights by wanting the conversation to stay on topic, that it’s just “art,” that I am ruining peoples’ fun by getting upset — all are classic derailing or silencing tactics. We PWDs can speak for ourselves now and express our own opinions, amazing as that may sound.

I and other contributors have repeatedly asked people in this thread to examine their privilege and prejudices, and to listen to what we have to say. By and large, this has not happened. I, for one, am sick of having played nice with people who are ultimately not interested in what I have to say (or in examining these issues from the perspective that disability is an actual human experience and not just something to draw upon for art’s sake), and having my willingness to explain very basic concepts spit right back into my face.

I understand. It doesn’t matter to you. I totally get it now. I’m sorry that we mean, humorless disabled folks ever invaded the internet with our feminist-y media criticism and all. Of course, now that I’ve made this decision, I’ll probably get slammed for “censorship.” I have no responsibility to let people say whatever kind of bigoted stuff they want here and get away with it. You have the entire internet for that.

I’m done. Further comments will not be published.
Annaham´s last blog ..Imbroglio a Go-Go

I think you make a really good argument and I think the debate it has generated is great and very useful. I’m not going to argue on the ‘publicity’ (for lack of a better word) of the project. Although I realised that the twins weren’t real quite a long time ago, I can see that people who are maybe more casual fans didn’t. I can see how the way its been promoted, and the way the interviews were conducted and the presentation of the ‘back story’ might be offensive and give the impression that Amanda and Jason were treating the project as a joke or making fun of conjoined twins. Perhaps this was an error in judgment, but it was certainly not intentional or even careless, and, judging from Jason’s blog post, this debate has certainly brought this home and given them some food for thought.

Although I haven’t seen the show, from what I’ve read about it, it seems that it is intended to be more of a musical theatre-type show, an accompaniment to the concept album. While I stand corrected if this isn’t the case, I see Evelyn Evelyn as being fictional characters, and in that way no different to any other disabled characters in films, novels and theatre, of which there are plenty. They’re there to tell a story, and yes, the story is about them being exploited and abused, but how is that different to the multitudes of other fictional works about people, disabled and otherwise, facing and overcoming hardship?

I see the Evelyn Evelyn story as a very positive one, an outlet for Amanda and Jason to collaborate on some great music, and draw attention to some important issues as well. If nothing else, at least it’s got people talking about something important

But, I don’t know, I like reading both POV on this issue. I can see where people are coming from, saying she’s drawing attention to disability, animal cruelty, human trafficking, etc. I like that. I think it’s a good thing to do. But I think she’s doing it the wrong way.

So, sorry, but I think this is a publicity stunt. I think her stripping on the red carpet was too. I think she has a history of publicity stunts, so it’s hard to take this latest incident as anything but that, considering how over-the-top it is. It’s too bad, too. I think she’s an interesting person and has interesting things to say. I wish she would find a better way of saying them.

(Also, I think some of the comments on this blog are a little too defensive and are derailing to the overall conversation. Just wanted to throw that out there, because I think this is an otherwise really nice blog and it has sparked some really fascinating view points.)

You did look, right?

For example: Until it was determined that police and fire departments were unlawfully discriminating by not hiring women, height and weight requirements did not exist. When they were required to hire women, height and weight requirements were enacted. It just happened that these height and weight requirements excluded a good many women, but the men in charge of those departments could claim all day that their intent was just to make sure that any applicant was capable of doing the job, that’s all. They weren’t intending to keep women out. Of course the men who’d been hired before those requirements were enacted, well. It wouldn’t be fair to them to have to meet standards that weren’t in place when they’d applied for the job, now would it? So they got grandfathered (ahem) in and got to keep their jobs.

It’s all just peachy ’cause nobody intended to discriminate. Except they did; they just found a way to do it that didn’t officially hang a Women Need Not Apply sign on the wall.

I used to care some about intent. If they didn’t intend to be harmful then you know maybe cut them some slack let them explain themselves whatev. I don’t care at all about intent any more. I don’t care about anyone’s intent including mine. It does not matter. What matters is harm. Was harm done? Then there’s a process: Apology, amends, doing better in the future.

At no point does the process include “Fuck off peasants; my mind is far too fine a place to be sullied with your words” or even “We were just having a bit of fun.”

Of course it didn’t occur to Ms. Palmer and Mr. Webley that what they were doing might be harmful. That’s what privilege is for.