kellygirl said:
Are there some words that should no longer be used (like the "N-word" is no longer used in mainstream English)?
Most crips I know are pretty much okay with the "C-word". The comparison with the "N-word" is interesting. For many crips, it's perfectly okay for crips to call themselves crips. As long as you're part of the club, there's no problem. The privilege of calling crips the C-word is also often extended to family and close friends. The C-word carries affection and respect in some of the ways it's being used in crip culture. Still, it's usually not a good idea for a stranger to use the C-word to refer to a disabled person. Many crips also enjoy using it to see the reactions of the politically correct folks.
There's a business cathering to the needs of disabled people with an online shop. It's called Grovergear. One of the items they sell is a grabbing tool for quadriplegics called "The Cripper". Politically correct folks would probably expect this to be a poor seller, but it's actually quite popular, in good part because of its name. Crips are rarely as politically correct as the people trying to protect them from words.
kellygirl said:
Is it offensive when someone refers to an individual with a disability as "a handicap"?
Justice Antonin Scalia often refers to disabled people as "handicaps". He also believes the Americans with disabilities act doesn't grant disabled people the right to sue states who don't comply with the ADA's provisions regarding accessibility to courts and voting places. The use of the word "handicap" to refer to me doesn't bother me anywhere as much as the mindset of the people who do so.
The regular variant "handicapped" is perfectly fine with me, mostly because I got used to it in the 70s, a time when it was still a perfectly acceptable word to use. But I know some crips don't like it. The online dictionnary Bartleby.com is much better than me to explain why:
Although handicapped is widely used in both law and everyday speech to refer to people having physical or mental disabilities, those described by the word tend to prefer the expressions disabled or people with disabilities. Handicapped, a somewhat euphemistic term, may imply a helplessness that is not suggested by the more forthright disabled. It is also felt that some stigma may attach to the word handicapped because of its origin in the phrase hand in cap, actually derived from a game of chance but sometimes mistakenly believed to involve the image of a beggar. The word handicapped is best reserved to describe a disabled person who is unable to function owing to some property of the environment. Thus people with a physical disability requiring a wheelchair may or may not be handicapped, depending on whether wheelchair ramps are made available to them.
kellygirl said:
How important is it to use people-first language in every day speech? Does it matter, or should it really only be important in formal writing or speaking?
I'm fine with both "handicapped person" and "person with a handicap". I'm also fine with both "disabled person" and "person with a disability". People-first language changes nothing to reality and very little to perception.
Sometimes I feel naughty and will object to the used of "handicapped" and "disabled" as labels, but only for grammatical reasons. Adjectives should not be made to suffer such loneliness. It's cruel and unfair. We should always make sure adjectives have with them a companion word.
kellygirl said:
If you have a disability, what are your experiences with language concerning your own disability?
I became a crip at a very young age (6). It was in the mid 70s. I got to experience the many labels and euphemisms used by politically correct folks to refer to me. I'm multi-lingual, so I even experienced this in a couple languages. It was interesting to see the various paths political correctness took in different cultures.
In english, handicapped and crippled were eventually replaced by disabled in the late 70s. I think we owe this to the many vietnam war veterans who came back home after having been seriously wounded. These men are among my favorite heroes. They managed to organise themselves in efficient ways, to have their voices heard and contributed in many ways to the improvement of the quality of life of all disabled individuals.
Then political correctness and people-first language came along. I stopped being a disabled person and became a person with a disability. Yay.
Then it became crazy. A slew of patronising, meaningless and cheesy labels for the disabled appeared in language. The classic is "Differently abled". Few disabled people use that one to refer to themselves. Another cheesy label that came from political correctness is the "temporarily able bodied" (Usually shortened to TABs in some disability advocacy groups) used to refer to non-disabled people. Most disabled persons don't really object to the use of these labels, as long as they're not forced to use them themselves. Sadly, this sometimes happen...
Time for a little biographical anecdote!
Last week, before choir practice, I was talking about a couple things with one of the other tenors. I was complaining about people who don't pick up after their dogs in the winter. That stuff sticks to wheelchair tires like gum. Grrrr! Anyway. My complaint sorta opened the way for the other tenor to ask me the traditional questions about my handicap, like how and when it happened and blah, blah, blah.
In his questions, he kept referring to me as "handicapped", a word I really, really, really have no problem with. Sadly, two older ladies overheard him use that word to refer to me and took offense to it. They even scolded him about it in front of me, told him it was disrecpectfull. I was in shock when they did this and just didn't know how to react. I was mostly afraid if I reacted, I would end up being impolite to them and I didn't want to do that.
Now, there's an invisible barrier between me and my new friend. There's a doubt that has been solidly planted in his mind. No matter how hard I try to convince him, he doesn't seem to be able to believe me when I say I'm fine with the word "handicapped". There's a disconfort. That's what these two ladies achieved by policing language. They took away from me the right to define boundaries for myself.
The ironic thing is that these two ladies, like most people who try to protect me from words, are also the ones who keep praising my courage and moral strenght. If they truly believe I'm that strong, why are they so over-protective?
There's a classic pun among quadriplegics, paraplegics and leg amputees: The fact I can't walk doesn't mean I can't stand up for myself.
I'm really not offended by words and labels. I sometimes have a hard time recognising myself in some of the latest ones people have come up with tho. Like many of my crip friends, I don't consider myself "physically challenged" or "mobility impaired". I'm a wheelchair racer/daredevil. My best time at a marathon is a few shameful seconds over two hours. I have fun with stairs, mall doors and escalators.
I don't mind any of the PC labels. I prefer disabled, paralysed or crip.
kellygirl said:
How do you feel when people talk about disability in front of you?
I'm an old crip. There's no more shame, disconfort or grieving going on about my disability on my part. It's typical among people who lived with their disability for most of their lives. We're pretty open about it and what it implies.
I think it's not a bad idea to be careful about the feelings of newly injured people however. It takes a couple years to grieve over that kind of loss. But that doesn't mean you should avoid any topic having to do with disability around them. It's truly a hard thing to balance and explain... Let me try with an exemple!
One of the things that newly injured persons find hard to deal with is the staring. There's two things that happen. Some people will stare at them for long periods of time, making them feel like freaks. Others will do the extreme opposite and try everything in their power to avoid looking at the disabled person, probably out of fear of offending her, running the risk of making them feel like they are invisible or don't exist. It's a weird phenomenon. The best thing would be to look at disabled people the same way we look at everybody else, but that's not always easy to do, even if only because of the difficulty of esablishing eye contact with someone in a wheelchair.
Avoiding discussing disability in front of newly injured persons is probably as bad as making disability the topic of every discussion in their presence. The best thing is probably to discuss it the same way you would if no one around was disabled. But I've been a crip for too long to remember how it feels to be newly injured, so I could be wrong...
kellygirl said:
Is there a way it can be done without being offensive or degrading?
Oh yeah. Crips discuss disability issues among themselves on a regular basis. Guys I play basketball with share a lot of information about their tests involving Cialis and Levitra. I had a nice long conversation about self-cathing with a newly injured guy yesterday evening. Nothing is really taboo among disabled people and their friends.
Condescending or pitying language tends to annoy many disabled persons tho. It stopped making me feel good to have my courage praised about 25 years ago. My life is not made of daily struggles and challenges. The biggest physical challenge I deal with on a daily basis is keeping my hands clean. That's a big problem when you spend a lot of time outside in a manual wheelchair. I don't think I'm more praise worthy than others simply because I brush my teeth from a wheelchair rather than standing up. All the stuff that's part of my life that some people think is so terrible actually started to feel "normal" to me a long time ago.
When you're dealing with older crips, maybe we should discuss disability as we would discuss lifestyles from different cultures with some of their members...
Bah. I think I'll put an end to my ramblings now. My post is now long enough to constitute a physical challenge to the eyes of most readers.
Happy lives to everyone!
