Ace on "outside Jewish money" and other things

[Marta Russell]

>Marta Russell wrote:
>
>>Maybe AC does do this quite a bit but as another writer who just 
>>had her book reviewed in the Nation explained the use of "cripple" 
>>instead of "disabled" to me -- the reviewer used cripple for shock 
>>value. This is for Nation readers, a kind of way to make the story 
>>more controversial, to draw in a reader. So what does that say 
>>about what the media demands from people who write for them?
>
>I can speak from experience that the Nation editors don't encourage 
>the use of shocking language. Columnists are allowed lots of 
>freedom, but elsewhere, rude speech is not welcomed.
>
>Doug

Who writes the headlines?  The review I'm on about is "Handicapping 
the Crippled." (Aug. 19)

So if the Nation editors don't write the headlines and the reviewer 
does, the Nation has chosen a reviewer who wants to shock.  What is 
the difference?

Nevermind about the rest of the review which by stating that 
"crippled" is preferred over "disabled" invites the world to call us 
cripples! While we may call ourselves crips, cripples, gimps or 
people who are all buggered up (PABU), whatever, within our own 
circles these words are not words for the nondisabled population to 
use.  These words can help build our community but it is still 
pejorative for others to call us cripples.

The writer knows this.  Therefore he and the Nation have used a shock 
approach. There are other problems too with this review but I'll 
spare you the details..

This is not so much about PC language though as it is about concepts. 
Negative or positive doesn't really matter. What is important is to 
say what disability is.  Disability is a social experience which 
arises from the specific ways in which society organizes its 
fundamental activities. Work, transportation, leisure, education, 
domestic life disable persons  when they are not accessible. We are 
"disabled" or not by the way a society is organized.

To revert to using "cripples" would be to individualize the 
experience and to base it on function rather than social relations. 
That is my quibble with the Nation.  It has never gotten it.

The Nation is a publication which has ignored disability in its pages 
for the most part. In this regard the Congress is way ahead of the 
"vanguard" intellectuals of the Nation. The Congress said in the 
preamble to the ADA -disabled persons are an insular minority which 
has suffered egregious discrimination at the hands of the majority 
way back in 1990.

Please correct me if I am wrong but I've not seen any radical 
political work written in the pages of the Nation on disablement. 
Race? plenty. Gender? plenty. Disablement? Next to nothing and badly 
done when done.

marta
-- 
Marta Russell
Los Angeles, CA
http://www.disweb.org