Complexities of defining "the disabled" (Was "No comment on ...

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

Carrol:
>One can't take really dramatic instances -- the quadriplegic or the person
>living in an iron lung -- as paradigmatic of the disabled because that so
>lends itself to the politics of excluding so-called "soft symptoms." But
>neither can one take instances which are made "disabilities" mostly or
>only because of social responses, because that could slip into a serious
>denial of physical reality.

I take your point. I wasn't making a huge argument as to the concept and
reality of disability in general. I was a bit concerned about Marta's
quickness to define the California teacher's condition a matter of
disability. Yes, because of the law, now the only recourse he has may be to
claim the status of the disabled, and as an individual response, this may
be the right one.

However, even the teacher's eventually having himself recognized as
disabled by the state doesn't quite address the problematic law that indeed
created his disability to begin with.

I think that sensationalistic propaganda about sex crime has been used by
politicians to make people more willing than otherwise to continue to
countenance the 'war on crime.' (The other important tool is drug.) And in
my view, the California teacher's case points to the problem of crime scare
impinging upon workers' rights, since, as you say, his case would be a very
unusual one among the disabled and would not be useful as a starting point
for discussion about the disabled.

Yoshie