Why it’s a problem: There are a few glaring problems with this NPR article, not just in its ableism, but also its faulty logic, which is used to uphold a medical model of disability.
The story concerns a Montana woman who has been cycling through psychiatric facilities and houselessness for several years.
One of the biggest logical blunders in the article occurs when the author, Aaron Bolton, writes, “Then K’s apartment was sold. There was no one who could help her find a new place to live. She eventually stopped taking her medications and fell into homelessness.”
It’s peculiar to insert the part about medications here, as it seems to be trying to make an equivalence between K losing her housing and K not taking her medications as factors in her becoming houseless. That’s absurd. The author states in the preceding sentence that K’s apartment was sold. It is an objective statement about an immediately prior event with demonstrable impacts on K’s housing situation. Mentioning medications here is irrelevant and subjective, and almost seems like an effort to minimize the importance of housing as a solution to houselessness.
The author mentions K not taking medications at least 4 times in the article before talking about the importance of housing. This is also odd, because recent articles that have been appearing on outlets like NPR have been heralding a new class of antipsychotic drug that targets cholinergic receptors, conceding that “existing treatments still fail to control most symptoms, or incur life-altering side effects, which has driven the race for new options.” K would have likely been on the old class of dopamine-receptor targeting drugs.
The most egregious aspect of this article, however, is that not once is K’s opinion featured anywhere. She is treated as less than human, and objectified as a problem to be solved. Her daughter’s opinions are featured several times in the article, as are those of case managers and clinicians. The daughter is made to appear the victim, with the author of the article even noting how the daughter “still has trauma from growing up with her mom’s mental illness.” That’s basically a circumlocutory way of saying that the mother is a monster. The ableist implication is, of course, that being abusive is inextricably linked to mental illness, not some other character traits that the mother may have. K is only allowed to be defined by her mental illness in this article, which calls attention to the pervasive stigma surrounding mental illness, which the author uses as a reason for not using K’s real name. In other words, the author unironically contributes to the very stigma that is cited as a reason for the dehumanization of K.
We also have no context for the daughter’s quote above about being traumatized by her mother’s mental illness. We’re just supposed to believe that it’s true, because the “sane” person in the article says so. The author piles it on, writing how the daughter was “choking up with emotion” talking about how her mother’s mental illness impacted her own mental health, and adding for enhanced effect, “Her two dogs hopped up on the couch to comfort her.”
One thing that strikes me about the above, is how not okay it would be if someone was talking about a family member with any other type of disability in this way, as if they are a burden. We carve out an exception for people with mental illness. Why?
“Nothing about us without us” is one of the foundations of disability rights. Writing about disabled people without consulting them is a form of epistemic injustice, and it’s a much too common practice in journalism.
Source: NPR
