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>Natasha wrote: > >>>These [physical v. cognitive] are definitely communities that not only need >to work together, but frequently overlap. But the (physical and cognitive) >disabilities rights community often wants to distance itself strongly from the >mental health rights movement for fear of being lumped in with those >"crazies".<< > Dona M. Avery responded: >Hi Natasha, and welcome to the list. There are many significant issues in your >eloquent post, but I first wanted to counter the notion that it is "fear of >crazies" that separates phys. disabled identities from groups more concerned >with cognitive impairments. >If defective in physical appearance, the entity under our gaze must be mentally >defective as well. Such thinking underlies the impulse to raise one's voice or >speak slowly or use a child's vocabulary, when meeting the obviously physically >disabled person in any contact zone. This response to physical appearance is >unnerving and yes, the phys. disabled person must resent it--but they resent >the *objectifying response* and the generalizing assumption, not the population >who IS actually cognitively impaired. Actually, you make exactly my point. My post did not say that the separation of traditional disability activism and communities was a result of "fear of crazies" (though, of course, this has its effects, just as it has on all populations in Western society). My post said that it was the result of fear of being "_lumped in_ with the 'crazies'". Emphasis here is definitely on the "lumped in". And the examples you have given are precisely examples of being "lumped in" with folks who are either cognitively impaired or have mental disabilities (which, by the way, seem to be fairly different--and you have again "lumped" them together. No discussion or definition of "cognitive impairment" on this list has come close to including mental health disabilities. And some mental health disabilities don't really have any "cognitive impairment" aspect, but manifest more as a "social impairment," which "normal" folks don't know how to deal with and then institutionalize, treat (therapeutically and medically), separate out, isolate, etc. those who make them "uncomfortable".) It is the response to the general public "lumping together" the physical and cognitive disability communities and issues and mental health disability communities and issues (all for lack of better vocabulary, because I am not particularly happy with this vocabulary) that I am talking about. And definitely part of that response has been to differentiate these communities and issues by putting up definitional boundaries of "normalcy" between them that reinforce the general public's prior stigmatization of mental health disabilities. For instance, the emphasis that someone in a wheelchair is "normal just like everyone else, and should not be assumed to have mental problems." I am not saying that this type of argument and boundary-defining occurs out of malevolence towards or fear of people with "mental health disabilities," but rather in response to society's treatment of both people with physical disabilities and cognitive impairments and people with mental health disabilities. I hope I've made my distinction clear. Natasha Natasha Kirsten Kraus Assistant Professor Department of Sociology 430 Park Hall Box 604140 University at Buffalo-SUNY Buffalo, NY 14260-4140 [log in to unmask] (716)645-2417 x 457 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%