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.