[lbo-talk] impaired = colorless and noncharismatic

Quenby Alclaire flagrant_sake at yahoo.com
Mon May 19 16:18:51 PDT 2003


--- Marta Russell <ap888 at lafn.org> wrote:
> >--- Marta Russell <ap888 at lafn.org> wrote:
> >> I know nothing about this new Argentine president's politics. But
> >> this is a typical treatment of impairment by our "educated" class of
> >> journalists.
> >> The very first paragraph goes off describing the Argentinian
> >> president's impairments. And some wonder why I write about
> disablism
> >> - according to some it doesn't exist! Here it is.
> >> marta
> >>
> >
> >maybe alot of people don't consider a lazy eye and a lisp as
> imapairments.
>
> That isn't the point really. The point is that such physical
> characteristics get mentioned as the defining ones - they garner such
> remarks. How does this reporter know what people think of the man's
> physical state?

from experience? i had a teacher that had a lazy eye and she could see with it fine. that's not any excuse to be rude of course.......but being insensitive isn't neccesarily a case of disablism. is being insensitive an impairment?


> The reporter is putting his own colored tainted view
> of the physical characteristics onto the story -- and in the first
> paragraph.
>
> By medical standards, they would be. Speech pathologists would be
> called in, and opthomologists consulted. (Not that disability rights
> people would necessarily call that a good thing.)
>
> >is having buck teeth an impairment?
>
> Do the buck teeth prevent one from engaging in a major life activity?

no but neither does a lisp etc. so it depends on what one thinks being disabled is.


> Do they prevent one from eating, for instance? Some might group it
> as a disability if the buck teeth cause discrimination or prejudice.

by that criteria afro americans are disabled. women are disabled.


> Or -- one prong of the ADA defines disability as regarded as having
> an impairment.
>
> So personally,would you take a buck teeth woman out for dinner or to
> the movies?

if i liked her, yeah. but at some point there are inevitable evolutionary factors. would i date a woman that had an arm going through her forehead? it is almost certain that i wouldn't. anything involving sexual selection is a bad example. that would be like accusing a gay man of sexism etc.

~M.E.

__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo. http://search.yahoo.com



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list