Paul,
I thought the term "disability" connoted the rejection and
discrimination that society confers on people with pathologies and/or
impairments. I also thought that such rejection and discrimination are akin
to sexism, racism, and ageism as these terms connote among those who devalue
people unlike themselves. It's an uphill struggle to educate these folks to
believe or act differently. I'm afraid each generation must begin afresh to
deal with the tendency to reject people who are different than the normative
majority. It's as much a political as a conceptual problem.
--JHN
-----Original Message-----
From: The Disability-Research Discussion List
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Paul Sullivan
Sent: Sunday, March 15, 2009 8:45 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Impairment/PWD/Disabled people
Surely the problem is with trying to re-claim the term
"disability" to express our experience of exclusion and
marginalisation. Disability is, after all, the terminology
of those who have excluded us to date and it has such a firm
hold in the consciousness of the mainstream population that
trying to get them to use it in another way is like banging
your head against a brick wall - painful and ultimately
ineffective.
Would it not, (as others I know have suggested), be better
to talk about our experience of exclusion and
marginalisation as disablism? This might have the virtue of
bringing the terminology in line with that used to describe
the experience of other groups, i.e. racism, sexism, ageism,
etc, and thereby promote greater understanding of what we
are speaking about.
Some may argue that this would be to accept that we have
disabilities, (and thereby promote an individual model), but
is that any worse than saying we have "impairments"?, As
someone in this thread has already pointed out, impairment
is also medical/individual model language.
So, might it not be legitimate to say that I have a
particular disability, (which is as much part of my identity
as my gender, hight, hair colour, etc), and that the
exclusion and marginalisation I experience because of this
is disablism (which is as unacceptible as racism, sexism,
ageism, etc)?
It might be objected of course, that we should not accept
either disability or impairment, but should, instead, speak
of variation. I have a lot of sympathy for this viewpoint.
However, for practical purposes, we do need to categorise
variation at times. For example, when trying to decide
whether a student' or employee is at such a point in the
scale of variation that they need particular arrangements or
equipment to put them on equal terms with their peers.
Regards,
Paul
----- Original Message -----
From: "Judith Stephenson" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, March 10, 2009 2:31 PM
Subject: Impairment/PWD/Disabled people
> No offence taken, whatsoever!
> What I can't understand is 'how come we appear to be going
> backwards rather than progressing', taking on the
> terminology that is commonly used by institutions that
> systematically oppress and categorise us rather than
> defining us in a way that does indicate clearly a social
> model use of language. That is that the impairment or
> condition is a just a fact, neither negative or positive
> but because we have those impairments or conditions we
> therefore face Disability. Those institutions/social
> structure are an agent of Disability. Disability is
> therefore the discrimination/oppression that we face. We
> are therefore Disabled people. Anyway that is my
> understanding. I have spent years and years attempting to
> explain that to other disabled people but now it seems
> that we are back to the old patronising attempts to make
> us and others notice that we are 'people first'.
> Is this not surely just an appropriation of the language
> of Disability which is then being fed back to us in a
> sanitised way?
> Anyway - suppose it won't much make much difference to the
> actual practicalities of day to day work but I do think it
> kind of confuses the understanding of the social model,
> whatever the US say.
>
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>
>
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