Daily Archives: 30 April, 2010

Harry Wieder, LGBT rights, transportation, and disabilities advocate, killed

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I’m very sorry to learn of the death of Harry Wielder, a community activist in NY around LGBT rights, transportation, and disability. This article at Gothamist has more [WARNING: Comments are a mess]:

Weider, 57, described himself on his Facebook page as a “disabled, gay, Jewish, leftist, middle aged dwarf who ambulates with crutches.”

…

Wieder first came to prominence in the 1980s with the activist group Act-Up. He was profiled in Betty Adelsen’s 2005 book, The Lives of Dwarfs: Their Journey from Public Curiosity Toward Social Liberation, and also written about by Jimmy Breslin for Newsday, who captured his “combative, roguish nature and his penchant for truth.”

Wielder died after being hit by a taxi when crossing the road to his car.

De’VIA

creative work, disability activism, identity, language, , , , ,

As I repeatedly told anyone who would listen to me, last weekend I went to a conference in Toronto. While there, I visited Toronto’s Deaf Culture Centre. [1. Little-d deafness is the “medical” condition of not being able to hear, or hearing very little. Big-d Deafness is being a member of a cultural & linguistic minority that uses Sign Language. In English Canada, this is typically American Sign Language, although there are other Sign Languages used here.]

One of the exhibits at the Deaf Culture Centre was about De’VIA – Deaf View Image Art – which “specifically reflects Deaf experience and Deaf Culture.”

I’m still learning about De’VIA, as my particular studies are in nineteenth century d/Deafness. What I like about what I’ve seen is looking at art that is not only explicitly political, but is explicitly about being Deaf. In Toronto, the current exhibit is paintings of Sign Language.

As a Hearing person, I don’t want to talk too much about Deaf artists and De’VIA. Instead, for people not familiar with it, I’d like to show you some very iconic De’VIA images, and then direct you to some websites where Deaf Artists are writing about their work.

This first piece is by Ann Silver, called Deaf Identity Crayons: Then and Now.

A description follows this image
The image is of two crayon boxes. One is done in sepia tones, with “Deaf Identity Crayons” written across in an ‘old-time’ script. The crayons each have a label: Dummy; Lip Reader; Deaf & Dumb; Handicapped; Oralist; Deaf-Mute; Freak. The second box looks like the iconic Crayola-crayon box, with “Deaf Identity Crayons” written across the front. The crayons are CODA; Seeing; Deaf-Blind; Late-Deafened; Deaf American; Hard of Hearing; Signer; Deaf.

(Oralism is the techniques used to teach Deaf people to talk. CODA is Children of Deaf Adults.)

Silver’s biography is available on the Deaf Art website, but I especially love her description of her art:

My language of art has, over the years, metamorphosed from pictorial grammar to creativity and critical thinking. I turn to art (1) as an artistic expression of the Deaf Experience—i.e., culture, language, identity and heritage; (2) as a Zen meditation and an aesthetic recreation of the contemplative state in which it allows my thoughts to drift by without grasping at them; (3) as an emergency back-up whenever the English language gives me semantic anxiety; 94) as an academic study vis-à-vis Deaf Studies; and (5) as a visual weapon to deal with polemical issues and concerns such as stereotyping, inaccessibility, paternalism, inequality and discrimination on the basis of hearing status (a.k.a. audism)

Another very popular piece is this one, by Betty G. Miller, called The ASL Flag:

Description follows
Description: This is a diptych, and the two canvasses come together to show a waving flag much like the United States flag. Instead of stars again the blue square, it shows 28 white hands Signing. Between the red and white stripes of the flat, it has the following:
Oh can’t you seeee…. by dawn’s early light
what proudly…. we Deaf wave at visual beauty
we see in sign language burst in air…
no matter people hearing stare…
show proof that… Deaf and ASL still here…
oh why Deaf people opressed?
over the land of the free…. and the home of the brave…??

Again, I like Betty’s bio, but I will highlight this portion:

When asked to explain the values behind her work, Dr. Miller replied:

“Much of my work depicts the Deaf experience expressed in the most appropriate form of communication: visual art. I present the suppression, and the beauty, of Deaf Culture and American Sign Language as I see it, both in the past, and in the present. Oppression of Deaf people by hearing is actually cultural, educational, and political. Another aspect of my work shows the beauty of Deaf culture. I hope this work, and the understanding that may arise from this visual expression, will help bridge the gap between the Deaf world, and the hearing world.”

You can see images of Betty’s work, and perhaps buy a t-shirt or similar article with images on it, at Betty Gee’s cafe-press store.

I won’t say too much else here, except to link to discussions about De’VIA elsewhere.

Betty Gee’s website
Deaf Art, Deaf Artists
Deaf Culture – Deaf Art on About.Com
Deaf History Through Art – De’VIA revisited after 15 years!
Deaf Art.org

Crowd Sourcing Counter-Arguments: You’re Easily Offended and People with Disabilities Can’t Act Anyway

From the comments

Gentle Commenters & Readers of FWD:

I am tired. I am so completely and utterly out of spoons today I cannot even tell you. And thus, I turn to you, gentle folk, and ask for your assistance.

One of the more popular places to leave drive-by comments on FWD is And if this keeps up, there won’t be any, a post which is about the difficulties that performers with disabilities have in getting jobs, compared to the Oscar Bait that is non-disabled people playing the same role. At the time, I referred to it as “Crip Drag”, although having been gently corrected on that, I would now call it “Crip Face”.

The drive-by comments are usually all variations of the one that I have just approved there. I won’t copy the whole thing, but here is a small section of it:

So when your ultimate goal is to make a good film or play, and you’re taking into account physical characteristics, PR, talent, experience, chemistry (both in the role and with the other performers), and myriad other incidental considerations, and THEN you say you’re only going to choose from the very, very small pool of disabled actors, the end result is you’re going to get an actor far less suitable to the role than if you just chose for the good of the performance.

If you have the time/energy/inclination to do so, please join in the comments there to counter these arguments. I ask because I hope, sincerely, that if there is a discussion right there that takes on this oft-repeated belief that disabled people are just not able to act or perform in any way, or that what we are is “easily offended” rather than pointing out a problematic form of discrimination, maybe drive-by comments repeating it over and over will stop.

My only request in this is that commenters be polite. I know: tone shouldn’t matter. And I think anyone who isn’t willing to listen simply because You’re Too Angry is probably not anyone who is going to listen when you’re being polite. But, please do so, for me, because I’m tired, and angry is not something I can deal with today.

Again, here is the comment in full.

Your attention to this matter is greatly appreciated.

With affection,
Anna

Guest Post by Sasha Feather: Book Review of The Rejected Body

bodies, books, identity, life changes, representations

Editor’s note: We are very pleased to host this post from sasha_feather, who has previously written for FWD: AWP: Crutch. FWD welcomes guest posts: please email guestposting [at] disabledfeminists.com for more information.

Sasha_feather is a science fiction/fantasy fan and anti-oppression activist. She is a contributor to Access Fandom

Book Review of The Rejected Body by Susan Wendell
by sasha_feather

The Rejected Body: Feminist Philosophical Reflections on Disability by Susan Wendell
1996
206 pages
Routledge Publishers

If you are at all interested in Disability Studies (DS), I strongly recommend this book. I felt like I had a kind, clear teacher and friend leading me by the hand through basic and advanced concepts in DS, especially relating to feminism and ethics. It is the most accessible and worthwhile academic text I’ve ever read– I don’t have a good track record for reading non-fiction books or textbooks, and I was riveted to this book. Partly this is because The Rejected Body speaks so directly to my own life experience as a person with a chronic illness. Susan Wendell also has a chronic illness, ME/CFS, which is what led her into DS from Women’s Studies.

In the introduction, the author tells you what she’s going to tell you, talks a bit about her own illness experience and finding disability identity, and–making me fall in love with this book–clarifies her language use by, in part, defining scare quotes and why/how she uses them:

“Throughout the text, I use single quotation marks as scare quotes, that is, to draw the readers attention to concepts I question or to uses about which I have reservations. For example, I use scare quote around ‘The Other’ (a concept discussed in Chapter 3) to indicate that, while the concept is a recognized way of thinking about people who are different from oneself, ‘the Other’ is not a way of referring to people which I accept or take for granted” (Wendell 7).

Like many of us I had often heard both the terms “scare quotes” and “the Other” and never really thought about what either of them meant. This book is full of little moments like that– things that I had taken for granted or that had niggled at my brain, and which the book shines a bright light upon.

In the introduction, Wendell also notes the limitations of the book, mainly that it focuses primarily on physical disabilities, that the author does not attempt to speak for all people, and that she struggles with generalizations and use of language. And that’s just the introduction!

A few of my favorite parts that I would like to highlight:

*The pace of life. As someone with fatigue and pain, Wendell is interested in the pace of life as part of the social construction of disability. Those of us who need to think or move more slowly than others are thus disabled by society. She discusses the social construction of disability in chapter 2.

*The mind, the body, and suffering. I have been thinking about embodiment lately, brain-body duality vs. integration, and chapter 7 (“Feminism, Disability, and Transcendence of the Body”) really gave me some grist for this mill. I am going to re-read this chapter shortly, especially the section on pain. Basically, feminists have argued against mind-body duality for very good reasons: because this concept has been used against women’s bodies. We’ve been invested in “Our Bodies, Ourselves”. But for bodies that are suffering and in pain, there are reasons to want to transcend the body, and there is room within feminist frameworks to develop such an understanding: of being embodied, of having bodily autonomy, and yet still wanting to transcend the body and be less tied to the body’s functions, desires, and pains.

*The illusion of control. For PWD, we know that we often do not have control of our bodies, or at best have limited control, and it is sheer luck that determines what happens, a lot of the time. Will I be in less or more pain today? Will I get some new illness? I have basically no control over these things, and I know it. And yet the society I live in is incredibly invested in the illusion of control to the point where it is part of the mythology of my country and my people. As Wendell points out, this puts me at odds with the people around me, even in casual social situations where people talk about small health problems or things to do with their bodies. It’s a disconnect.

*Having no diagnosis Wendell specifically addresses issues of disability for people with no diagnosis. There are a lot of people in this category, and it sometimes can feel like there is no place for us, no identity, especially within the medical model. The disability community, in my experience, creates a place and identity for those of us without a diagnosis.

There were so many other things that I am probably forgetting. I wanted to underline everything. I read it slowly to give myself time to process everything I was reading, but overall it’s a fairly short and accessible book, just densely packed with great information and ideas. Note that because it’s published by an academic press, it is relatively expensive; I recommend searching World Cat to find copies in libraries near you.

Moderator’s note: Moderation on guest posts is often much slower than “usual” moderation times.