disability metaphors

Marta Russell ap888 at lafn.org
Thu Sep 12 20:34:22 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?

I cannot speak for Joanna of course but here is my interpretation of your insights and questions. For some deaf persons, what happens is the imposition of shame upon them for their assigned inferiority status by hearing persons. For others an environment which does not accommodate their impairment and for some employers who do not want the added trouble of a deaf employee which may cost them in interpreters or insurance or additional personnel or management arrangements beyond what they would do for hearing persons. These are things which cause poverty and segregation.


> What changes?

When deaf persons go into the world as it exists now they must be in a world which often disables them by not providing an environment in which they can participate, often isolates them for various reasons, often castes them as unfit, and in the past has killed them for their so called deficiencies.


>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?

For deaf persons the simplest example is an office/institution of any sort/or company where there is no TDD, a device which allows deaf persons to communicate via telephone with hearing persons or other deaf persons. But the failure to accommodate is disablism by presuming that all persons can hear. Now if we caste the shadow that being deaf is not being "whole," there is a reason never to be inclusive and accommodate, isn't there?

Unfortunately so many people internalize what the nondisabled world tells them -- that they must be like the normals. There really is no normal but it is so ingrained that many tend to accept that there is such a fiction.

best, marta


>
>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.

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



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