How We Talk About Each Other

I'm feeling really awkward about some of the ways we talk about each other to each other and, equally, about some of the ways the non-disabled world talks about us. My discomfort derives from two sources: the necessity of identifying disability and the ways of describing it.

Years and years ago, I remember seeing a relatively public discussion about how major media handled/should handle the question of race. Where whiteness is the default -- call it, unmarked -- was it really necessary to constantly call attention to the markedness of race -- and, in particular, the markedness of blackness when reporting crime. Is a defendant's race necessary to the public's right to know if race is not material to the crime itself? To be equal, was it going to be necessary to call attention to all races? What if race were material to the story, what kind of stories would ever be written in which whiteness were material? Slowly, I saw the same kind of filter being applied to age and, sadly, in too few places, size. I saw no discussion of disability.

One of the things I hate in the disability community is the from one to another, "So, what's your disability?" For me, it comes all too early in the conversation and while I realize that it is meant as a way to bond, I feel uncomfortable -- as if we are no different from the outside world, we categorize and bond by our medical histories. In some cases, it is as if my membership is somehow being challenged, as if ....

And yet, I am among the worst offenders when it comes to describing one crip friend to another ... "quad, para, post-polio ...." I sort of assume that it telegraphs from one disabled person to another an insider's information that will help make sense of the next thing I am about to say. And even as I do so, I feel that I am doing something that is not quite "outing" because there's nothing closeted about the way these crips are with their disability (it's either visible or they are so out and high profile that there's no secret about disability if I were to mention name), but not quite OK, either. Granted, it's within the community, but ... do I have to do the thing I hate so much?

When talking about a disabled person to a non-disabled person, the stakes are different. Here, I find us butting up against the way the nondisabled world talks about disability. It is always in the loss, the deficit, the brokenness, and impairment. X lost her arms, Y has one leg, G was paralyzed, ... You know? Missing from the conversation are the words that would describe the excess, the riot, the carnival of disabled bodies -- and the joy we have in them. I mean, what if a wheelchair were not a compensatory, assistive device in the imagination of the public? What if it didn't have to bring with it the assumption of a narrative of tragedy? How would it be if we could talk about the wheelchair as, yes, a device associated with disability but as a device of excess? A surplus?

In the past, I've turned my nose up at the "I have MS/MD/cancer or whatever, but it doesn't have me!" formulation; I'm none too happy with the people first language, either... I want something that jolts people and makes them think. I want something that disturbs; I want something that is cultural, as well as political. This description of GIMP from New York Times columnist Corey Kilgannon makes a start:

So the jaunty rhythm of Mr. Carter-Long’s offbeat stride is featured. So is the vertical linearity of Catherine Long — who was born without a left arm — when she stretches to the sky with her right arm, Statue of Liberty-style. And so is the intriguing asymmetry of Lezlie Frye 29, who has one arm shorter than the other and windmills both arms while bending at the waist, up and down.

Notice what it (mostly) doesn't say: Mr. Carter-Long's gait is noticeably affected by his disability; it doesn't go on to name his disability and give the reader a full list of all the "problems" that are associated with it. Kilgannon (perhaps at the behest of the dancers? -- cuz I ain't seen nuttin like this before) simply reports any difference as an artistic feature. Similarly, Ms. Long's description asks us to consider whether or not her right arm is a "disabled" arm or a "normal" arm. We know that she was born *without one* (see there it is), but the absence doesn't seem to be the feature of the text. There's no mention of where the so-called "norm" might be found. Ditto the description of Ms. Frye's body. One arm is shorter than the other, and one arm is longer than the other. The description doesn't pathologize the length of either arm; all we know is the way in which Ms. Frye's arms appear and a way in which she uses them. Overall, yes, the language is awkward... but don't you get a sense of joy from it? A little pleasure from the disruption and the transgression?

So, a fb self description. WCD is a woman of huge calico halo-hair. She lives from the chair? She is of her wheels? Gracefully wrenching spasmodically, she dances through the day. WCD explodes with spasm. OK. Time to stop.