Is It Got My Attention Right Away?

All throughout the entire "Deaf President Now" movement, the message was clear that deaf people have the self-determination and capability as any other hearing person. To watch hundreds of deaf students and supports protest from Gallaudet University to our nation's capital, using American Sign Language as their only medium of communication. Only shows the effect of the "power and intelligence" (Van Cleve p. 173) behind sign language. "With similar unity in the future, they may move into a

57) Disabled families often face the effects of stereotypes of disability through government systems where disabled families are often portrayed to be dependent, incapable, and unreasonable. This reality often excludes disabled families from the decisions that affect their lives, and their needs/desires are put aside to favor protecting normalcy. Facilitating interdependence among disabled families and the greater society could bring new light to the experiences of disabled families. Many disabled families fear that they will be separated if deemed “too disabled” to care for one-another, which often prevents them from “coming-out” or asking for help (Wilde & Hoskinson-Clark, 2014, p. 57. Opening communication channels, and fielding trust and creating supportive foundations by directly considering what individual disabled families and want can largely improve life for those with disabilities and impact their perception and acceptance by the larger society. When disabled people feel as though they are understood, protected, and considered in the decisions that impact their lives a sense of independence develops, and the misrepresentation they experience can be largely reduced to allow individual autonomy to

In this essay, I will be talking about the injustices faced by disabled or impaired people. Martin Luther King always supported equal justice for all, and some people aren’t getting it. There are more than 1 billion people who are considered disabled, and many don’t get the treatment that they need or deserve. I think it is unjust that most movements to support disabled people’s rights didn’t begin until the 1950s and 60s, and the first laws regulating treatment of disabled people in the UK weren’t passed until 1995. There are many problems facing disabled people, such as inadequate facilities, lack of acceptance in their communities, and lack of access to general needs.

In her essay, “On Being a Cripple”, Nancy Mairs, an essayist with multiple sclerosis, writes about her experiences with her disease. She wants her audience of able-bodied people to stop pitying towards disabled people and instead show acceptance. Mairs achieves her purpose by presenting herself as similar and relatable to her able-bodied audience with many anecdotes and a blunt tone. This discussion of her condition removes the discomfort about disabilities felt by her audience and allows for them to accept disabled people. While Maris’s primary audience is an able-bodied person who supports disabled people, other readers, like someone with her condition, may be drawn towards this essay as well. Unlike an able-bodied person, a disabled person

In the two articles, “Becoming Disabled” by Rosemarie Garland-Thompson and “The Disremembered” by Charles Leadbeater, both authors write about the differently abled throughout society. Garland-Thompson and Leadbeater both want the differently abled community to be treated more appropriately in society by delivering evidence through depicting a specific audience and providing details of their own personal lives to better the differently-abled community.

Deaf children are entitled to know that they are heirs to an amazing culture, not a pitiful defect. In order to follow through on that obligation, one of the best things I feel we can do is try to educate other hearing people about the realities of American Sign Language and Deaf culture. Language is one of the most critical aspects of most cultures, and one which sets deafness aside from other defects such as blindness, physical disability, or illness. Sign language is not universal, nor does it always correspond to the spoken language in the same country. For example American Sign Language is native to the United States and Canada. Deaf Canadians might use English, French, or both as a written language. But deaf people in Great Britain, while they may write in English, use a completely different sign language. (nad.org)

In mainstream American society, we tend to approach deafness as a defect. Helen Keller is alleged to have said, "Blindness cuts people off from things; deafness cuts people off from people." (rnib.org) This seems a very accurate description of what Keller's world must have been. We as hearing people tend to pity deaf people, or, if they succeed in the hearing world, admire them for overcoming a severe handicap. We tend to look at signing as an inferior substitute for "real" communication. We assume that all deaf people will try to lip-read and we applaud deaf people who use their voices to show us how far they have come from the grips of their disability. Given this climate, many hearing people are surprised, as I was at

In 1973 the section 504 rehabilitation act banned discrimination on people with disabilities. “For the first time, the exclusion and segregation of people with disabilities was viewed as discrimination” (Mayerson). People thought that people with disabilities that were unemployed and uneducated was “inevitable” (Mayerson). People fighting for the disabled proved that this was wrong and needed to be changed. The Americans with Disabilities act changed nothing for the employment for them, and by 2018 people with disabilities were still getting wages 40 percent below a “healthy person’s” (Picker). But, despite some unchanged discrimination the fixing of the equality between the disabled and nondisabled, right now, is that the Americans

Disabled people are not often represented in “normal” roles in society, especially in the workforce. Therefore, many people objectify them in the the sense that they are looked at as object of inspiration. (“I am Not Your Inspiration, Thank You Very Much”. Stella Young.)

There are numerous individuals that believe disability makes a person helpless and incapable of obtaining a life full of accomplishments. Catherine Kudlick proved that this is not the case; anyone with a disability has the opportunity to achieve their life goals. It is clear in her interviews and writings that people without disabilities need to be educated on how disability can be an advantage. She learned how to change her perspective and in doing so, she dedicated her career to change other’s perspective on disability and the way it is viewed by society, in general. Catherine Kudlick has learned over time and through her experiences that disability is not to be ashamed of and with her acceptance she has made her career on educating individuals about disability.

Throughout history, the disabled community has fought for not only equal rights, but also equal opportunities and treatment. No one group has fought as hard for acceptance as those with disabilities, yet their efforts are often minimized by society. Although both Berger and Clare both aim to analyze the experiences of the disabled community through the lens of the social model, Berger takes a more scholarly approach, while Clare uses anecdotal evidence to display the unjust judgment and suffering of people with disabilities. To understand disability through a social lens is to fully grasp all aspects of disability. It is not just a physical ailment, but also a social issue of discrimination and oppression. In this paper, I will argue that

Many of these people who are deaf are forced to only communicate using American Sign Language but, unfortunately a majority of Americans do not understand how to communicate using ASL. This forces the deaf to be able to communicate with a select few who have taken it upon themselves to learn. Therefore, there should be steps taken in order to open up the amount people that the hearing impaired can communicate with and let them socialize easier. American sign language should be a class in high school because it will help more people communicate with the surprising amount of people who are reliant on sign language to communicate, as the survey of Income and Program Participation shows about 1 in 20 people are deaf or hearing impaired, this will prove to be a crucial

Prior to reading this article I never truly understand the harsh conditions that the disabled had to live with prior to the disability movement. While reading this article I questioned how individuals abusing the disabled got away with doing so for so long. Yet, while further reading through the article I realized that this abuse may have resulted in lack of education on disabled individuals and possible fear of the disabled.

In this article, Rosemarie Garland Thomson mentions four ways people see disability: it is a system for interpreting bodily variations, the relations between bodies and their environments, practices that produce both the able-bodied and the disabled, and a way of describing the inherent instability of the embodied self (74). People always stare at the disabled because they couldn’t resist it and of curiosity. Rosemarie said, “ Staring thus created disability as a state of absolute difference rather than simple one more variation in human form (57).” This quote means that by staring at the disabled, it make it seem like the disabled are something else rather human. This story is valuable because it shows that people couldn’t accept the appearance

In order to create change, we need to start examining the topic of disabilities and ableism through an intersectional lens, as it is an issue which will not stop affecting people, unfortunately. There are countless ways in which we as individuals are able to make this change as we saw, one of the first is that we need to not be afraid to make a scene or make our voices be heard. By having conversations, people are able to see how much of a problem ableism is for people. Spreading this message of creating change is also very important and very easy to do today with the help of social media. All in all, although people will say that sparking a conversation will not lead to change, what really matters is keeping the conversation going and pushing more and more so we can once and for all create the change which needs to