The amount of people who live with disabilities is a controversial number. Depending on what law and diagnostic tools used, a person may have a visible disability, or one that may lie beneath the surface of his or her appearance. Some people believe that the term “disability” is merely a label use to hold back, or prescribe helplessness. Meanwhile, individuals who have been properly diagnosed with disabilities struggle to maintain respect and acceptance every day. In plain language, there is a lot of misunderstanding between people with disabilities and those without. It is firstly important to get everyone on the same page regarding the definition of disability.
In her essay “On Being a Cripple”, Nancy Mairs presents her audience with an honest inside view of her life and perspective as a cripple, a word she openly uses to define herself. She brings her world to us by discussing a wide variety of things including language, family, and humor, and how these all relate to her life. Through various stories and insights, she allows her readers to gain an understanding and acceptance of people with disabilities. She examines the public’s view of the disabled, as well as the views they have of themselves, and compares them to her own. She makes it clear that she is not to be defined solely by her disability. In discussing honestly her views, as well as
Society can never strive to be “Normal” because it leaves out many people and creates an assumption that anyone who has a disability has something wrong with them. The able-body has to strive to find a way to include people with disabilities because they do not lack anything, because the way society is built has made them have impairments. People need to come together in order to start building the world where it is setup for anyone. Checking your own privileges shows that you have understand how life is set up the way it is and education is key factor to create change in Ableism. Abel-body people have to do their job of creating a world suitable for everyone. Privileges come with responsibility to help people who have disabilities. The responsibility to look out for everyone can bring perceptive on how people should value everything that is given to them and see everyone as being
In the book, The Short Bus, Jonathan Mooney’s thesis is that there is more to people than their disabilities, it is not restricting nor is it shameful but infact it is beautiful in its own way. With a plan to travel the United States, Mooney decides to travel in a Short bus with intentions of collecting experiences from people who have overcome--or not overcome--being labeled disabled or abnormal. In this Mooney reinvents this concept that normal people suck; that a simple small message of “you’re not normal” could have a destructive and deteriorating effect. With an idea of what disabilities are, Mooney’s trip gives light to disabilities even he was not prepared to face, that he feared.
First, this book allowed me to see the negative way in which deaf people were perceived. This book is not old by any means, and I was taken aback by the way deaf children were perceived by not only others in the community, but often times by their own parents as well. The term
People with disabilities are not completely gone. They are still there and have a mind of their own. They feel emotions and sometimes have a more complex mind than others. Two authors help enlighten this idea that disabled people are much more than helpless bodies. Both Christy Brown and Jean-Dominique Bauby perfectly illustrate their lives and what it is like to be disabled, and they prove by their stories that they think and feel, and can even develop enough to share what they feel with the world. My Left Foot is about the journey of a boy suffering from cerebral palsy. His entire life he was labeled as a loss cause by doctor after doctor, but his mom never gave up hope. Slowly, he started showing signs of development by random movements responding to certain situations. In the end he ends up being able to communicate with his left foot. The next story, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, is about an individual who suffered a stroke at the age of 43, leaving him paralyzed, only able to blink his left eye as communication. He develops his own alphabet inspired by the French language in order to exchange conversations with others. His thoughts in the story jump from the present, him currently disabled, and the past, when he was not. Both memoirs, with very different stories, show the lives of two individuals that are not like others. One who had their disability since birth, and the other who obtained one after a tragic event. In My Left Foot by Christy Brown and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby, both authors use characterization to show readers the struggles of disabled people and help them understand that just because they can’t use motions such as hand gestures to express how they feel, doesn’t mean that they don’t think and feel.
This documentary does an excellent job of advocating for the acknowledgment of people who are deaf within society. This is shown through not only the brilliantly written and performed poems of the students but also in the basic, everyday struggles each of them face, such as the desire to fit in or be valued by those around them. Deafness is not a specific to any gender, race, culture, or religion. The struggles many people who are deaf go through are relatable to all and
The book, Mean Little deaf Queer, a memoir, by Terry Galloway, is a powerful autobiography that gives insights about her life. Not only has she coped with a disability, but she also had to deal with being queer and overcoming the many obstacles of accepting this reality. Terry Galloway, grew up viewing herself as an outsider because of the responses she received from other individuals as her body transformed. She proclaimed herself as a child freak from the moment her body began to change, and when her hearing was diminishing and her hallucinations became a frequent occurrence, she would address her fury and discontent with her hearing aids and thick round glasses. Nevertheless, the moment she feigned her own drowning at a summer camp for crippled children, she knew she had discovered a new passion. Her hardships were overlooked and renovated into a love for theater and speech that would not only defy her reality, but that would surpass her expectations.
The article Redefining Normal: A Critical Analysis of (Dis)ability in Young Adult Literature by Jen Scott Curwood discusses the importance of proper disability representation in young adult literature for the benefit of school children. Curwood writes "young adult literature should not only provide accurate portrayals of individuals with disabilities, but must offer themes that are not 'didactic, condescending, or pedantic" (Curwood, 18) because " 'literature about disabilities and differences can be a powerful tool to heighten the achievement of all students by broadening attitudes and perceptions of self and other '" (18). She also argues that if schools don 't include diverse characters and topics, then that "effectively condones prejudice and stereotypes" and continues to further the "othering" aspect. In contrast to Me Before You, the book Accidents of Nature by Harriet McBryde Johnson is a book that provides readers with both a positive representation of life with disability as well as showing a wide range of disabilities. Accidents of Nature is set in the year 1970 and is about a seventeen year old girl named Jean who has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair to get around. Despite her condition, Jean has always thought of herself as the same as everyone else as she goes to a "normal", abled-bodied school and has "normal" abled-bodied friends. She has never even known another disabled person before going to Camp Courage for a week, a camp solely for disabled youths.
In the novel “Deaf Again” by Mark Drolsbaugh, the reader is taken on a journey through the life of the author himself, from birth all the way to present day. Drolsbaugh, a once hearing child but now Deaf adult, takes readers through the struggles and situations he faced as a child born into the Deaf culture, yet still forced to try and suppress his deafness when his ability to hear started to decline. The author shares his experiences of becoming “deaf again”, and how he had to learn for himself what being Deaf really meant in regards to not just in his own life but the people in it. Drolsbaugh’s novel explores many of the issues and debates surrounding Deaf culture, while still giving his personal views and understandings on what it really means to be Deaf.
The Deaf community and their culture is a part of the oppressed population group. There are many limitations of being deaf in a hearing world. The Deaf community has been victims of isolation and oppression for many years. Historically the hearing culture has put Deaf individuals in social categories such as “disable” and “outsiders” (Pinquart, Pfeiffer, 2014). However, many years of being deaf has been viewed as having an undesirable condition.
In the story Harrison Bergeron, the government stresses over creating a world that is equal, and it seems like their disabling people who do not need to be disabled.One examole of the goverment disabling people is with a married coupled named George and Hazel. Since George was on the smart side and new a lot, he was disabled with an ear radio( to keep you from thinking about a subject for too long). However, his wife Hazel didn’t have any disabling equipment on her because of the government calling her a normal person(someone who is balanced in everything). the author proves this by saying,” Having no mental handicap herself, she had to ask George what the latest sound had been”(page two).
All people who have brown hair are not alike. All people who have disabilities are not
The novel Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon illustrates living with a disability and overcoming society’s stereotypical views. People with disabilities are often labeled as abnormal. In the novel the main character, Lou
When people are growing up, being normal was the way to be cool. Everyone wants to be like everybody else and that’s the way it goes. What children and many adults still don’t understand is that being different and having diversity is a good thing. It is ok to be different, especially in today 's society. Being able to acknowledge that diversity and disability in everyday life and seeing the good in it will help bring together our society. For my next three paragraphs i 'm going to discuss what it was like to be an outsider, when I experienced diversity and an experience I have had with disability