Daily Archives: 11 December, 2009

Chatterday Open Thread.

chatterday

This is our weekly Chatterday! open thread. Use this open thread to talk amongst yourselves: feel free to share a link, have a vent, or spread some joy.

What have you been reading or watching lately (remembering spoiler warnings)? What are you proud of this week? What’s made your teeth itch? What’s going on in your part of the world? Feel free to add your own images. (Anna insists that these should only be of ponies, but I insist that very small primates, camelids, critters from the weasel family, smooching giraffes, and cupcakes are also acceptable.) Just whack in a bare link to a webpage, please – admin needs to deal with the HTML code side of things.

Today’s chatterday backcloth comes via Epicute. The yellow icing, little black icing sunglasses and red smile, and red, yellow and orange gummy rays combined to make my day feel brighter. For a detailed recipe and instructions, check out Betty Crocker Recipes on flickr.

yellow sun cupcake

Quote: Not a lack

Quotations, ,

It seems difficult for nondisabled people to write about disability without reflexively imagining what disabled people are missing or how difficult their lives must be. Rod Michalko, a sociologist who is blind, writes that sighted people typically conceive of “blindness in terms of ‘lack’-lack of sight. But this conception does not really help us understand what blindness itself is. It does not generate any curiosity about what blind people ‘see,’ since it defines reality in terms of the physical sense of sight …. Sighted people seldom question these preconceptions.” Stephen Kuusisto, a blind writer, tells of the expressions of pity he encounters so often on the street: “I want to take strangers by the hand and tell them there is no abyss.” Similarly, deaf people are relentlessly depicted in popular film as pining away their days regretting their inability to enjoy music (usually classical music, which one would think from these movies has a central place in most American households).

– Douglas Baynton, Review: Laura Bridgman and the History of Disability, Source: Reviews in American History, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Jun., 2002), pp. 227-235.

Injury versus disability

bodies, introspective, normality, Uncategorized

I have an injury – animal bites on my face, forearms and hands from a skirmish with a feral cat outside my office building. I’ve got quite a black eye with puncture wounds on my cheek, so my injuries are immediately visible. I’ve also got severe swelling in my left index finger so I can’t bend it or use it for anything, and bumping it against something sends extremely sharp pains through my hand that last for about half an hour.

I am having a fair amount of trouble with it. I can’t open jars or plastic packaging or use a can opener. I can’t hold the steering wheel very well with my left hand. I’m right handed so I can still use a pen and hold a fork and spoon, but my typing is totally jacked up – I can use the other fingers on my hand if I keep the injured finger extended, but that makes my hand go in an unfamiliar position and the rest of the muscles start cramping and aching if I do it for long, making me rely primarily on hunt n peck typing with my right hand. (I usually type over 120 words per minute, so this significantly slows me down.)

When people observe or hear about these functional impairments, they keep saying to me “oh well thank goodness this will heal. Imagine how it would be if you permanently lost the use of your finger!” and “well at least your face won’t be that wasy forever. Let’s hope it doesn’t scar.” They seem to regard these temporary injuries as a disability simulation of sorts and are reassuting me that I won’t continue to be this impaired or have this reduced functionality only because my injuries will heal.

I, on the other hand, feel that if these injuries were permanent disabilities, I’d have a lot easier time dealing with them. The problems I’m having are largely because it is a new situation for me and my habits and unconscious behaviours are all based on my assumption that my left index finger works fine. I haven’t had any time to develop the mental awareness or the physical abilities to compensate for the problems with that finger – if the other muscles in my left hand were more used to typing without that finger, I’m sure I’d be able to type more quickly and without as much pain in my left hand. Similarly, if my brain could remember that bumping left index finger leads to extreme pain, I wouldn’t have banged it against the car door every single time and I’d buy a purse with more organization capacity so I didn’t have to dig through it with both hands to find anything.

This isn’t to say that having this injury be permanent wouldn’t have long-term effects on my functional capacity. It just means that the functional effects of my temporary injury are in no way indicative of my functioning or my abilities were this a permanent disability. And that having this injury doesn’t teach me anything about what it would be like to have this disability.

The one aspect that has been eye opening for me is the demonstration of how entitled people feel to talk to you about visible injuries or disabilities. My finger isn’t that noticeable and I’m wearing long sleeves because of the weather, so only my facial injuries are visible – and boy are they visible. Even when wearing sunglasses to cover the worst of the bruised and swollen eye, the puncture wounds on my cheek are prominent. And in the day and a half since I was injured, I have been asked to explain “what’s up with my face” by virtually every stranger I’ve encountered. So much so that I’ve already started making up stories (my favorite: “I was being attacked by a vampire but I managed to deflect him so he bit my cheek instead of my neck.”). The feeling that my body is fodder for them to gawk at and demand explanations for is new to me, as my disabilities are usually not visible and I’m used to passing in public. While I don’t pretend this temporary experience in any way lets me know what it would be like to live as a person with a permanent visible disability, this is the only aspect of my injury experience that I feel is at all relevant to understanding the experience of disability.

Recommended Reading for December 11

recommended reading

Note that a number of blog links, media reports, and the comments therein may contain questionable language and/or clear descriptions of abuse.

A comment on Meloukhia’s post on Glee’s “Hairography” episode:

Coming from a hard-of-hearing family, I was excited to see the deaf choir perform! I thought about going to find my little sister, who is profoundly deaf. As it is, I didn’t have to bother getting up. Why? Because the episode wasn’t closed captioned.

I’ll let that sink in. Their oh-so-inclusive episode about some Very Special Disabilities…was unwatchable for people with the exact disability being discussed.

Some of you may be wondering when we’re going to write about Glee, since the midseason finale just aired. Rest assured that Anna and meloukhia are currently working on a monster post (in several parts!) which will hopefully go up in a few days.

Fat Nutritionist: Stairway to Health, or, Let’s Judge People for Not Taking the Stairs.

The life in downtown Toronto is just plain hard on me, and clearly, the stairs are not helping my heart. So I try to make it at least a little easier on myself by taking an elevator or escalator when convenient. I like to think of this as having compassion for my limitations, though I admit, I am often embarrassed to be standing by the elevator — even though I am registered as disabled at my school, and have to wear special orthotics in my shoes and blah blah blah. I am still embarrassed because I know what people must be thinking of me — the fat lady taking the elevator instead of the stairs.

Lennard Davis in the Huffington Post: “Let Actors with Disabilities Play Characters with Disabilities” via Media dis&dat:

There is a very high frequency of Oscar winning films that depict disability, but very few of those clutching the golden statues are people with disabilities.

There is a standard response on the part of Hollywood and Broadway when this issue is raised. The producers will say that they “tried” (if they tried at all) to use disabled performers but that they couldn’t find anyone good enough to play the part.

BBC: Bollywood shines spotlight on health disorders

Amol Gupte, writer of Taare Zameen Par, said he made the film primarily “to take a re-look at parenting”. […]

Mr Gupte, who says he makes films for “social change and sensitisation”, maintains dyslexia is not a disability but a neurological difference. “It is called the gift of dyslexia. Problems are not in children. Problems are in the system.

Leader Messenger: Residents block disabled care home

A group of Hope Valley residents is fighting a plan to convert the old Tolley winery into a home for people with severe physical disabilities.

In submissions to Gully Council, residents say SA Care’s bid to house six disabled people at the John Ramsay Cct property would attract criminals seeking drugs, increase traffic, noise and parking problems, and bring down their property values.[…]

In their submission to the council, Mr and Mrs Evans wrote: “The Pedare Estate is a quiet residential estate and let’s not upset (its) character and tranquility. The estate has one entrance/exit and is not designed for a commercial venture.”

They also said the clients of a home for the disabled would likely require medication, which could attract criminals to the area seeking drugs.

Sydney Morning Herald: Qantas refused guide dog and stranded blind woman

Qantas left a blind woman distressed and stranded interstate at night because the airline would not allow her guide dog on a flight.

Qantas is not alone. Tiger Airways two days earlier baulked at letting the same woman fly with her guide dog.

CBS Chicago: Family Sues Over Alleged Police Beating Of Teen

A Chicago family wants justice.

They claim a Chicago police officer burst into their family-owned restaurant and beat their son bloody, despite being told that the teen has autism and special needs.