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Judith Winter wrote: > > put... disabled leaders in disability studies in the limelight - or have > > we suddenly forgotten our politics of visibility? ... > > at times like this ... non-disabled people should step back from the > > spotlight and concentrate on the lighting and the scenery. > > and what about the person(s) who, because of the specifics of their > disabilities, are not likely to be readly identified as within the > "disabled" category? (at least, not on that particular day) > > How many are falsely categorized as non-disabled ? i.e., not because they > seek to "pass" as non-disabled, but because they would have to provide a > verbal explanation or other cue to place their identity. > > (this goes back to the "illness" issues discussed these past weeks.) Being one of the members of the Disabled community that can pass because I don't fit the stereotype of "blind" (don't use a cane or a dog or a sighted guide 90 to 95% of the time, my eyes "focus" on things of their own apparent volition, etc.) nor is asthma often considered a disability and recognizing that, at least in the US, I'm actually closer to the norm of the US Blind population than the stereotype is, I find the question you pose intriguing and, at the same time, amusing. I find it intriguing because it suggests that what Mairian's comment about the politics of visibility suggests that only those who fit the stereotype of "disabled" can, through the visual aid of one's body, dismantle Singer's philosophy and, therefore, the suggestion takes those of us who can pass out of center stage contention. I would argue that both those who can pass and those who can't pass are needed to dismantle this philosophy because it is rooted and is weakest in that it focuses on visual cues for, from what I can tell, non-visual disabilities -- primarily, intellectual disabilities, although since he's refused to be pinned down upon specifics, it's difficult to say what his real list of inferiors is -- and upon stereotypes and general misinformation about Disabled people and, well, babies, in general. Am I the only one who sees an inherent flaw in the reasoning that a child is not "self-aware" before a specific age simply because the adults in the room can't seem to figure out how to communicate with the babe? There is also a problem with his argument when he focuses upon the individual not because of his insistence upon individual choice, per se, but because he is focusing upon one individual's right to choose whether another person's life is worthy of life when that individual has no way of communicating their opinion. His argument -- with its reliance upon intangibles and unmeasurables such as potential to increase happiness and/or suffering -- is the same misguided stupidity that can easily legitimize the killing of female babies and homosexual babies and babies of color. After all, males, heterosexuals, and whites suffer far less and cause an "increase in the overall happiness" of a society by their existence while the reverse is true of the other three groups. That is, if all we look at is "statistics" collected by the powers that be -- the same group collecting the "statistics" that suggest we, Disabled people, are and create more suffering than happiness by our existence. It's not like Singer's argument has not been used to kill or enslave two of the three aforementioned groups. And am I the only one who recalls how those same arguments were defeated in debate within academia as well as actions taken outside of the academy? The defeat of a majority view that was also just as supposedly unchangeable and immovable? -- Carolyn check out, "Passing, Invisibility and Other Psychotic Stuff" at http://www.tell-us-your-story.com/_disc68r/00000003.htm Add your story at http://www.tell-us-your-story.com Finding What We Have In Common One Story At A Time* %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%