We may be Deaf, but are we also Disabled? If we want to advance in today’s society, do we accept the label that we are disabled? Regardless of my personal view that I am a linguistic minority, I say yes. As proud as I am to be Deaf, I am more importantly disabled.
Let us consider this:
Race is classified according to a group's ethnicity, heredity, and/or descent.
Sex is classified according to one's gender.
Disability is classified by ones inability.
What is the difference? The third (disability) relies on a negative ontology of being.
With this in mind, let us inquire why we have a plethora of studies done on racism and sexism (as well as other -isms), but there is paucity on disablism.
Then, it is not surprising that there has been insufficient research on disablism and typically, it has been researched as a health, economic, technical, or safety issue rather than prejudice. It is, then, not surprising that until the 1980’s, historical assessment of disability came almost exclusively from outsiders: educators, doctors, and policy makers. This means that for nearly more than 200 years, the politics of disability has become an archaeology of knowledge researched by non-disabled people.
There are more than 50 million Americans with a disability, yet disablism is still one of the oldest forms of discrimination and one of the most difficult issues to tackle in American policy. Disability policy in America remains fragmented and millions of dollars are being spent on social welfare, vocational rehabilitation and employment programs that virtually all observers agree have done little to better the lives of the disabled. ‘Progressive’ policies in the last 25 years have attempted to eradicate disablism; however, disability policy continues to be addressed in a narrow ontological research framework of what the problems/solutions are in the politics of disability with neglect to sociocultural context.
If we have learned anything from the 1970’s, the collective action of various groups with disabilities is the only way necessary for reform and that also includes incorporating the Deaf community into the Disability Movement.
We need to show that we are not inherently disabled, but rather, the society is disabling us.
8 comments:
Hello,
I was planning to do a blog or vlog about this issues. I will post my opinion and comments about Disability. I am starting a new semester at college and one of my professor wanted to meet with me early and I was happy to do that. First question he asked me was if I considered myself disabled and I told him no. I am not denying that I have disability, because I wanted to stress that we do have our own community, culture, and language. It's the society that indeed disabled us, by lack of understanding what we are all about. Suppose you attended NAD, or any big Deaf event, the disability disappears, because we are around people like us, we are communicating with no barriers and probably feel at ease.
I think it really depends on where we are at the moment, where we are considered disabled or not.
Patty Germundson
Very well said. I do believe that on a policy-level and if we are to make any progress regarding education/employment then we must use our identity as a person with a disability, but there are some implications. It robs us of our identity as a deaf person and makes us objective by normalizing us as a person with a disability with a lack of respect to deafness and its rich culture. Policy continues to suffer people with disabilities including deafness and I do strongly feel that the frustration is goes hand-to-hand to other disability communities
I beg to differ on your definition of disability. Disability does not mean inability. Disability means something physical that a person cannot do like being able to hear the roaring waves of an ocean, to hear the hard and heavy rain on the tin roof, to hear a highly-pitched wind, the 125 deciBels of a jet in the sky -- something that hearing people can normally hear unaided. Being unable to hear these sounds (vide supra) is a disability (deafness) and not an inability as you define in your blog.
Inability means the lack of a skill. Based on a syllogism, to say that deaf people are "inabled" is invalid, most naturally. Simply because some deaf people can read and write and comprehend; therefore, he has these skills.
Again based on a syllogism, some deaf people and some hearing people have skills that others deaf and hearing people lack thereof.
Post Scriptum: Disability is not a dirty word in the English language.
Some animals can hear better than hearing people. Does it mean that
hearing people have a disability.
The answer is no. It depends.
290,000,000 Americans (2000 census). 10 million profoundly deaf Americans. It is, therefore, dangerous to deny a disability in yourself in that your rights would be taken away from you, The rights include a scholarship for college,
CC, relay service, ad infinitum. One should be educated enough to graciously accept his deafness as a disability. I saw Jane Fonda at an anti-war rally on the Capitol, but I could not hear her last
Saturday. I very readily and graciously accept my deafness, but never for the life of me shall I ever be allowed to be labelled as
"inabled" as you define in your blog. I can do many things, not only reading, writing, but I can paint a portrait. Again, I never say, "I am proud of my deafness,"
or "I have deaf pride, for that matter. I have never seen any blind say, "I have blind pride."
It sounds very pitiful. Rather, I would say that I am proud of overcoming my disability. By that, I mean that I learned English through my eyes, not through my ears.
I am not shy or embarrassed or ashamed to gesutre to a passerby who tries to communicate with me,
"Sorry, I cannot hear or speak," and, in turn, the passerby would nod respectfully.
I also do not object to being called deaf and mute, for it is
absobloodlutely true that I cannot
hear at a reasonable rate or speak.
Why should I deny my true disability? To deny my disability, I have no right to demand interpreting service, CC, relay service.
Disability, yes. Inability, no.
I hope that you will see la
différence.
Jean Boutcher, Deaf and Dumb
The technical usage of the word disabled means turned off; as in disabling a function on a computer or disabling a switch in an electric system. This usage is appropriate in our community--we are a hearing-disabled group.
Admitting to a disability has always been a sticking point with us, though. We adamantly don't accept ourselves as a disabled group, preferring the cultural definition.
However, we are forced to do so in order to receive services that equalize our lot in life. Vocational rehabilitation, dedicated schools, financial aid, interpreters, telephone/videophone devices, relay services, captioning, you name it. Once we admit to the disability, we receive the equalizers. Fair?
Worthy of discussion, eh?
Disability doesn't infer inability, that's the cultural line. For those who acquire a profound loss, disablement is a totally accurate description, it is defined quite clearly by our LOSS.
It may well NOT apply to those who had nothing to lose, but you need to appreciate, by far the LARGEST sector of deaf people, are those that acquire it.
I don't think it helps to be resentful of the fact many of us acquire deafness through no fault of our own, so don't go with he cultural or linguistic thing, why would we ?
Remember,if you attack 'hearing' or mainstream perceptions (Mostly as far as I can see with total bias !), then you are in effect attacking us too, that's what we were, and mentally STILL are, do you think it wise to take us on too ? we outnumber you by thousands....
We should be working together not against each other. Who cares HOW access/support is 'seen' ? Pride comes before you know what ! We do too, appreciate the financial support, our loss means we suffer twice as much with every thing, we have reluctance from the 'community' to contend with, and ignorance from outrformer peers too, we aren't always going to take this lying down.
We NEED support systems, so we are obviously going to support that ideal. I doubt if anyone will give unconditional equality just because you can't hear, there are toomany variants of us to apply any global maxim,no two people are the same, regardless of the endles hype of 'Community, which, I personally challege exists as per deaf people.
Disability is a negative word. If you look at the dictionary, disability denotes "1. lack of adequate power, strength, or physical or mental ability; incapacity.
2. a physical or mental handicap, esp. one that prevents a person from living a full, normal life or from holding a gainful job.
3. anything that disables or puts one at a disadvantage:"
It is clear that disability goes beyond than just "turned off." It is a negative stigma. I believe that disability is a negative word in the dictionary and does not reflect diversity, but rather the lacking aspect of being normal.
I am shocked that you said that you did not mind being called 'deaf and dumb.' The historical usage of such word is equivilent to the 'N' word made towards black people. It is a degradatory term.
Wow... interesting discussion.. I think if we change the definition of disability and educate those who don't understand what deafness is all about, then it can be a positive thing. Many people view disability as negative and would look at it "sadly". I have been approach by many ignorant people that would say, oh you can't hear this or that. They would look at me sadly and I would tell them I am doing fine, and living my life the way I want to live and it's great! They would be surprised and wondered why I feel that way. Disability is viewed as a negative word to many, which is why we need to change that. Some would ask me if there's a cure for my deafness and would I take it? Naturally, I would tell them no and they would be all shocked and asked why? I would simply tell them, this is who I am. I have my own culture, language and community where I can feel at ease. I always try to educate any one who didn't understand deafness and why disability should not be a negative word.
Again, I agree with you. The term disability has been abused historically and that any attempt to try to restore disability into at least a 'neutral' term is almost impossible espectially with the negative onology of 'dis.' Is diversity a possible word? If I could create utopia, I would convince everybody that we were all 'disabled' per se one point or another in our history. Black were 'disabled' in the 1800's (slavery), women disabled in the '1920's (employment), and so on. It is also interesting that once the concept of 'average' and 'normal' became truth, then there was the need for measurement of what was not average/normal, thus strengthening words like disability to be the opposute of ability.
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