hello all
The term "physically challenged" does sound like it's been workshopped but
what is interesting, is that in Australia, I don't recall anybody using the
term who has a direct association with disabilities. I would suggest it is a
term used in popular cultural media and thus as Ron suggests, an upbeat
"nice" way to describe the "unspoken" disabled.
As a slight aside, I am teaching outdoor education currently which has
"challenge" as a central theme. interestingly, the educationalist is far
less concerned with physical challenges than they are with challenges of
affect and effect. Being pissed off lies in the affective domain. The risk
of promulgating the "physical challenge" (which I think is fine for sport if
its used for all sportspeople in events where the larger component of
strength lies in the physical domain - which is a disputed proposition
anyway) term is that the people who create the barriers by which one is
challenged can applaud themselves for providing valuable learning
opportunities :-)
BTW...glad that the term "pissed off" was used in its full form. We Aussies
get very confused with the contraction "pissed" because here it means drunk.
We are often surprised to hear who turns up in public completely off their
face (pissed). To be honest, I almost just used the terms "blind drunk" and
then realising that this may be offensive, I almost wrote "legless". You
just can't win!
Best regards
Laurence Bathurst
School of Occupation and Leisure Sciences
Faculty of Health Sciences
University of Sydney
PO Box 170
Lidcombe NSW 1825
Australia
Ph: 61 2 9351 9509
Fax: 61 2 9351 9509
Email: [log in to unmask]
See School Website www.ot.cchs.usyd.edu.au
Home Ph: 61 2 9818 2050
Mobile Ph: 0407 069 441
----- Original Message -----
From: "keith armstrong" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, September 07, 2002 9:23 AM
Subject: Re: origin of term
| I certainly agree with Ron on the use of the term 'handicapped' origins.
Apart from the myth being untrue, it is also doesn't advance our position in
society.
|
| Different cultures had different attitudes to people with impairments.
Even these sensitivities changed at various times, they also differed about
attitudes to the cause or type of sources of impairments.
|
| For example the status of people with physical impairments changed after
the occupation of Egypt by the Greeks. Spartans had different attitudes to
Athenians. Roman occupation made further changes. There are many leaders
who had physical impairments, including Sparta.
|
| Another point is the source of the information on terminology, poor
nondisabled have less chance of acquiring good information about descriptive
language than rich people. We should not be looking for one word or one way
descriptions.
|
| The essential aspect about terminology is that there is a specific
distinction between the 'impairment' and discrimination against people
associated with that impairment.
|
| I think the term 'physically challenged' was first used in a Re-evaluation
Co-counselling psycho-therapeutic workshop.
|
|
| Keith
| Keith Armstrong
|
|
|
|
| On Fri, 6 Sep 2002 07:53:09 -1000
| Ron Amundson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
| > Let me be the first to spoil Maria's hope that we not start another
debate
| > on language.
| >
| > I have one serious concern about how we express our objections to
particular
| > terms. It is _not_ necessary to prove that an expression has evil
origins in
| > order to show that the expression is objectionable. A word can have
| > perfectly noble origins, but nevertheless be objectionable because of
the
| > connotations that it has picked up along the way.
| >
| > The very worst case of this is the disability rights myth about the
| > "cap-in-hand begging" origins of the term "handicapped." IT'S NOT
TRUE!!!!!
| > I just got my very own CD version of the Oxford English Dictionary and I
can
| > post the real etymology if anyone wants it. It was used for hundreds of
| > years with no reference to disability at all, and when the reference got
| > carried over it was not in a particularly demeaning way (at least that's
how
| > I see it -- the sporting angle may seem objectionable to some).
| >
| > Besides which, someone posted a newspaper column where an activist had
| > quoted the cap-in-hand myth to a newspaper reporter, who had promptly
looked
| > it up in the dictionary and publicly made a fool of the activist in
print in
| > a large circulation newspaper. Let's try to not do that any more.
| >
| > This doesn't mean that the term "handicapped" is ok just because its
origins
| > are not oppressive. It is not ok, because it is associated with the
| > oldfashioned and oppressive social attitude towards disability. The same
| > point can be made about "colored" with reference to, um, African
Americans,
| > people of African descent, etc. No one has to prove an evil origin of a
term
| > in order to point out that it is no longer acceptable usage. (And just
as
| > some elderly American black people have no objection to "colored," I
have no
| > personal objection to "handicapped." But I realize that most activists
do.)
| >
| > My personal reaction to "physically challenged" is that it's euphemistic
and
| > cutesy, it assumes (like all euphemisms) that the word disabled is so
| > horrible that it cannot be spoken , and it is clearly dishonest in that
it
| > gives an "upbeat" label to a concept that the speaker obviously believes
is
| > too horrible to be spoken.
| >
| > Maybe the sporting angle is where "challenged" came from, and maybe not.
| > Frankly I don't think it matters to whether the word is objectionable or
| > not.
| >
| > Ron
| >
| > Ron Amundson
| > University of Hawaii at Hilo
| > Hilo, HI 96720
| > [log in to unmask]
| >
| >
| > ----- Original Message -----
| > From: "Maria Barile" <[log in to unmask]>
| > To: <[log in to unmask]>
| > Sent: Friday, September 06, 2002 3:23 AM
| > Subject: origin of term
| >
| >
| > Hello everyone
| >
| > It is not my intention to begin another debate on language, but I would
like
| > to know the origin of the term "physically challenged." Did it begin
North
| > American or a European as a terminology? I remember seeing it for the
1st
| > time in the 1980s. In my linguistically naive days I thought that it
made
| > reference to sport, at least sport and disability. I would like to be
able
| > to explain to a local media personality why this euphemism is not an
okay
| > term to use however I need to know where it comes from, and that it did
not
| > began within our community somewhere either than Canada.
| >
| > Maria
| >
| >
| > ________________End of message______________________
| >
| > Archives and tools for the Disability-Research Discussion List
| > are now located at:
| >
| > www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/disability-research.html
| >
| > You can JOIN or LEAVE the list from this web page.
| >
| > ________________End of message______________________
| >
| > Archives and tools for the Disability-Research Discussion List
| > are now located at:
| >
| > www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/disability-research.html
| >
| > You can JOIN or LEAVE the list from this web page.
| >
|
| --
| War makes people ill.
|
| ________________End of message______________________
|
| Archives and tools for the Disability-Research Discussion List
| are now located at:
|
| www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/disability-research.html
|
| You can JOIN or LEAVE the list from this web page.
________________End of message______________________
Archives and tools for the Disability-Research Discussion List
are now located at:
www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/disability-research.html
You can JOIN or LEAVE the list from this web page.
|
