X-WebTV-Signature: 1
ETAtAhUAsrVCa/zcDwPLm7mvMjO7hIdAIN8CFFjiODl19aXNgJJ7dSoU5RqU52Z5
From: [log in to unmask] (Jim Davis)
Date: Mon, 22 Jul 2002 13:19:21 -0400 (EDT)
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Labels & being ignored anyway
Message-ID: <[log in to unmask]>
Content-Disposition: Inline
Content-Type: Text/Plain; Charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7Bit
MIME-Version: 1.0 (WebTV)
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...."
________________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.
