Ableism’s death toll of disabled lives grows amid politician’s pandemic failure | Foreign Policy
This is horrifying but accurate:
Throughout the crisis, global attitudes have been shaped by one clear and horrifying principle: Some lives matter more than others.
That thinking, whether it applied to pensioners, fat people, asthmatics, or many others with the range of preexisting conditions that make individuals more vulnerable to COVID-19, runs deep. It’s a form of what disability activists call ableism—the idea that non-disabled lives are simply more important.
In its extreme form, it’s the murderous politics of the Nazis, who deemed people with disabilities “life unworthy of life.” During the pandemic, similar attitudes have been less intentional but sometimes equally deadly.
The idea that letting older and vulnerable people die was part of the specific government planning in the United Kingdom is shocking. But it effectively pervades the American response too—at least as led by President Donald Trump.
Ableism has been part of the core of Trumpism since the start. Trump’s own fear of physical weakness—evidenced in his recent defensiveness over the simple act of walking slowly down a plank—and disdain for people with disabilities have long been evident.
He infamously mocked a reporter’s disability during his original election campaign and has cut services to people with disabilities while in government. Right-wing leaders globally have echoed the language of blame toward people with preexisting health conditions like heart disease and diabetes, such as Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil.
Even as the deaths have piled up in the United States, Republicans and coronavirus deniers have gone searching for excuses for them—usually focusing on existing vulnerabilities.
Catastrophic health consequences are deeply linked to prejudice.
So there it is. The UK’s Tories opened the disablist can of worms and, before we could say “backstabber”, it had spread around the world.
Note the way disabled people and those from black and ethnic minority groups are lumped together for discrimination, too.
And Covid-19 is making it worse because the bigots have an excuse now.
Source: Ableism’s Death Toll of Disabled Lives Grows Amid Politician’s Pandemic Failure
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Aktion T4 rolling along with out
Much of a ado