Ableism pretends that people who are autistic, deaf, blind, etc are HORRIFICALLY limited in communicating when rly abled ppl refuSE to accept the multitudinous ways people communicate outside of very strict parameters and accepted neurotypes

(This is not to speak for or dismiss if disabled people themselves feel whether their disability limits them, they can feel any type of way as individuals, just that by and large I have heard the barriers are also, if not mostly, structural and cultural from an ableist society)

You can see this even w/ our interactions w/ animals...bats must be blind bc they use echo location, pets have many ways of expressing themselves or showing issues and concerns but we do not understand or even ignore and superimpose our own meaning while “wishing they could talk”

These ableist ways of coding what is or isn’t communication is deeply colonial as well. Settlers paint Native relationships with the land and animal kin as quirky, romantic in a racist way or straight woo nonsense when they’ve been in communication with each other for millennia.

Been thinking about this even as it relates to myself. Communication thru talking and writing and proficiency based in settler colonial standards be some bullshit a lot of times. Accepting more and more how hard it is to navigate as an ASSUMED neurotypical person that is not that