There are a number of reasons to challenge the use of the word "handicapped".
The bible of UK English is the much quoted Oxford English Dictionary (OED) published by Oxford University Press. If one looks up the word "handicapped", the reference gives us:
"....Hence "handicapping vbl. n. and ppl. a.; "handicapped ppl. a., of persons, esp. children, physically or mentally defective. Also absol. as n.
"1856 H. H. Dixon Post & Paddock ii. 46 Dr. Bellyse, whose love of handicapping and cock-fighting was so [great]." "1889 W. T. Linskill Golf iii. (1895) 15 Another form of odds is 'so many holes up'. This is handicapping by holes and not by strokes." "1915 L. D. Wald House on Henry St. 117 (caption) The Handicapped Child."
The last reference of 1915 is the first mention of the use of this word in connection with impairment in the dictionary.
The ref. can be translated thus: 1915 (date of publication) L. D. Wald (author) The House on Henry Street (book title) 117 (page) "(caption)" (chapter title) "The Handicapped Child."
In many respects Lillian D. Wald was a pioneer. She was a nurse who set up a welfare group in a very poor area of New York. She was also a Jewish lesbian socialist feminist whose views on many subjects were advanced for her time. However, from reading her book it is very clear she was phobic about people with physical and mental impairments including learning difficulties. Her book reflected this phobia.
1915 was a busy year for Lillian D. Wald. She wrote a number of articles for 'Atlantic Monthly'. While the First World War raged on in Europe, in the USA the Ku Klux Klan lynched many Black people, it was a bad year for equalities.
Also in 1915 Dr Harry Haiselden of the then German-American hospital in Chicago promoted his campaign to eliminate those infants that he termed hereditary "unfit," displaying the dying babies and their mothers to journalists. He also made a film about his ideas called "The Black Stork". His ideas were well received in Nazi Germany and eventually led to the gas chambers. Martin S. Pernick, in his book 'The Black Stork' wrote that: Despite the objections of many film regulators and censors, 'The Black Stork' was shown commercially in movie theaters from 1916 through the 1920's, after 1918 under the title 'Are You Fit to Marry?' It was slightly revised and re-released in 1927, and, though no sound track was added, it continued to be shown in small theaters and travelling road shows perhaps as late as 1942.
Lillian D. Wald publicly supported Dr Haiselden's killing of disabled children. Pernick states that; A substantial number of very prominent early 20th century Americans favored letting deformed infants die. Supporters included such leading progressive reformers as settlement worker and nurse Lillian Wald, family-law pioneer Judge Ben Lindsey....
The Nazi killing machine of disabled people known as T4 was led by Rudolf Hess and resulted in the deaths of more than 100,000 disabled people including Richard Jenne, just four years old, who became the last victim of the euthanasia killers. This happened on 29 May, 1945, in the children's ward of the Kaufbeuren-Irsee state hospital in Bavaria, Germany. Hess was never charged
with this war crime of the murder of disabled people.
Sadly, Haiselden's and Wald's ideas are not dead and are still rattling around the academic world. Earlier this year (2012) Dr Francesca Minerva, a philosopher and medical ethicist, had an article published by the British Medical Journal that argued that a young baby is not a real person and so killing it in the first days after birth is little different to aborting it in the womb. Dr Minerva also claimed that doctors should have the right to kill newborn babies because they are disabled, too expensive or simply unwanted by their mothers. Dr Minerva's conclusions were not criticised in the British 'quality' press such as The Guardian and The Independent.
After further research it turns out that the OED is incorrect in suggesting Wald as the originator for the use of the word "handicapped" in the context of impairment or disability.
I have discovered two slightly earlier references for the word “handicap”. One can be found in the British Library. They were both made by a disabled person and imply disadvantage. The first use in this context was published anonymously in the Atlantic Monthly in 1911. The second reference as
a chapter title 'A Philosophy of Handicap' (or cartoon in OED speak) in 'Youth & Life' by Randolph Silliman Bourne (1886 – 1918) in 1913. It seems likely that Bourne (who had a Scoliosis) wrote the earlier anonymous article in the 'Atlantic Monthly'. Bourne used the word “handicap” in the sense of disadvantage.
There is no such thing as right or wrong in the use of most words, nor is there any such thing as 'politically correct'. The term 'politically correct' was first used by bigots who wanted to continue using abusive language in an abusive linguistic context.
In one to one communication we ask a person's name. If the reply we receive is 'John', we don't say 'Hello Fred' if we expect a reply or even an acknowledgement. Likewise, if we refer to a group of people that we are not a member of, we should use a term that the group uses that acknowledges respect and dignity. This is especially so when the group has suffered historical indignity and discrimination. This is not because it is 'politically correct'; it is because it is just good manners.
Many years ago, I was talking about language with an African friend. He told me that he had met people 'who used all the right words', however their hostility to him because he was black was revealed in the way they conducted themselves. Likewise, if a poorly educated person who was good natured referred to him as 'coloured', he did not take offence.
The Anglo-Saxon words 'cripple' (crypel) and 'lame' (lam) can be dated back to the early 9th century. Neither words were used abusively until the 17th century in the so-called 'Age of Enlightenment' when the UK led the world in slavery. Interestingly the root of the word 'cripple' is 'creep'. Before the technology of the wheelchair had been invented poor people with physical impairments that affected their mobility had to literally creep around, in contrast to the rich who were physically carried in a litter.
The old saying “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me” is incorrect. Almost all genocide has started with hate speech, including 'the troubles' in Northern Ireland, and the 'Irish joke' spoken by the Englishman. The genocide in Rwanda and the Nazi Holocaust against the Roma, disabled people, lesbians and gays, Jews and other poor people has without exception started with speech or language that has belittled the chosen victims.
Recommended reading
Bourne, Randolph, (1913: 339), Youth & Life, p337 (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin).
Friedlander, Henry, (1995:163), Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution, (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press).
Pernick, Martin S. (1996: 6) The Black Stork: Eugenics and the Death of "Defective" Babies in American Medicine and Motion Pictures since 1915 (New York: Oxford University Press)
Simpson & Weiner Eds. Oxford English Dictionary 2nd Edition, (1989), (Oxford : Clarendon Press).
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2108433/Doctors-right-kill-unwanted-disabled-babies-
birth-real-person-claims-Oxford-academic.html
" the gas chambers and the ovens become ordinary scenery " http://www.bookdrum.com/books/the-reader/9780753804704/bookmarks-101-125.html
Wald, Lillian D. (1915: 117) The House on Henry Street (New York: Henry Holt & Company).
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