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@KAnthonyAppiah - a philosopher I have tremendous respect for - is taking a fair bit of heat from #disabilitytwitter for his recent @nytimes "The Ethicist" column. But I'd like to defend him, because I think his advice - while not framed well - is basically right. /1
The outcry is centered around the idea that Appiah called the disabled person in question a burden. But he didn't. He called caregiving work - including the caregiving work often associated with some disabilities - a burden. /2
'Burden' isn't a great choice of words given all its connotations, but I'll stick with it. Because caregiving work *is* a burden. To say otherwise is to deny the exhausting, relentless labor of careworkers, labor done mostly by women, especially black and brown women. /3
There's a difference between saying that a *person* is, all things considered, a burden and saying that some of the things associated with that person are a burden - a labor that must be undertaken, and which can be hard and heavy and often unrecognized and uncompensated. /4
Am I, all things considered, a burden to my husband? No, of course not. Is some of the caregiving work my husband lovingly takes on burdensome? You bet your ass it is. /5
Lots of things that are good and valuable involve burdens. Kids. Dogs. Meaningful work you love. They're good and valuable and rewarding, but there's no denying there are burdens involved. /6
And, of course, *everyone* brings things to a relationship that are burdensome. Everyone has baggage. The problem comes when we view disabled people as uniquely burdensome, or think about them only in terms of what they need and not in terms of what they can give. /7
This situation leads to another point of criticism for Appiah's advice - it's often hard for disabled people to date, because people so easily have the reflexive attitude like the one in the column. They think disabled people *only* in terms of burdens. /8
But surely the solution to that is a broader change in norms about disability. It's not for able bodied people to date disabled people even though they don't want to. Doing that would be the worst kind of tokenism. Disabled people deserve better than a pity fuck. /9
So again, I think Appiah is right. If you're at the start of a relationship and thinking 'ugh, this person's body is kinda messed up and I don't really want in on that' then YES, break up with them. You won't be good for them and they deserve better than your guilt. /10
More strongly, I think Appiah is right that it's okay - at the casual beginning of a relationship - to consider what burdens you're *personally* okay taking on, and that it isn't obviously ableist to be uncomfortable with some caretaking burdens. /11
When I first started dating my husband, I knew that anything longterm with him would bring some baggage - transatlantic family commitments, an academic two-body problem - and I was fine with that. /12
But there could have been other things - a kid, say - that I wouldn't have been okay taking on at that stage. Doesn't mean I think kids are bad or single dads are less valuable. It just wasn't what I wanted, and at an early stage you can make those calculations. /13
More generally, one of the - many! - reasons I don't have kids is that I don't want that caregiving burden. And sure, some people say this makes me a selfish monster, but those people are wrong. Burdens can be meshed with the best things in life, but also not be for everyone. /14
If you're the kind of person who loves a carefree existence, who hates making plans and hates routines, who likes to do high adrenaline sports with your partner to relax - then someone like me probably isn't a good fit for you. And that's okay. /15
But when the high octane, adventure loving cutie with the prosthetic limb comes along and you're *still* not interested - now I have questions. It's striking how often people's 'personal preference' shifts to rule out whatever disabled body they happen to be confronted with. /16
All this to say, I wish Appiah had addressed bias. I wish he'd framed his advice differently. I wish he'd affirmed the value of disabled lives. But I think the basic gist of what he said was fair, and I don't believe that he thinks disabled *people* are burdens. /17
