Jim and all:
What I said was: "And certainly, if I want folks to recognize my claim to
disability as identity, Disabled Person does that for me in a way that
Person with XXX doesn't."
I never did say that the distinction between the two (DP v. PWD) was simply
a matter of "grammatical standardization." What I said was it's a matter of
identity, self-naming and self-determinism. Notice: I said, "for me" I did
not say "for everyone." Though, yes, there are certainly people who agree
with the distinction I was making, as there are people who agree with your
stance.
And I don't advocate "colored people" because most people have come to a
consensus that the term, is, for various reasons, more pejorative that
"Person of Color" Or at least it's less trendy. Personally, I don't really
care for either term, because they focus on racial skin tone rather than
cultural ethnicity. If you notice, however, I do advocate Asian American
v. Person of Asian descent which would seem to me to be similar logic to DP
v. PWD.
As to your issue with my scholar status, again, I did not say that I "know
better". If you read my last post, what I said was that I am very clear
that I do represent (being one of the few visibly disabled in my dept.,
standing in front of a group of students, giving a paper to a bunch of
nondisabled academics, etc.) But that that is often about a label that
others place on me as opposed to anything that I may actually do. I try, in
these instances, to to present as many sides as I can. Though you wouldn't
know, because you haven't seen me teach, for instance, when I'm asked what
the "correct" term is in a classroom situation, (or even at times, on the
street,) I present and give reasons for all sides -- Ok, at least I always
try. ("Some people think this/Some people think that because...") It
doesn't mean that I am not entitled to my own opinion on the matter, or
that stating it doesn't give room for any of the other flowers to
bloom. If some people choose not to go for the water, that's their
decision, not mine.
Johnson
At 10:53 PM 7/27/02 -0400, Jim Davis wrote:
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>Date: Mon, 22 Jul 2002 13:19:21 -0400 (EDT)
>From: [log in to unmask] (Jim Davis)
>Subject: Labels & being ignored anyway
>To: [log in to unmask]
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>JC: DIfferent groups and different individuals have to to what works
>best for them. It isn't just an applied grammar standardisation
>problem. If it was, then then by the same logic you'd be advocating
>that "people of color" be replaced with "colored people".
>
>If "sounding worse" was the only criteria, then "queer" would be
>condemned by every LGBT/Q academic theorist; instead it's the trendy
>thing for a decade. Young scholars are under pressure to use it or have
>their incipient careers nipped in the bud. While a huge percentage of
>the people being told to self-identify that way, under severe bullying,
>refuse to do so and if they feel safe to express themselves will say
>"I've always hated that word, I can't wait for the trendies to move on
>to the next word." One academic worker in a during a phone call from a
>university office with other "queer studies" faculty present in it....
>actually lowered her voice in a phone call with me to a whisper, when I
>volunteered that I never identify as 'queer' and hate to be under that
>label when presenting at a conference, and she whispered "I feel exactly
>the same way". Not feeling safe to say it out loud.
>
>What "sounds stigmatizing" to you may not, to others. Why not let a
>hundred flowers bloom?
>
>Scholar status doesn't give you any greater ability to make a
>determination of what is more or less stigmatizing, nor of how people
>"should" identify. If scholar status gave you this position to know
>better.... how would this be much different from the old paternalistic
>Medical Model of those kinds of professionals running our lives? I
>don't want social workers, rehab professionals, shrinks political
>scientists or DS scholars (PWD or AB) any other profession trying to
>tell me what to think or say. I don't just want to switch which
>profession is paternalistically (or maternalistically?) defining me.
>
>Application is all, and the main application of words is to communicate.
>In each situation. Most communication situations not being global.
>Communicating may occasionally involve the equivalent of saying "What in
>the UK is called a car's 'boot' is in my country called the 'trunk'."
>I'd rather have the occasional inconvenience of having to say something
>clarifying like that, than have some sort of worldwide dictatorship of
>language enforcing the latest trend which inevitably changes every few
>years anyway.
>
>Deaf people (capital "D") historically developed their whole movement in
>a separate manner so they end up defining themselves entirely outside
>the concept of disability. (Except when wanting to be in disability
>rights laws, which they do not perceive as any contradiction.) Why
>argue with it? The river of social history had a branch there, and
>things went the way they went.
>
>"I am not a feminist, but.." is a cliche. If someone advocates and
>votes for equal rights, how much does the exact identification matter?
>
>In the mid-1970's the national weekly newspaper for LGBT folks Gay
>Community News / GCN in Boston (before it went out of business and the
>name was them resurrected as an academic thing).... decided we were not
>entirely happy with the term "gay" (it can be perceived in a historic
>way that isn't exactly what we have in mind today), so they held an open
>contest to find a better word. None of the suggestions coming in seemed
>any better, so (expressing the perspective of ambivalence) they didn't
>refuse to give out the prize..... they gave the prize to the person who
>suggested the word "pizza". I guess that implies the term "Pizza
>people." (Or "people with pizza", whatever.)
>
>Comparative grammar isn't everything. It's only one thing. Ther are
>different kinds of difference; and so language may pay out one way for
>one group and another way for another.
>
>Lett-handed peole don't define themselves as "disabled". So what? WHen
>we do universal design, we don't get narrow and pointy-headed about
>disability definitions, we use common sense and include left handedness
>as one of the human variations that "design for all people" should work
>with.
>
>As a person with an invisible mobility disability, I am often challenged
>as to why I want to use a lift or ramp. I am put on the spot to say
>something to defend my rights. It is a practical situation in which
>there is a need to communicate enough to get the person to stop
>bothering me, or to get them to find the key for the lift, or whatever.
>Without letting them invade my privacy like to the point of demanding a
>medical diagnosis which I shouldn't have to discuss with some stranger
>who knows nothing about disability but still thinks they're the judge of
>disabilty status. There are situations where "PWD" doesn't work for me
>as well as something more specific. I can either stand there having an
>intellectual/rights argument in which the other person has little idea
>what I'm talking about since they see no assistive devices, or I can
>solve the problem by situational use of language.
>
>Example: Yesterday when I was helping facilitate a huge 5,000 person
>public input meeting in a convention hall, on the urban planning of
>lower Manhattan reconstruction.... I had to use the bathroom. All the
>trailer-toilets were with many steps, except one was ramped. To me,
>steps = pain and joint damage. As I walked up the ramp, one of the
>convention hall employees sitting nearby said "Hey, that's for
>disabled!. You can;t use that." In this situation since he didn't have
>any key, and was 15 feet away, I said "I have a disability and I don't
>need your permission" and didn't stop walking as I said it. I have had
>hundreds of situations in which to test language variations and find out
>what penetrates the person's ignorance, and what doesn't. On other
>occasions like where somebody has to find a lift key... I find it only
>works to more specifically say "I have difficulty climbing steps"... or
>"I have severe arthritis and it's hard for me to use steps..." ...
>whatever seems like it's going to work. In theory I shouldn't have to
>explain any particulars, but I live in a real world, not a theoretical
>one. This sentence may come out in 3 or 4 ways on different days in
>different situations.... none of which has anything to do with changing
>how I conceive of my identity. My identity doesn't change day by day.
>
>As scholars we have an ethical obligation to not inflate the value of
>what we do in order to make ourselves or our field more important, and
>to not think that what we do makes us more knowledgable and/or elite
>than it does. Conflict of interest considerations apply to us as much
>as to any profession. And to not use scholarship or professional status
>to try to control PWDs or any others.
>
>Scholarship is a product and more generally, a service. Progressives
>among us may even see it has having a component of public service.
>
>It has long been part of medical doctors' ethics to not offer medical
>advice except when asked. If DS wants to define itself by a critique of
>the profession of medicine, then perhaps in the ethics department, it
>should do no less.
>
>There is a not-very-fine line between saying "If we did this, here's why
>I believe the benefits would be this..." versus saying "PWDS should all
>do this...."
>
>
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Johnson Cheu
http://people.english.ohio-state.edu/cheu.1
The Ohio State University, Dept. of English
421 Denney Hall, 164 W. 17th. Ave.
Columbus, OH 43210
(614) 292-1730 (Office); (614) 292-6065 (Dept.); (614) 292-7816 (Fax)
****************
Curriculum Consultant, Project LEND
http://www.osu.edu/units/osunc
Nisonger Center, 357 McCampbell Hall
The Ohio State University
1581 Dodd Drive, Columbus, OH 43210
(614) 247-6073 (Office); (614) 292-3727 (Fax)
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