Tanis wrote:
>The guest writer of the preface was noneotherthan Barbara Faye
>Waxman who is a "disabled woman" and she was edited by the editors
>everywhere she used the language disabled woman instead of women with
>disabilities. I too have been edited down from capital D Deaf to lower
>case d deaf because someone thought it more appropriate. I have also been
>told to use people who are deaf rather than Deaf people.
Interesting this. I get the reverse that is when I use 'deaf', it gets
edited up to 'Deaf' even when I'm not talking about sign language users. I
don't think this issue is simple. It seems we're caught between a rock and
a hard place on the issue of how we describe ourselves and that is perhaps
something that needs to be addressed on an international level. I recently
went to a seminar which involved people who are supposed to be allies of
the disability movement and yet probably two thirds of them used the term
'people with disabilities'. Over here that term is a kind of 'wishy washy
in the middle not quite accepting the disability movement's agenda kind of
way of expressing oneself' AND it also has special meaning for some groups
with specific impairments, who don't like the word impairment (which has
the same kind of hstory as 'queer' in the gay and lesbian movement, until
recently that is, AND.....
>I do think people with developmental disabilities such as
>those representing themselves in the self advocacy movement world wide
>have more of a reason to gow people first language because of the stigma
>associated with diagnostic categories like autism, downs syndrome and
>other impairment related labels. Labelling is powerful and we do not
>always get to choose our labels, especially if some
> one has decision making powert over us. (When we are children or deemed
>incompetent etc). Dick Sobsey recently told that story at a seminar in
>newHampshire to make the point that somtetimes (not always) it is more
>dangerous to put the disability second if that obscures the disability
>issues.
Well, my earlier post about the DfEE's campaign may be an example of what
Dick was saying, because the Government holds the power. Whereas there is
no way that I would want to stop people in other nations from using
particular terminology as a self-descriptor, I am conscious that there are
people who read the comments on this list in the UK, see the US use of the
term PWDs and think (a) they don't support the disability movement (b) it's
American parochialism or (c) they support the medical model. Honestly, I'm
quoting others! So it's not always about political correctness and often
about confusion, which is what I think makes it more than a research
question. That brings me to Lennard's point about 'hate speech'.
In the seventies, when I was a student at university, the term 'academic
freedom' was coined to describe a practice that made sure that academics
who had radical, different or minority perspectives were allowed a 'voice'
and could not be thrown out of universities because of this voice. (At the
time I was close to someone who was teaching and writing about
poststructuralist philosophy, and they tried everything they could to make
life difficult for him). Academic freedom THEN was ostensibly linked to
ideas about multi-culturalism and anti-oppressive practice. It is
increasingly the case that 'academic freedom' NOW is now a guise for
hegemony and 'hate speech' in particular i.e racist, sexist, homophobic,
disablist speech, and some are saying that 'people first' language is just
neo-conservatism - 'we understand you, but we're out to get you really'.
There are a number of prominent US publications that blame this backlash on
First Amendment absolutism that aims to maintain the hegemonic status quo
i,e, racism, sexism etc. Some of the things that are being said about real
time transcription for the Singer session make me wonder about the links
between the US ADA and First Amendment absolutism.
Best
Mairian
Mairian Corker
Senior Research Fellow in Deaf and Disability Studies
Department of Education Studies
University of Central Lancashire
Preston PR1 2HE
Address for correspondence:
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U.K.
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