5 Disability and Discrimination

Discrimination is commonly talked about in a professional setting when looking at racism or homophobia but not as commonly when looking at saneism or ableism. Ableism is the attitude is society which belittles or underestimates a person with a disability’s capacity and capability, often following societal stereotypes, negative attitudes, or stigmas. Saneism is a more recently defined form of discrimination that defines a similar negative attitude or underestimation of those who do not act in a way that society defines as “normal”, whether due to neurodivergence or mental illness. Saneism is built on the pretence that neurotypical people are superior and people who are neurodivergent at valued as less. Saneism and ableism both fall under the pretence that the issues lie in the person and not the system.

Discrimination is not always what it looks like in the media. It is not always characterized with physical violence or derogatory terms and is often perpetuated through unconscious remarks based on systemic ableism that have deemed said remarks as acceptable. Discrimination within the classroom may be from physical inaccessibility, such as not allowing a student with a disability to participate in an activity because you believe they “can’t” and picking someone else because you believe that they “can”. Discrimination could also manifest in the language that you use. Some safer language includes “disabled” or “a person with a disability”, as both are generally acceptable terms and just depend on a person’s preference. Some language that is rooted in discrimination is “special needs/abilities”, “differently abled”, “special” and “handicapped”. Many of these terms are outdated and assume that a person cannot do something instead of giving them the power to make their own decisions. Other terms that are also best to avoid are terms such as “crazy”, “lame”, “idiotic” and “insane” because of their root in saneism and psychiatric institutionalizations.