David, as responses to your post suggest, opinions in the disabled community
seem to vary. The same holds true for racial/ethnic minorities; I have
African-American friends who dislike Black intensely and others who prefer
to the former term. Some of my colleagues of Mexican extraction describe
themselves with pride as Chicano, while at least a couple feel strongly that
it's a term of bigotry. I could go on, but as my own convoluted wording
shows, there need to be neutral descriptive terms for use in situations
where "generic" terminology would be confusing. When asked about my
program, for example, it's unhelpful for me to say simply that we serve
children and adults, so I say that we do support services for
developmentally disabled children and adults. That of course leads of to
questions about what constitues a developmental disability, but that's
ok--at least there's an information exchange taking place. I hasten to add
that in most day-to-day situations there's no need to use labels; there's
sufficient context for "kids" "folks" "people" "men" "women" "students" etc
to be perfectly clear.
It seems unlikely that there will be generally agreed-upon neutral terms, so
until I hear something better, I'll probably continue to use
"developmentally disabled people" or "persons with disabilities" when that
level of clarification is needed. I hope it won't offend too many people,
but I'm mindful of the fact that language debates can get in the way of
action.
-Dick
-----Original Message-----
From: David Pfeiffer [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, January 27, 2000 7:45 PM
To: Disability-Research
Subject: Re: disability language
I must make a comment about so-called politically correct language.
Handicapped, challenged, disabled, and special are just as offensive to me
(to hell with correctness) as nigger, boy, colored, chick, babe, faggot,
oriental, and the list could go on.....David
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David Pfeiffer, Ph.D.
Resident Scholar
Center on Disability Studies
University of Hawai`i at Manoa
[log in to unmask]
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Center on Disability Studies....maximizing individual
potential by encouraging independence, self-determination,
and full participation in the community.
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