Disability Studies Web Page: depts.washington/disstud/

Oct 6th, 2009 Language and Stereotypes Dennis Lang Disability Studies Web Page: http://depts.washington.edu/disstud/

Class Objectives Normal (continued) What do we mean by the term Disability? Language ID & Explore Stereotypes Explore the Issue of Etiquette Introduce Basic Concepts • (Ableism; Disability / Handicap / Impairment; Social Model of Disability)

Example Bill Shannon “Crutch Master” Rjd2 - Work It Out (Bill Shannon): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxjrBd4WE2U Does Bill have a disability? AND Difference Is Normal (UN): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylFwcdNfVhE

Language What is in common use?

Language USE EITHER: Person with a Disability (PWD) (People 1st Language) or Disabled Person; Deaf (Identity Language)

Language NEW People who experience Disability

Person with a Disability Disabled Person People who experience Disability

“People First” language Person With a Disability (PWD) person who is deaf (or hearing impaired)… person with a psychiatric / mental disorder(illness?) “People First” esp. preferred by self-advocates of people with intellectual disabilities(ID) community ("intellectual disability" Codified in Washington State Law)

Disability Identity / Pride!?? Disabled Person (DP) • often preferred in the disability rights movement • You will also see disABLED/disAbility • Deaf / Deafhood vs. deaf Celebrate Disability? What is there to be proud about?

Language Please do not use “Handicapped” Avoid euphemisms: “challenged,” “special,” “differently-abled,” “handicapable” Other Terms: “Wheelchair Bound” “Victim” (e.g.: Stroke Victim)

Language NO: wheelchair-bound YES: wheelchair user NO: “suffering from_” or “victim of_” YES: has

“nondisabled” preferred over “able-bodied” Why? Disability POV is centered. Identifies the taken-for-granted norm, e.g. “whiteness.”

Linton: Centering Disability “In this book, the terms disabled and nondisabled are used frequently to designate membership within or outside the community. Disabled is centered, and nondisabled is placed in the peripheral position in order to …expose the perspective and expertise that is silenced. The use of nondisabled is strategic: to center disability. …This action is similar to the strategy of marking and articulating "whiteness.’"

NonDisabled Privilege Modification of Peggy Mclntosh’sWhite Privilege and Male Privilege (I can come to class and expect the accommodation of a chair/desk be available.) I can, if I wish, arrange to be in the company of nondisabled people most of the time. I can avoid spending time with people who are uncomfortable or dislike my kind or me. If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area which I can afford and in which I would want to live. I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see nondisabled people widely and positively represented I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my people.

I can choose public accommodation without fearing that, as a nondisabled person, I cannot get in or will be mistreated in the places I have chosen. I can arrange my activities so that I will never have to experience feelings of rejection owing to my nondisability. I can easily find academic courses and institutions that give attention only to nondisabled people. I can expect figurative language and imagery in all of the arts to testify to experiences of being a nondisabled person.

What is Ableism?

“Ableism” "discrimination in favor of the able-bodied." Oxford Wordfinder • Belief that disabled people are inferior to nondisabled. • Assumption that disability determines everything about a person. • beliefthat one is better off dead than living with disability

Linton Asks Who "qualifies" as disabled?

Differences from Other Minority Groups • 1. Public: a confusing mix of conflicting emotions: Pity, Charity, Disgust, Fear • 2. Lack of “Safe Havens“ (Gill, “Divided Understandings,” Handbook of Disability Studies, Albretch, et al 2000) • OTHER: Sexless, Rudeness OK • Anybody can find themselves belonging at anytime.

Stereotypes: Or how we understand disability • Stereotypical assumptions about disability?

When Stereotypes Tell the StoryBy Jack A. Nelson • 1. Pitiable and Pathetic • 2. "Super-Crip.“ • 3. Sinister, Evil and Criminal. • 4. Better Off Dead. • 5. Maladjusted. • 6. A Burden. • 7. Unable to Live a Successful Life.

“TALK” Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSG6LGutkHo Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpdyIYEmrs8

Pitiable, burden / Heroic, inspiringPoster child / Super-crip “Super-Crip” Pitiable and Pathetic

Jerry Lewis’s Muscular Dystrophy Assn. telethon: poster child Pitiable

Lewis’s attitude towards “his” disabled kids: cure or nothing I decided after 41 years of battling this curse that attacks children of all ages, I would put myself in that chair, that steel imprisonment that long has been deemed the dystrophic child's plight. . . . I realize my life is half, so I must learn to do things halfway. I just have to learn to try to be good at being half a person." From "What if I had Muscular Dystrophy?" Parade magazine, Sept. 2, 1990

“Overcoming your disability” • Successful despite a disability. • Your responsibility to pull yourself up, it’s a personal problem & solution. • “Super-crip” drama: heartwarming struggle of a person facing the trauma of disability, through extraordinary courage and determination she eventually triumphs. She seems so superhuman in her efforts to compensate for her disabilities, it leaves other disabled people feeling inadequate (and ignored). • On the flip side: “If I were you I’d kill myself.” • The better-off dead theme of many movies. • Bitter, helpless… such a tragedy…

The highest compliment? • “He never seemed disabled to me.” • “He was the least disabled person I every met.”

Quality of Life: beliefthat one is better off dead than living with disability The Standard View

The Standard View “…that disabilities have very strong negative impacts on the qualities of life of the individuals that have them. This view is widely held by nondisabled people, both in popular and in academic culture.” - Amundson

TheAnomaly: disabled people report a quality of life only slightly lower than that reported by nondisabled people, and much higher than that projected by nondisabled people. Both the Standard View and its Anomaly have been robustly demonstrated in a number of studies. Amundson

“I feel the weight of a social obligation to be either healthy or miserable. Nevertheless, I have concluded that I am always sick and often happy, and that this seems very peculiar in my culture.” Susan Wendell, The Rejected Body

What is Disability Studies? • UK: Primarily political • US: Primarily socio-cultural • Linton: claims “[T]he curriculum reveals…patronizing & distorted representations of disability….” (p. 4) “Claiming Disability” • She also states that disability is socially constructed. What does that mean?

Disability Studies • Society for Disability Studies (SDS) http://www.disstudies.org/ • Disability Studies Quarterly http://www.dsq-sds.org/ • Disability Studies Program at the UW: http://depts.washington.edu/disstud Minor in Disability Studies – Individualized Studies Major

How do you treat a Person With a Disability?

For Thursday: Disability Models • “Fear of Bees” Easy read and provocative • "Disability: A Choice of Models and Disabling Societies“ Look at: Chapter 1: Pages 1-5; 11-16; Chapter 2: Skim for themes

Disability Studies Web Page: depts.washington/disstud/