Why Do the Disabled Dislike Being Called an Inspiration?

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I gave a lecture on autism spectrum disorders to two college abnormal psych classes several weeks ago, using my own experiences as examples for the material I was teaching. A few weeks later I received a card signed by the professors and students thanking me for my presentation, and several of the students called me "inspirational". I know that many people with disabilities, whatever they may be, dislike being called that, but I don't really understand why. If I can inspire people to change their ways, think more positively about differences, or encourage them that if I can do it, their problems are also surmountable, why is that a bad thing?

Well I wouldn't be upset if somebody called me inspirational under certain circumstances.

I think in your example you are inspirational because you are taking control of your life and helping people.

On the other hand, say you tell someone you have Autism and they say you are inspiration because you can speak or look them in eye, something like that, it might be perceived as an insult. As of the person was saying,, if I had Autism I'd probably slit my throat, but there are you are holding an actual conversation just like a normal person.

The funny thing is, that may not even be how the person meant it, but it could be perceived that way.

^This is the attitude that would irk me no end. It's just the opposite face of the "You look too normal to have autism" coin.

Whether I might be insulted would depend on the context.

If I or my presentation were called inspirational after delivering a lecture or such, I would be quite flattered.

On the other hand, if I were called "an inspiration" by a NT in a way that is condescending and patronizing, I might have a somewhat negative reaction. To me, in that context, being called an inspiration has as a subtext: "You poor pitiful thing. You inspire me to do better because thank god I am not as messed up as you are. I swear if I were as pathetic as you I would never be able to even get out of bed. From now on whenever I am feeling sorry for myself I will just think of you as an example of how things could be much, much worse."

I had a sister who lived with a physical handicap from a tragic accident. She would get quite but quietly annoyed by people who made such well-intended but very socially inept comments about her being an inspiration. She had to experience that tripe for her whole adult life. I guess I am a bit of the same as her in this regard.

Some people say that they are offended, but I don't know if they are truly offended by own feeling or if they are just saying that they offended based on that "inspiration porn" thing that I saw on tumblr autism tag, but it seems like a meme of a clique to me.

I wouldn't be offended, and it seems like you are not offended either, so it is not a bad thing, and in fact, it may be good thing, since you got people to learn more about autism and think differently about autism.

I see it like this....

If a man participates in a marathon in a wheelchair because his legs don't work, it would INSPIRE me to try to do a marathon as I have two perfectly good legs to run on.

His accomplishment IN SPITE OF his handicap can be a motivation to those who don't have to overcome a similar handicap.

Your being autistic means you struggle daily with things that most NTs take for granted. For YOU to get up and do something which your AS makes very difficult should INSPIRE them not make excuses for not trying as hard to pursue the same goal.

A lot of people (both NT and AS) make EXCUSES for not trying for goals in life. When you see someone worse off than yourself go for something and achieve it, you realize you really have no excuse to not make the effort to try.

It's not a meme or a clique, nor did it originate on Tumblr. It is also not about "just saying they are offended.

Here are some more informed articles on what "disability inspiration porn" is and why many disabled people find it ableist, condescending, demeaning, etc:

http://disabilityinkidlit.wordpress.com ... tion-porn/
http://thesqueakywheelchair.blogspot.co ... eople.html
http://www.xojane.com/issues/disabled-p ... nspiration
http://www.lostateminor.com/2013/11/18/ ... abilities/
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-07-03/y ... rn/4107006
http://www.disabilityandrepresentation. ... tion-porn/
http://disabilitythinking.blogspot.com/ ... -porn.html

Any or all of these links can provide a more nuanced, more nearly accurate view of what disability inspiration porn is and why many disabled people find these things ableist and demeaning. That is, as opposed to "it's just a tumblr clique or meme based on acting offended" (paraphrase, not exact quote) as if people can't possibly have genuine, sincere opinions on this topic.

Yeah, this is basically terrible. It's a way to shame people into doing things that they may not be able to do, or that may harm them to do. The whole idea that disability inspiration is about inspiring people to not make excuses is BS. You also neglected how it puts pressure on other disabled people who do not do those things and may not be able to do those things despite superficially appearing less impaired.

It's like pointing at an autistic person who has a job and saying "all autistic people should be able to hold jobs, and if you do not have a job, you're just making excuses."

Don't tokenize disabled people in order to emotionally manipulate other people into doing things.

The problem isn't with the word 'inspiration' in it's proper use, it is with the concept of 'inspiration porn'. This is when people gush and call someone 'inspiring' just for being normal 'despite' having a disability. There are plenty of memes displaying someone with a disability doing something normal like walking their dog (with prosthetic legs), playing at the playground (child has downs syndrome), or singing along to a song in a car with friends (in sign language). The photo will be captioned with some comment like "What's your excuse?" or "With the right attitude anything is possible". These are inspiration porn. They objectify the disabled person's normal everyday experience both as a sort of unusual spectacle and as displayed merely for the purpose of making the able-bodied viewer either feel good about themselves or feel guilty - Thereby 'inspiring' them to achieve more themselves. These images and attitudes are considered problematic because they do not recognise that the disabled person is just living their life like everyone else. They centre the disabled experience around the needs of the abled person and they do nothing constructive to help change negative attitudes towards the disabled (and in fact often feed the status quo). Other times, the images show a disabled person doing something extraordinary that most people with the same disability (or without one at all) could not do. This is the 'super-crip' trope. This is also harmful because the message often shames the majority of people with the same disability by implying that if they only had a better attitude then they could accomplish feats that are just as amazing.

Being congratulated and admired for delivering an inspiring presentation would not be considered problematic unless you yourself felt uneasy about it. Take the compliment and enjoy it. Well done!


ETA: If someone congratulated for doing something anyone would be congratulated for, because they did a good job not because they're disabled then that is not problematic. If someone is objectified for the purpose of manipulating someone else's feelings or congratulated for doing something normal or only congratulated because they are disabled then that is when 'inspiration' is not as positive as people think.

Last edited by ChameleonKeys on 26 Dec 2013, 6:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I have read about many of the issues like inspiration porn and functioning labels on autism/disability blogs, and so far, my personal opinion is that they are not interesting in terms of intellectual concepts or effective communications to bring about positive changes. I don't buy them, but of course, each person can develop own nuanced understanding on these issues and make own judgements of whether they agree, disagree, have a totally different approach, or are still digesting the information.

My main communication to answer OP's question is that it is not necessarily bad thing or offensive thing for others to tell her that she is inspiring to them, and whether each person is offended or not, that is each person's personal feeling.

Last edited by btbnnyr on 26 Dec 2013, 5:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Ahhh. I must have typed too slow, Verdandi beat me to it!

You didn't just say that, you made assertions about the motivations of people who do talk about these things - exactly the sort of thing you say you don't do (this is something I would definitely call an "additional interpretation.") You made it sound like this topic was an insincere fad.

I research a lot of things that I don't find interesting so that I can respond to statements made about those things. I am not 100% perfect in this regard, but I do try, at least, to make statements based on being informed, rather than simply substituting my own cognitive biases for fact.

I don't think you can really make an informed statement about whether discussions of disability inspiration porn is effective communication or not because your post made it clear that your perception of it is based on limited information combined with a bias against tumblr, as if discussions on tumblr have less value than discussions elsewhere. What I mean is, you're entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own facts. In this case, the facts are really not on your side.

I also find the systematic appropriation and misuse of images of marginalized people to be rather interesting as intellectual concepts (although not strictly intellectual) because it demonstrates at least one of the ways such people are coopted in order to support the systems that actively disenfranchise them. It's different for any given group, true, but it is definitely relevant.



That's why I tried to avoid using the word "offended" because it's not about "feeling offended." That's a way people use to minimize discussions like this, to reduce them down from what they are to trivial personal feelings. I do not feel personally offended about disability inspiration porn, but I do think that it is basically an ableist way to assert things about disability and disabled people that is harmful to disabled people.

I responded to your post because your first paragraph was factually incorrect and dismissive. Of course there's nothing wrong with what StarTrekker was told because in that context it doesn't carry the same meaning as putting up a picture of a man running on prosthetic legs with a caption reading "the only disability is a bad attitude." In that case, this man's image is being used (very likely without his consent) to deliver a message that disability isn't sufficiently real to be taken seriously as a reason to not be able to do things - which is an unfortunately common sentiment on this forum. Unfortunate because it is false and harmful to disabled people.

I'd want to be inspiring for being the person I am, not for having a disability. If people found me inspiring just because of my disability, I'd feel offended because they wouldn't be considering the person I am, but just the disability. And I f***ing hate it when my disability is seen and I remain invisible.

Verdandi, please don't present what I said in my original post as something other than what I said. What I said was that I don't know if ____________________________________, and the rest was my personal speculation about a possible thing that could be going on.

This is what I said:

Some people say that they are offended (as I have read on tumblr and other places, many blogs)
but I don't know if they are truly offended by own feeling (I don't know, because I am not in their minds)
or if they are just saying that they offended based on that "inspiration porn" thing that I saw on tumblr autism tag (I have seen many people say that they are offended, and my personal speculation is that not 100% of them is genuinely offended, but some might be following the crowd, because I study social cognition, and I know how strong are people's tendencies to follow the crowd)
but it seems like a meme of a clique to me (this is how it seems to me personally based on lots of reading into this topic and related ones)

Whether I buy into these idears or not or think they are effective communicaiton is my personal opinion that develops with new data (and I used to be more interested in these idears and support them partially), and I didn't say that anything I said is absolute fact, so please don't do what I am asking not to do in the first sentence of this post.

I also have physical disabilities, and I personally don't like being called inspirational. I take it as if people are saying you're taking having such a horrible life so well!

To me, it shows that people see disability as a horrible thing and when they see someone living with a disability, they automatically think that they must be sooooo strong and are inspirational for just living their lives with a disability.

When people say stuff like "I don't think I could go on with life like you have if I were in your situation.", I intemperate that as "I'd rather not live if I had your disabilities." In other words, they think people with disabilities don't have a quality of life that's worth living.

I have had people tell me in person that I am inspirational to them (and giving them more positive perspective on their autistic children), and feelings of offense were far from my mind when I heard this. In fact, they even specified that they were inspired by how good my communication and social skills were now, like some of the normal common things in the porn posters, but that didn't offend me either, because I know that it was indeed a prolonged process for me to develop my skills to my current level, and I can understand how they would think it was a big deal, and from my perspective, it was kind of a big deal too, considering that I made gained such a lot since childhood, and I do feel good when iMother says that I really improved in communication and social even more over past two years.