Over in this pit thread about political correctness a poster named Jack of Words made some comments about the language used to describe the group that I would previously have referred to as “disabled people” that I found interesting, and I thought I’d start a GD thread to explore them.
(1) He claimed that “people with disabilities” is the preferred term, over “disabled people”.
(a) What is the rationale behind this position?
(b) Is this a common/consensus view among the disabled community? Or would there be lots of other people/groups in that community who would be perfectly happy with “disabled person” or with some other term entirely?
(c) If this is in fact the consensus agreed-upon view, how offensive is “disabled people”? How doe it compare to, say, “crippled” or “handicapped”?
(2) He posted the following:
Assuming I’m reading that correctly, I believe he’s making two distinct points:
(1) It’s preferred to (and/or insulting NOT to) use language involving “have” rather than “is”. That is, you wouldn’t say someone “has missing limbs”, you would say that person “IS an amputee”. You wouldn’t say they “have deafness” you would say they “ARE deaf”.
Again, what’s the rationale here? And how common a viewpoint is this?
(2) “someone whose illness, injury or condition requires a wheelchair often isn’t disabled until they reach the stairs” seems to be saying that being a paraplegic isn’t “being disabled”, rather, being a paraplegic in a situation where being a paralegic actually stops you from doing what you’re trying to do is “being disabled”.
(a) So (I suppose this is directly primarily at Jack of Words himself) is this an accurate summation of what you’re trying to say?
(b) This seems like a definition that is odd. So if we lived in a society in which there were absolutely perfect wheelchair ramps and so forth EVERYWHERE then suddenly no one in a wheel chair would be disabled? And if a short person can’t reach things on a tall shelf they and can’t find the footstool that person is, for the duration, disabled?
I think I can see the mindset behind that definition, but it just seems likely to result in frequent misunderstanding and miscommunication. But I’m willing to be convinced that I’m wrong.
Thoughts?
Just for the record, I was the person in the thread who stated that in my experiences at work in our relationship with the disability community, person-first language such as “person with a disability” is generally preferred to identity-first language such as “disabled person” or identity-only language such as “the disabled.” (I work tangentially with the disability community. Most of my work is done with the elder community. Perhaps strangely, person-first language is rarely used when referring to members of the elder community, though such usage is not proscribed.)
This has two big caveats: the Autistic community has some dispute about this but I believe identity-first language is more preferred at this time, e.g. “Autistic person” or “the Autistic.”
I also believe identity-first language is more preferred in the Deaf community, e.g. “Deaf person” or “the Deaf.” I am not remotely as familiar with the Deaf community, so I welcome correction.
(Individuals being individual, this does not in any way mean that any person cannot and does not have his or her own preferences for how they should be addressed or referred to.)
I’m not aware that any there is any such thing as the “disabled community”. I’ve know many disabled persons during my life; my grandfather was confined to a wheelchair for the last ten years of his life. None of these people ever notified me that they were members of the “disabled community”, and I doubt any ever thought of themself that way.
The group of disabled people does not act or speak as one. If I saw any evidence that disabled people as a group wanted to change the English language in a reasonable way I’d do my best to adopt those changes. If I only see evidence of a small fraction wanting that, I don’t see why I should care. For all I know, the majority of disabled people may think the English language is fine as it is. They may even be embarrassed by the parade of PC gadflies claiming to be outraged on their behalf.
(And the same could be said for numerous other groups, not just the disabled.)
Perhaps the most relevant part of that post is here (with emphasis added):
I think the biggest take-away here is that different people are different, and that “the disabled” is not a homogeneous group. The offense occurs not just among the able-bodied but also those dealing with disabilities.
That is preferred by some people. Frankly, the term preferred by my disabled spouse many would find offensive, whether able-bodied or otherwise but honestly, 90% of the time the two phrasings are going to be interchangeable. Yes, some people have a chip on their shoulder and there are a few situations where it matters. My opinion is that if we can stop people from causally using words starting with G, C, and R in reference to the “differently abled” it would be a better use of outrage and effort but as I said, that’s strictly my opinion. I don’t expect everyone to agree with that.
It has to do with language and custom. There are some subtle things that change depending on the wording and, as I said, there are times that it is significant. Most of the time, though, it’s not as big an issue as some make it out to be.
As people with disabilities/disabled people are not homogeneous no, there is NOT some overall consensus. It’s not like they all voted on the matter. How much it matters to a particular person in the referred to group is also going to vary.
Handicapped can have a defined legal meaning - see “handicapped parking”, for example - and certainly in context it’s a perfectly legitimate and proper term to use. Note, though, that not everyone with a disability is going to qualify as “handicapped” under legal definitions. My nephew disabled from a traumatic brain injury does not qualify for a handicapped parking placard as his disability does not affect his ability to walk from a vehicle into a building.
“Crippled” is usually offensive, particularly when used by someone who isn’t. It’s probably a good idea for the able-bodied to avoid using the word in the same way that white people shouldn’t use the n-word. It’s not quite as bad, but yes, it’s usually considered offensive.
This is getting into subtle language stuff.
I’ve yet to meet someone who would get offended if someone observed they are missing a limb or part of one, and yes, such a person is an amputee. Then again, I don’t spend a lot of time around people with that particular issue so there may be something I’m missing there.
You either say someone is deaf or they have a hearing problem, “have deafness” may be real English in a sense but it’s not something I’ve heard expressed in that manner. Likewise, you may say someone is blind, or that they have low vision or a vision problem.
Some of this is just simply tradition, and arguably idiomatic to English.
Yes. That is what he is saying.
In many ways he is correct. Often, the biggest obstacle to the disabled is not the disability they have (note that both constructions were used there) but rather how other people react to that disability.
The rationale here is that a person is not just his or her disability. If your disability doesn’t interfere with what you’re doing then no, you’re not disabled in that context, even if you’re wearing an artificial limb, using a wheelchair, have a cochlear implant, or whatever.
That is probably the most important point of that post, and the one item the vast majority of people with a disability will agree on.
From the standpoint of getting in and out of buildings, no, but presumably even such a world as that would still have people with hearing problems, vision problems, neurological issues, etc.
People use wheelchairs for a variety of reasons. Quite a few wheelchair users actually are able to stand up and take a few steps, so stairs are much less an obstacle for them than for people who can’t stand/walk at all. This gets back to people not being homogeneous. Just because you see a person in a wheelchair doesn’t mean you can safely make assumptions about what they can and can’t do.
Even in such a perfect world, being a respirator-dependent quadriplegic would no doubt be a disability, even if there were no longer problems with stairs.
Yes.
Of course, we aren’t trained to think in those terms.
One concern I have is that the word “disability” has so many different meanings. As used in the ADA it is entirely different than used by the VA, by SSA, …
I usually think in terms of “impairment” or “impaired,” as opposed to “disability” which - to me - generally connotes a legal determination.
I don’t know anyone in the deaf community but the rest of this rings true. We used to host a summer autism event and the brochures would carefully explain that while many people prefer people-first language there are others on the spectrum that prefer identity-first language so they would likely hear both depending on which workshops they attended.
I do know a lot more people who prefer people-first language, but not all disabilities have strong proponents of it - I myself have ADHD and I can’t imagine referring to myself as “a person with ADHD” and have read it very rarely outside of extremely formal writing. Perhaps the speaker we had who spoke of a “person who experiences Down syndrome” would use “a person who experiences ADHD” or a “person who experiences dyslexia” though.
Well, clearly that’s true. On the other hand, if every single individual is totally and fully different, then I might as well just ignore everything that anyone ever tells me, because even if the speaker is a long-time thoughtful advocate for disabled issues, well, every other person is different, so why bother taking any advice on anything other than how to interact with that one specific person?
In other words, if “don’t use the word ‘cripple’, it’s offensive” is valid and meaningful advice, the "don’t use the phrase ‘disabled person’, use ‘person who is disabled’ " also is at least potentially valid and meaningful. And it’s to determine the validity and meaningfulness of that statement that I started this thread.
Can you provide an example of such a situation?
Can you give me an example of how this plays out in the real world? That is, what people do wrong that they would do better if they understood this better? (Not meaning to imply that I doubt such things exist, rather that I’m curious what kinds of things you actually have in mind.)
The word “cripple” is definitely more offensive than either “disabled person” or “person with a disability”.
You might want to use “Sally is a paraplegic” when her disability is central to a situation, such as necessary accommodations when being admitted as an inpatient for surgery or medical treatment, although some would argue that we don’t say “Sally is a cancer” or “Sally is a heart attack”… except that medical personnel do sometimes do that, but usually in a context where the medical issue is the reason the person is in hospital or other treatment setting and thus is central to what’s happening.
On the other hand, you might want to use “Sally is a person with paraplegia” when you want to emphasize the person. “Sally is a highly skilled engineer with many awards in the industrial workshop design field, who is fluent Spanish and German, and uses a wheelchair to get around because she has paraplegia.” The disability becomes just one trait among many that describe the person and not the primary trait.
This is why I say it’s a subtle language thing. How you construct the description changes the focus. That’s why a significant number of people, particularly activists, use the person-emphasizing construction, they’re emphasizing the person. People who are less politically active might not have a preference.
For the most part the focus should be on what people can do, not what they can’t.
Rather than try to pull an example out of my backside when I’m tired and make a hash of it let me think about that a bit and see if I can actually come up with a good example.
As a member of the “disabled community” it cracks me up to see you all tripping over yourselves here.
I have been an amputee for 29 years. I didn’t “lose” my leg, it got CHOPPED OFF in an accident.
To be honest, most of us “disabled” people don’t give a flying fuck what you call us, it’s the tiptoeing around, condescending PC bullshit like in this thread that is fucking irritating.
So fight amongst yourselves, we don’t give a shit, we make of life what we can.
I did not. I did draw a distinction between ‘having’ autism/Aspergers and being autistic/aspergian.
You see?
Now that, I did do.
I think we’ll find you’re not…
I don’t speak for amputees or deaf people. Personally, I would say someone has missing limbs (well, possibly - saying they have an absence of something seems strained. I’m perhaps more likely to say “Ms X, who is a very talented poet and one of the kindest and most noble people I know, is missing 3 of the 4 limbs most overly-limb-privileged and above-averagely-limbed people have.” Well, OK, maybe not that last bit… )
But yes, I wouldn’t say someone ‘had’ deafness. I don’t know how any particular deaf person might feel about that though. I did ask a couple, but they rudely ignored me…
More or less - it’s called ‘the social model of disability’. You’ll note my use of the word ‘often’. It’s entirely possible that an illness, injury or condition could create a situation where a person is wholly and permanently dis-abled - that is, made unable to do those things that non-disabled* people do.
*(‘able bodied’, if you wish, though barring another thread on whether the mind is part of the body I’ll settle for saying some people don’t like that term)
Not really, no. It’s good in parts, though.
As noted, there and here, not every one in a wheelchair is…self-propellant, for want of a better word. But yes, anyone can be dis-abled under conditions which dis-able them. It’s right there in the word. It doesn’t mean ‘not normal’, it doesn’t mean ‘broken and worthless’. It means dis-abled. It’s often a simple matter to en-able.
You’re certainly doing a good job of evidencing your argument… I’m not sure that inconveniencing anyone else is sufficient reason to retain a view that disabled people are all abnormal, broken and worthless, distinct from real people who should get to define how the poor brave wee darlings are discussed, nor to demand that their only input into the discussion is compliant gratitude**
Hello. Have you followed me over from somewhere, but missed the posts where I admit/confess or perhaps proudly proclaim my own disability?
You’ve certainly missed much of what I’ve actually posted here, to wit, the bits that stressed that I don’t claim to speak for whole classes of dis-ability of which I have no direct experience (though I can speak for a a significant group of people with and for whom I’ve worked).
As for the hyphenation, it was used earlier in this thread to help Max understand what ‘disabled’ really means. As to why it was used earlier in this post, well…the devil made me do it
The comments you’ve noted in quotes are broadly representative of attitudes still relatively common among the normal, un-broken, worthy, able-bodied etc. I am certainly guilty of over-estimating the ability of some of my audience to read those comments in that context. I’m sorry.
Lots of communities there. You are certainly a very communitish people in the USA. Personally I’m member of the blue eyes community. And the community of people who use shampoo once in a while.
Here’s why “people with disabilities” is sillier than "disabled people” which is sillier than “handicapped” : it’s longer. “Gay” and “lesbian” caught on because they were shorter and niftier than the original homosexual – also fun words. “people with disabilities” will never catch on because it’s more cumbersome than the original handicapped, and it’s ugly.
Never heard it, but it goes without saying that people using the abnormination “handicapable” must be shot at dawn. “Handicapped” is also a pretty ugly word, better than the three sentence alternative, but they should invent a short and fun alternative if they really want to have a new designation. I’ve heard short chicks refer to themselves as “fun sized” (doesn’t work with short guys for some reason) Perhaps something like that.
)
I’m not sure that inconveniencing anyone else is sufficient reason to retain a view that disabled people are all abnormal, broken and worthless, distinct from real people who should get to define how the poor brave wee darlings are discussed, nor to demand that their only input into the discussion is compliant gratitude**