disability metaphors

Diane Monaco dmonaco at pop3.utoledo.edu
Thu Sep 12 11:47:16 PDT 2002


Marta and Joanna,

Aren't you both essentially saying the same thing but just focusing on different backdrops for an interpretation of who is "able" and "disabled" within those frameworks? While waiting in a hotel lobby once, I observed the positive bonding among individuals with hearing disabilities, in a hearing world, that Marta notes, that was so rich and joyful, I saw no disability....and I think no "disablism" either...only ability. What happens when the group takes a step outside the lobby and mingles on the playgrounds, in the schools, and in the work place? What changes? What would be an example of "disablism" within the framework of a society that requires an ability that is impaired for some of its individuals?

Thanks, Diane

At 10:03 AM 9/12/2002 -0700, Joanna wrote:
>>At 05:01 PM 09/11/2002 -0400, Marta wrote:
>>
>>No doubt I need to be educated about these issues but my initial reaction
>>to this is that calling a nation blind, mute, deaf, and dumb is not an
>>insult to those who are physically or mentally disabled (who presumably
>>would choose to see, speak, hear, and think if they had the choice),
>
>
>Well that is where we differ. Deaf are proud to be deaf, blind have a
>bonding positive to blindness and mobility impaired are imbued with
>disability pride. So everything else you have written here I would
>disagree with.
>
>The whole point is not to be defined as less than or not whole or any of
>those other presumptions.
>Read The Ragged Edge, Mouth: the voice of disability rights. You will see
>we really don't view things in the way you lay this out.
>
>We are "disabled" by society not by impairment. You are stuck it seems in
>the old welfare policy model of thinking of disability. We have moved on
>to disablism.
>Marta
>
>>but is a insult to those who can see, speak, hear, and think, but choose
>>not to.
>>
>>If there there's an implicit negative cast to language that describes
>>disabilities, surely that is a result of the fact that disabilities are
>>disabling. You can fight for the civil rights of people who are disabled;
>>you can point out that the disabled are further punished with loss of
>>access to social space, functions, work, play, but I do not see how you
>>can argue against the real loss that accompanies a disability...no matter
>>how supportive a social group is of its disabled members.
>>
>>If this were not the case, on what basis would a worker who became
>>disabled at work be able to claim compensation for injury? If this were
>>not the case, why do we sit white-knuckled at home when the teenager
>>heads out with the car at night? Do we say to ourselves "Oh, it doesn't
>>matter if the car flips over and he winds up in a wheelchair because
>>think of the rich spiritual life he'll have as a result"? We don't say
>>that. We accept it if it happens, but we don't wish for it and we are not
>>indifferent to the outcome.
>>
>>I was disfigured for the first fifteen years of my life as a result of
>>putting a live wire (220 volts) in my mouth when I was a year old. I was
>>treated as a freak by children in three different countries (we moved
>>around a lot) and I learned a lot from that. But there are other ways to
>>learn or understand such things. There's always the emphatic imagination;
>>that works too. All in all, given a choice between those first fifteen
>>years of misery and a normal childhood, I would have preferred a normal
>>childhood. At any rate, if someone were to call our fearless leader a
>>moron, I would not interpret this to be a judgement of anyone else but
>>the fearless leader.
>>
>>We all wish to be whole--in every way there is to be whole. I don't see
>>how we can have a language that is unfaithful to that wish and I don't
>>see how the application of a disability metaphor to those that actually
>>have choice over their blindness or silence can be interpreted as an
>>insult to those that don't.



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