While "citizens with inabilities" certainly sounds silly to me (not to
mention that on its face it describes us all), people try to invent new
terms because there's pressure to do so. Fortunately the most flaky ones
tend to die out. I am concerned that in this case it's apparently important
to identify the "inventors" as able bodied. When labels are unavoidable, I
try to use terms that people with disabilities prefer, but that's not
always possible--primarily because those folks seem to be as divided as
everyone else on the subject.
-Dick Jacobs
-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Sunday, January 30, 2000 9:20 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Cc: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Disability Language
"Citizens with inabilities?"
These 2 AB guys are, presumably, not comedians?
Well, since this is a newly minted term, there's no social history
context for it... but my impression is that is may be objectively not
"wrong".... but subjectively, it "sounds flaky" & "sounds bad"..... and
the effort to find a new term from these AB guys, speaks volumes about
their apparent indiference to what PWD's want to be called.
Why does the world need a new term for this? Because whatever we want
to be called, some AB has to be a contrarian?
This reminds me of paint makers, who can't label their paint colors with
plain English.... every shade has a "special" name...like "Moonlight
Mist" or other ridiculous names; and without seeing the paint chip, you
can't even begin to guess what it is.
"Citizens with inabilities" extends my prior posts, about certain
contrarian individuals' compulsion towards what I called a
"hyper-novelty of language", where disability is concerned. My posts
on that, got endlessly pounced on & endlessly twisted into straw-man
arguments, on this listserv..., (does grad school disable one's common
sense?) ... as if the phenomenon I was talking about, did not exist.
Thanks for the great example, proving it does!
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