Too Short To Ride is so important for disabled people like holy shit
Seeing Peridot’s frustration when she can’t join in with Steven and Amethyst, knowing that she should be having fun but not being able to really resonated with me because that’s exactly what it’s like trying to keep up with non-disabled friends
And she was angry and bitter about Funland being inaccessible in the same way that we get angry when our environment is inaccessible
Then when she tells Steven and Amethyst about her disability they immediately tell her that she can do the thing, even though she knows she can’t. They mean well and try to teach her to shapeshift but she can’t do it and ends up feeling worse
This happens to disabled people all the time – we’re constantly told that we can do things, we just need to try harder and be positive. But there are some things we just can’t do and this attitude just hurts is more
Then we see how much internalised ableism Peridot has. She thinks she’s worse than the other gems and feels insecure because of her disability which is something most disabled people struggle with
At fiirst Amethyst is very accepting and reminds Peridot that her limitations don’t define her and they love her for who she is, not who she could be (if she weren’t disabled)
But then she does what a lot of non-disabled people do (and this is the most important part of the episode for me). She tells Peridot that she doesn’t need assistive technology, she shouldn’t rely on her tablet and then snatches it from her
Disabled people are constantly told that they don’t need medication, mobility aids, assistive technologies etc, and abled people will often withhold access to those things or even take them away without our consent
Amethyst says Peridot doesn’t need her tablet, and Peridot responds with “You don’t know that!” and honestly I can’t put into words how important that is.
Everyone, disabled or not, needs to pay attention to that line because you don’t know what anyone else is able or unable to do, and you don’t know what accommodations and assistance they need
When Amethyst tries to destroy the tablet, Peridot finds out that she has a different power (metal kinesis?) which serves as a reminder that even if you can’t do what everyone else does, you can still do something
Tl;dr
Peridot is disabled
It is an accurate representation of disabled people’s experiences
And it addresses casual ableism from well-meaning friends
– the rise of old friends senior dog sanctuary
– Hamilton
– pokemon go
– female ghostbusters
– i don’t give a fuck im outta here Obama
– captain america civil war
– girl, black guy and latino guy leads in new star wars
– deadpool
– lemonade
– literally???! Nothing??? Else????
… . and this is just what I came up with in a pretty lazy google search in an hour, including distractions where I went down the research rabbit-hole for a bit because holy crap some of that stuff’s NEAT, guys!
And I know I’m missing stuff, because I wanted a citation for every single thing I put on there.
And like I do actually get the sudden overwhelmed feeling of EVERYTHING SUCKS? but that mindset is, at this point, literally our worst enemy. “Everything is terrible somebody do something” helplessness is what will in fact consign us to everything BEING terrible.
Everything is not terrible. In fact there are new ways, every single month, wherein new opportunities and miracles are happening and no that does not balance out the bad shit but it gives every reason to FIGHT the bad shit, and to get past the bad shit, and to make sure the bad shit ISN’T the overwhelming stain.
So.
I want EVERY single one of my followers to read this. PLEASE I know a lot of bad things happened this year and it’s ok to be upset but all of this pessimism is only making things worse
lavenduers 