Discourse Ks – Gonzaga Debate Institute 14

Ableist Language

Shell

Link – Their speech contained ableist discourse

Use the ballot to reject ableist rhetoric in every instance

Cherney, Wayne State University, 11

[James, 2011, Disabilities Study Quarterly, “The Rhetoric of Ableism”, Vol. 31 No. 3, http://dsq-sds.org/article/view/1665/1606, Accessed 7-5-14, CX]
If we locate the problem in disability, then the ableist absolves his or her responsibility for discrimination and may not even recognize its presence. If we locate the problem in ableism, then the ableist must question her or his orientation. The critic's task is to make ableism so apparent and irredeemable that one cannot practice it without incurring social castigation. This requires substantial vigilance, for ableist thinking pervades the culture. For example, as I write this, I am tempted to use medical metaphors to explain the task and script something like "we cannot simply excise the tumor of ableism and heal the culture, for it has metastasized and infiltrated every organ of society." Yet this metaphor relies on an ableist perspective that motivates with the fear of death and turns to medical solutions to repair a body in decay. Using it, I would endorse and perpetuate ableist rhetoric, just as I would by using deafness as a metaphor for obstinacy ("Marie was deaf to their pleas for bread") or blindness to convey ignorance ("George turned a blind eye to global warming"). The pervasiveness of these and similar metaphors, like the cultural ubiquity of using images of disabled bodies to inspire pity, suggest the scale of the work ahead, and the ease with which one can resort to using them warns of the need for critical evaluation of one's own rhetoric. Yet the task can be accomplished. Just as feminists have changed Western culture by naming and promoting recognition of sexism, the glass ceiling, and patriarchy—admittedly a work in progress, yet also one that can celebrate remarkable achievements—we can reform ableist culture by using rhetoric to craft awareness and political action.

Link – Blind/Blindness

The term “blindness” ingrains the oppression of those with no sight – implying their lack of sight is a flaw

James, Bitch Magazine writer, 09

[Rachel, 8-19-09, Deeply Problematic, “‘Blinded by privileged’: ableist language in critical discourse”, http://www.deeplyproblematic.com/2009/08/blinded-by-privileged-ableist-language.html, Accessed 7-4-14, CX]

Using the term "blindness" to reflect mishaps of privilege is a way to further ingrain the oppression of those with little or no sight. By constructing the disablity of blindness as something that an ignorant person needs to educate themselves about, that someone needs to overcome, it minimizes the permanence of lack of sight and turns it into a fault, a flaw. It's also constructing blindness as something that needs to be fixed, as something that leads to misery and inflicted hurt, rather than part of a full and happy life. It's even more problematic when the "privilege-blindness" is constructed as willful - putting one's blinders on to avoid looking at uncomfortable truths. This supposes that the disability of blindness is somehow false or temporary.

This may seem as if I'm somehow overly concerned with minutiae, but it's necessary to be careful about my language when I'm discussing how to end or mitigate oppression. "Lame" and "retard" have become thoroughly unacceptable in progressive discourse, but we are turning another word into a slur by saying that being "blind" is a status to be avoided, something that will hurt others. Blind has been turned from a word describing disabilities into a pejorative attacking ignorance. It's made being blind synonymous with stupidity and having sight synonymous with truth.

When I say that I must open my eyes to oppression, I must see my own racism, I must stop being blinded by my cis privilege, what am I saying about the people who are literally blind? Are they included in the discussion of working towards a better world, or does their blindness prevent them from truly seeing oppression? Why are my views on oppression and racism and sexism insights?

The stigmatization of blindness has very real consequences that significantly impair and impact the blind community. As Alena recently wrote:

Have you ever noticed that calling someone blind is like calling them a four letter word? It's like being blind is so bad that we have to cover it up by calling people visually impaired or low vision because that is some how better than being called blind....I bring this up, because as I mentioned in an earlier post, braille literacy amongst blind children in the U.S. is only 10%. I feel, and many people probably agree that one of the reasons why literacy is so low is because parents, teachers, and school administrators don't want to label a child as "blind" if they have any vision. Everyone knows that only totally blind children need to learn how to read braille, right? Wrong.

I try to be very, very careful with language. I would guess that at least a quarter of my substantive analytical posts have to do with using language carefully and trying not to hurt people with it and my unearned privilege - of size, race, or cis-ness. Ableism is an especially obscuring privilege that I need to work hard to overcome, and the more careful I can be, the better. And there are other ways to say that you've messed up, that you missed something that you didn't notice before: obscure, block, hide, suppress.

Is this hard? Yes. The language of sight is everywhere in discussing our understanding - insights, being able to see someone's point, etc. And I'm not totally sure that "to see" meaning "to understand" is necessarily privileging sight to the degree that "blinded by privilege" is - it seems that "see" is something that blind people are understood to be able to do, in the sense of understanding.

"See" may very well be problematic, but it's an ingrained and widely used word that needs a larger discussion than just this. But "blinded by privilege" is a construction used frequently in an anti-oppression, critical context, and it wields problematized disabilities to describe other issues. It's oppressive language deployed specifically in the context of a fight against that very scheme of oppression. "Blinded by privilege" turns a description of a disability and actively turns it into a slur.

In discussion of "blind" as ableist language in another context, Shelley said in a well-received comment at Feminist Philosophers:

What is actually going on is that blindness is being metaphorically equated with not knowing, with not having knowledge, or not having knowledge of something: blindness is not knowing, blindness is ignorance, blind people cannot be knowers.

In response, Roy over at "No Cookies for Me" drew a comparison to left-handedness:

It got me thinking about the use of the term "right" to mean "opposite of left" as well as "correct." Couldn't someone who is left-handed reason that "left" equals "wrong"?

“Blind” Link

Kali, Self Identified Disabled Writer, 2010

[Written anonymously in order to keep the focus on disability, 10-17-10, Wordpress, “I am not your metaphor,” http://brilliantmindbrokenbody.wordpress.com/2010/10/17/i-am-not-your-metaphor/, Accessed: 7-5-14, KMM]

Blind - I bet you can’t count the number of times you’ve heard this one – blinded by viewpoints, blind to miss facts, blind to misunderstand intentions, blind to misread things, so on. It’s definitely a favorite metaphor. I count short-sighted in the same category, as short-sighted originally means nearsighted (as in, someone who can only see the shorter distances, not the longer ones). Similarly, long-sighted originally means farsighted (as in, someone who can see things at greater distances, but not up close – someone who needs reading glasses). We use sight metaphors to a ridiculous extent in our lexicon. And through all of these, we imply that people who are blind or nearsighted are incapable of planning, unable to comprehend the information available, so naive as to misunderstand the motives of others, and similar issues that have NOTHING to do with sight!

Link – Crutch

“Crutch” metaphors have an ableist attitude

Feather, Anti-oppression Activist, 09

[Sasha, 11-9-9, Forward, “Guest Ableist Word Profile: Crutch”, http://disabledfeminists.com/2009/11/09/guest-ableist-word-profile-crutch/, Accessed 7-6-14, CX]

The metaphor implies that crutches are universally bad and that they prevent the user from moving onto the next stage of development.

There are underlying messages within this attitude that one should rely upon the self and not be using outside help or tools to deal with problems. All of this is ableist, and falls in line with similar prejudices against medications. If you cannot support yourself, well then, there must be something morally wrong with you: this is the message of our ableist society.

Link – Crippled

“Crippled” Link

Kali: Self Identified Disabled Writer, 2010

[Written anonymously in order to keep the focus on disability, 10-17-10, Wordpress, “I am not your metaphor,” http://brilliantmindbrokenbody.wordpress.com/2010/10/17/i-am-not-your-metaphor/, Accessed: 7-5-14, KMM]

Crippled – this one gets used ALL THE TIME. The city was crippled by an unexpected snowstorm. The political entity is crippled by corruption. So-and-so was crippled by a powerful emotion. The poor are crippled by their lack of savings. I’ve even heard references to people being crippled by scruples. Here’s the thing – crippled has a pretty specific physical meaning – it’s a physical disability, usually related to walking. What being a crip really means is that you have to get creative about how you do things and how you get around. It doesn’t mean that you’re unable to do things! I think these metaphors that tell us an entity or person is incapable of doing ANYTHING (or at least, anything useful) really emphasize that being crippled is being useless. And as someone who identifies as a crip, I can tell you I’m damnwell not useless! I do a great many things, including my work at a legal center for people of limited means and my disability advocacy, that I think have a great impact on the world.

Link - Hysterical

The word “hysterical” is both sexist and ableist

Jean, Disabled Feminists writer, 09

[Abby, 10-13-09, Forward, “Ableist Word Profile: Hysterical”, http://disabledfeminists.com/2009/10/13/ableist-word-profile-hysterical/, Accessed 7-6-14, CX]

Today’s word: hysterical. There are a lot of different contemporary definitions of the word (Merriam-Webster, Cambridge, Encarta), but the theme among all of them is emotions that are extreme and unmanageable. A movie described as hysterically funny is likely funnier than most and may cause you to laugh uncontrollably and snort soda out your nose. Someone at a funeral who is crying loudly and who cannot seem to stop crying would likely be described as crying hysterically. But while your mental picture of the movie-goer laughing hysterically could have been either a man or a woman, the person hysterical with grief or worry is much more likely to be a woman than a man. That’s no accident – the history of this term is very gendered.

The word itself is derived from the Latin word hystericus, meaning “of the womb,” and from the Greek word hysterikos, meaning “of the womb, suffering in the womb,” from the Greek word hystera, meaning “womb.” And they understood the uterus to be the direct cause of hysteria. As Hannah S. Decker writes, “Various ancient Greek philosophers and physicians, including Plato, had argued that the uterus is an independent entity within a woman’s body… these thinkers concluded that the uterus had an ardent desire to create children. If the womb remained empty for long after the owner’s puberty, it became unhappy and angry and began to travel through the body. In its wanderings it pressed against various bodily organs, creating “hysterical” — that is, uterus-related — symptoms.”

So when someone on a blog tells me to chill out because it sounds like I’m hysterical about an issue, the etymological meaning is that my failure to put a baby in my uterus (which has independent will and agency inside my body) has caused it to become angry, loose itself from its mooring, and start floating around inside of my body until it bangs into my brain and starts making me unreasonably upset.

There’s also a strong historical tradition of labeling women as “hysterical” in order to silence, marginalize, or even kill them. During the Roman Catholic inquisitions, thousands of European women were tortured and burnt as witches because they were thought to show signs of hysteria. But it was during the Nineteenth Century that things really got going. Some doctors considered the force of the uterus so powerful that it might overcome the brain and cause a woman to have pathological sexual feelings, “requiring” the physicians to “medically manipulate” the genitals in order to release the woman from control of her uterus. Yes, you read that right, the doctors were obligated to fondle their patients sexually for their own medical good. Conveniently, both mental or emotional distress and any physical symptom could be an indication of a woman’s hysteria, so doctors could diagnose literally any woman as hysterical.

Once hysterical women were no longer burned at the stake, the most common treatment was to send them to bed or to an asylum to prevent any activity or thought that would inflame their hysteria. This was an extremely effective way to marginalize or silence women, as any protest that she was not hysterical would be seen as conclusive proof that the diagnosis of hysteria had been correct. This meant, practically, that any woman categorized as hysterical was forever silenced and lost all credibility.

That’s a whole big mess of etymology and history, so let’s unpack that a bit. When I am told I am hysterical, there is both 1) the implication that I am excessively or unreasonably emotional AND 2) the implication that my condition is unique to my femaleness. It’s also 3) implied that hysterical statements (or even statements from hysterical people) should be discounted and hysterical people need to change in order to participate in the discussion, or should be removed from it entirely. Now let’s look at each one of those individually.

The first is a criticism of and dismissal of my personal emotions based on the observer’s judgment on whether they conform to what “normal” or “reasonable” emotions would be for that situation. The idea of “extremeness” is built into every definition of the word, implying that there is an assumed agreed-upon “normal” range for emotions. In the past, that likely meant “emotions acceptable to white men with money.” Currently, though, the idea is strikingly parallel to current definitions of mental disabilities and mental health diagnoses in the DSM-IV, which require that a specific set of symptoms “must cause significant impairment in social, occupational, or other areas of functioning” in order for a person to meet diagnostic criteria. This means that thee idea of emotions that are outside the “normal” range of experience to the degree that they affect a person’s function is the very definition of mental illness. So the accusation of “hysteria,” with the implication that the hysterical person has abnormally extreme emotions, is very clearly an accusation of mental illness. And remember part 3 — the conclusion that a hysterical person (or a person with a mental disability, by equivalency) should be discounted in discussions because of their hysteria/disability. THAT IS ABLEIST.

But that’s not all. The other implication of the term is that this over-emotional condition is a uniquely female condition and is caused directly by female reproductive organs being sad about not having a baby. While that’s not literally how it’s meant today, it still feels like a slightly nicer way of saying “you’re just upset because it’s that time of the month,” another way to marginalize and dismiss females based explicitly on their femaleness. It’s a way to say “that sounds like something a woman would say when she’s being super woman-y and influenced by being a woman.” And again, this is assumed to be a reason to discount the information or perspective offered and to exclude that person from the conversation. THAT IS SEXIST.

And here’s where the intersectionality comes in. Hysterical is a handy dandy insta-dismissal that slams two marginalized groups at the same time – and it only works because to be related to either group is considered to make you lesser. It also means that this word, with its invocation of both ableism and sexism, is particularly sharp when aimed at women with disabilities. That’s why arguments like “It’s sexist because it makes all women sound like crazies! Who’d want to be a crazy!” are extremely problematic – not only does the word rely on both sexism and ableism, it relies on the interaction between those two axes of oppression to be a super strong word.

Link – Lame

Lame is inherently ableist

Smith, Say Media Social Justice Editor, 09

[S.E., 10-12-09, Forward, “Ableist Word Profile: Lame”, http://disabledfeminists.com/2009/10/12/ableist-word-profile-lame/, Accessed 7-6-14, CX]
“Lame” is an ableist word. It’s an ableist word because it assumes that having difficulty walking is objectively bad, and that therefore, a word which is used to describe difficulty walking can be safely used as a pejorative to mean “this is bad.” Using “lame” reinforces ableism in our culture by reminding people that disability is bad, and that it’s so bad that it can be used as a shorthand code to talk about bad things in general. Incidentally, the related “lame-brain”? Also ableist. Just so we’re all clear on that.

“Lame” Link

Kali, Self Identified Disabled Writer, 2010

[Written anonymously in order to keep the focus on disability, 10-17-10, Wordpress, “I am not your metaphor,” http://brilliantmindbrokenbody.wordpress.com/2010/10/17/i-am-not-your-metaphor/, Accessed: 7-5-14, KMM]

Lame – I’ll admit, part of my hatred for this one stems from its use in my own family, and finding it over and over again in my own language. Lame means having an altered gait, typically a limp. If you don’t believe me, ask someone who deals with horses what it means for a horse to be lame. Now we use it for all kinds of different meanings – stupid, foolish, clumsy, easily injured, ridiculous, unfair, etc. A lame call in a sports game, a lame excuse, a lame-o who just doesn’t get it, etc. Notice how having an altered gait – like me – suddenly gets turned into all these nasty negatives? Listen for people using the word lame around you. I bet they aren’t using it to literally mean a limp, and that what they’re using it for is more negative.

Link – Mad/Crazy

“Mad/Crazy” Link

Kali, Self Identified Disabled Writer, 2010

[Written anonymously in order to keep the focus on disability, 10-17-10, Wordpress, “I am not your metaphor,” http://brilliantmindbrokenbody.wordpress.com/2010/10/17/i-am-not-your-metaphor/, Accessed: 7-5-14, KMM]

Mad/crazy – Here’s one we use to a ridiculous extent in our language. I’m crazy-busy. Work was crazy today. …and then she just went crazy! I am just crazy about this designer. You’re driving me crazy! The way they treated her was just crazy. That idea is just crazy. Political opponants are crazy. (most of which you can substitute mad for crazy and get the same meaning) Yeah, that’s not exactly the same as mad or crazy meaning someone who is experiencing psychosis (a break with reality) or neurosis (not a full break with reality, but having an altered relationship with reality). These words originally mean someone who has some kind of mental illness, and are being reclaimed as such. Most uses of crazy are dismissive, ways to marginalize people and ideas. Using them for negatives has obvious problems, but what about positives like ‘crazy about this designer’? Well, it still means ‘overly’ or ‘too much’ – when we say things like that, we mean ‘I’m excited about this designer beyond reason.’ See how even that seemingly positive thing slides around to a negative?

Link - Paralysis

“Paralysis” metaphor is overtly ableist

Gent, PhD – Special Education, 10

[Pamela,– severe disabilities, in Stewart and Webster’s Problematizing Service-Learning: Critical Reflections for Development and Action, p233]

We have said students are "paralyzed perfectionists" (Higgins 8c Boone, 2003, p. 139), "feel paralyzed, unsure of where to start or what to do," (Maryland Student Service Alliance, 2004, p. 2), "become paralyzed by a sense of impotence, rage, and cynicism" (McNall, 1999), and "are crippled by an amazingly constricted frame of reference" (Barilen, 2003, p. 107). People whose impairments have resulted in paralysis would tell us that their paralysis is not the result of feelings, rage, perfectionism, or their frame of reference. They would also tell us that it is ableist to assume that the type of temporary inactivity suggested in these quotes is in any way similar to their own lived reality.

While many of us would question the use of overtly racist or sexist language in our classrooms, we may never have questioned the use of such ableist language.

Link – Retard/Retarded

Using the word “retard” in a figurative context is ableist because it implies that retardation is bad and should be something excluded and avoided

Jean, Disabled Feminists writer, 09

[Abby, 10-16-09, Forward, “Ableist Word Profile: Retarded”, http://disabledfeminists.com/2009/10/13/ableist-word-profile-hysterical/, Accessed 7-6-14, CX]

This medical definition is certainly not what’s intended in contemporary uses of the word. If I say “I saw Zombieland and it was totally retarded,” I am not saying that I think the movie had a low IQ and I observed significant limitations in adaptive functioning. (That doesn’t even make sense.) I am saying that I thought the movie was bad, uninteresting, boring, nonsensical, repetitive, and a waste of my time and money. But for me to mean any of those things by using the word “retarded,” I and the person to whom I’m speaking have to share the assumption that being retarded is bad and that people who have mental retardation are stupid, uninteresting, and a waste of my time. Similarly, if I say “LAPD Chief Bratton’s views on homeless policy are retarded,” I mean that they are poorly informed, poorly thought out, and will be ineffective. For me to mean that, the person to whom I’m speaking has to share the assumption that people with mental retardation are poorly informed, think poorly, and will be ineffective.

The term is used so broadly in contemporary conversation that usage is no longer based primarily on assumptions about specific behaviors of people who have mental retardation – just the general assumption that retardation is bad, something to be avoided, and things, ideas or people described as retarded should be excluded from the attention of non-retarded people. At this point, the connotation is simply “that’s bad and you should ignore it.” (See the Urban Dictionary entry for the term, which describes it as meaning “bad” in literally hundreds of different ways.) And that is ableist – using a word that not only describes but is the actual medical diagnosis of a mental disability to mean “bad and ignorable.” Using the term reinforces the implicit assumption that mental disabilities are bad and that people with mental disabilities should be excluded and ignored because of their disabilities. And that affects all people with mental disabilities, not just those diagnosed with mental retardation or another developmental disability. (Although it is especially difficult for family members of people with developmental disabilities.)

“Retarded” Link

Kali, Self Identified Disabled Writer, 2010

[Written anonymously in order to keep the focus on disability, 10-17-10, Wordpress, “I am not your metaphor,” http://brilliantmindbrokenbody.wordpress.com/2010/10/17/i-am-not-your-metaphor/, Accessed: 7-5-14, KMM]

Retard/retarded – (I am using the whole word only for clarity; I’ve written other social justice related pieces about how awful and hurtful this word is.) Just mentioning this one makes my blood boil, in part because we generally don’t use this one as much of a metaphor. When we say someone is a retard, we mean that they have so low an IQ as to fall into the category that used to be labled ‘mental retardation’. We mean they’re stupid, they’re foolish, they’re naive, they’re incapable… but mostly that they’re stupid. Plenty of people will argue that the way we use the word today doesn’t tie back to those roots, but think critically about the last time you heard someone use that word – I bet it was to belittle someone’s intelligence.

Link - Weak

The word “weak” centers around the idea that disability is bad, and is inherently ableist

Smith, Say Media Social Justice Editor, 09

[S.E., 11-2-9, Forward, “Ableist Word Profile: Weak”, http://disabledfeminists.com/2009/11/02/ableist-word-profile-weak/, Accessed 7-6-14, CX]
It’s worth discussing why “weak” is ableist before plunging into its history. The reasons this word are ableist get at the crux of the ableist identity of many words: Because it centers around the idea that Disability Is Bad. Disability is so bad, in fact, that it can be used as a shorthand to refer to something viewed as bad, unpleasant, or unworthy. Disability status, or symptoms of a disability, are so awful that they can be used as an insult.

“Weak” entered English in the 1300s, courtesy of Old Norse. The word was initially used in the sense of something soft or pliant. By the 1300s, it was being used to refer to moral failings as well as physical ones, and along the way it spawned the idea that to be strong is to be good, and to be weak is to be bad. “Weakness” is still used in a diagnostic context today, in discussions of situations in which patients lack physical strength.

Numerous disabilities are associated with physical weakness. For people with these disabilities, hearing “weak” used as an insult is not very pleasant, as you might imagine. Thus, it’s a word we would like to avoid using when it is not appropriate, if possible, since we don’t want to go around suggesting that physical weakness is something so deplorable that it’s appropriate to use the term “weak” to describe things which are unpleasant, boring, bad, dull, etc.

Link – Analogies

Analogies Bad

May, Syracuse University Women’s and Gender studies Associate Professor, and Ferri, Syracuse University School of Education Associate Professor, 2005

[Vivian M., Beth, 2005, “Fixated on Ability: Questioning Ableist Metaphors in Feminist Theories of Resistance,” Prose Studies, 27: 1 & 2, page 123-124, https://www.academia.edu/227091/Fixated_on_Ability_Questioning_Ableist_Metaphors_in_Feminist_Theories_of_Resistance, Accessed: 7-5-14, KMM]

As general rhetorical and epistemological practices, analogies and metaphors are so common they often go unnoticed as if they were “dead”—seemingly without origin or history (Mairs, The View 215). We therefore find it necessary to begin by addressing the question, “What are some of the risks of analogy, anyway?” Ellen Samuels, for example, notes the “vexed issue of analogy . . . [which] cannot be extracted from the tangled history of the use and abuse of such identity analogies in past liberation movements” (234). Borrowing “evidence” from somebody else’s experiences of, say racism, to illuminate our own experiences of sexism or homophobia can be a form of what Spelman describes as “boomerang perception”—I take one look at another and come right back to myself (Inessential 12). This way of thinking about differences does not require one to depart in any way from oneself: instead, another’s difference becomes a means of shoring up the self-same. The difference in experience or corporeality becomes defined by its mirror-function. María Lugones argues that this way of reading another and her experiences can be understood as an “arrogant” rather than “loving” and “world-traveling” form of perception (390–95). Lugones underscores that within frames of arrogant perception, her person gets turned into a tool for another’s analysis. Similarly, Paul Long more critiques the pedagogical function and mode of address of charity telethons. Telethons display people with disabilities as “less fortunate and afflicted” and encourage the grateful and “fortunate” viewer to feel better about him/herself by acting in a benevolent way to help redeem others by means of a cure. Therefore another problem with the “boomerang” involved in analogizing is that its rhetorical and epistemological structure relies upon notions of use, of using other persons and/or their experiences.

In other words, analogy can be a means of objectifying or exploiting others. This creates and requires distance between selves and worlds even though it seems like a form of connection, of bringing differences together. Moreover, the comparative nature of analogical thinking requires that we conceptually retain each “side” of the analogy as separate and distinctly different. Thus, analogy relies on given categories of differentiation, identity, and experience, in order to work. These categories (and their distinctness or separateness, rather than their interactive, intersecting qualities) become further naturalized with each comparative use. Our concern is that this sedimentation impedes our capacity to rethink relations between systems of domination and between self and other in more radical ways. An over-reliance on stale modes of address reifies disability as a problem/need or as a “vehicle of other people’s redemption” (Longmore), which stymies possibilities for imagining alternatives or for redeploying disability metaphors in ironic or agential ways that disrupt simplistic equivalences between disability and social death.

In addition to the fairly abstract issue of upholding as “real” constructed categories of experience and identity, such that their nuances, contexts, and interconnected histories disappear, the other problem with analogies involves the conceptual separation required for them to work. Consider again race-sex analogies, which many have critiqued, the most infamous query perhaps being that of Sojourner Truth asking, “and ain’t I a woman?” (36) As Jean Fagan Yellin, for instance, demonstrates in her book, Women and Sisters: The Antislavery Feminists in American Culture , 19th and 20thcentury U.S. race-sex analogies required homogenous notions of race and of sex or gender to work, an insight also suggested by the provocative title of the book, All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, but Some of Us Are Brave: Black Women’s Studies. Because race is understood to signify black men and gender white women, black women disappear altogether. Spelman therefore argues that analogies tend to support a dualist metaphysics in which each aspect of our identities seems like a separate “bead” in a pull-apart “pop-bead necklace” (Inessential 15, 136). Moreover, because race-sex analogies tend to reify “race” as non-whiteness and “gender” as non-maleness, those who live with and gain advantage from privilege remain unmarked by race and/or gender.

Thus not only do black women, for example, disappear in the context of 19^th and 20^th century race-sex analogies, but the intersectional nature of identity, the insidious workings of power, and the complexity of simultaneous privilege and oppression (Barbara Smith xxxii) all become impossible to consider. Within race-sex analogies, then, it becomes difficult to acknowledge the fact that we are all raced and gendered and that these are imbricated not separable identities and experiences. Of course, another dilemma with analogy stems from its reliance on duality, of two elements in comparison: the intersectional nature of more than two categories of identity or experience is impossible to consider. Race-sex analogies therefore tend to suppress anything that doesn’t seem to be “about” race or gender: class, sexuality, nation, disability, and more, are obscured and intersectional approaches to change are hindered by a sequential, dualist approach.

Voting Issue

Ableist rhetoric entrenches an ableist mindset – challenging it is key

Cherney, Wayne State University, 11

[James, 2011, Disabilities Study Quarterly, “The Rhetoric of Ableism”, Vol. 31 No. 3, http://dsq-sds.org/article/view/1665/1606, Accessed 7-5-14, CX]
In this essay I analyze ableism as a rhetorical problem for three reasons. First, ableist culture sustains and perpetuates itself via rhetoric; the ways of interpreting disability and assumptions about bodies that produce ableism are learned. The previous generation teaches it to the next and cultures spread it to each other through modes of intercultural exchange. Adopting a rhetorical perspective to the problem of ableism thus exposes the social systems that keep it alive. This informs my second reason for viewing ableism as rhetoric, as revealing how it thrives suggests ways of curtailing its growth and promoting its demise. Many of the strategies already adopted by disability rights activists to confront ableism explicitly or implicitly address it as rhetoric. Public demonstrations, countercultural performances, autobiography, transformative histories of disability and disabling practices, and critiques of ableist films and novels all apply rhetorical solutions to the problem. Identifying ableism as rhetoric and exploring its systems dynamic reveals how these corrective practices work. We can use such information to refine the successful techniques, reinvent those that fail, and realize new tactics. Third, I contend that any means of challenging ableism must eventually encounter its rhetorical power. As I explain below, ableism is that most insidious form of rhetoric that has become reified and so widely accepted as common sense that it denies its own rhetoricity—it "goes without saying." To fully address it we must name its presence, for cultural assumptions accepted uncritically adopt the mantle of "simple truth" and become extremely difficult to rebut. As the neologism "ableism" itself testifies, we need new words to reveal the places it resides and new language to describe how it feeds. Without doing so, ableist ways of thinking and interpreting will operate as the context for making sense of any acts challenging discrimination, which undermines their impact, reduces their symbolic potential, and can even transform them into superficial measures that give the appearance of change yet elide a recalcitrant ableist system.

Alternative Solves

The alt is key to make debate a more welcoming space for those who are differently abled

Cherney, Wayne State University, 11

[James, 2011, Disabilities Study Quarterly, “The Rhetoric of Ableism”, Vol. 31 No. 3, http://dsq-sds.org/article/view/1665/1606, Accessed 7-5-14, CX]
Similarly, ableist rhetoric often dictates realizing ability as arising directly and simply from the physical body, employing a warrant that specifies "body is able." The social systems of sport provide an excellent example, for these activities privilege particular skills or physical capacities by rewarding their presence or performance within the structure of a game. Without the sport of golf, having the capacity to club a small white ball extremely accurately over long distances would be meaningless; only in the context of the game does this become an ability that elevates the victorious winner to obtain rewards of fame and wealth. The rules of such games create spaces where particular performances appear salient, which shape expectations of bodily capacity, and which identify as "disabled" or "incapacitated" those whose bodies do not or cannot participate.

As I argue elsewhere, this rhetoric played a central role in the 1998-2001 controversy over whether professional golfer Casey Martin should be allowed to use a cart during play in Professional Golf Association (PGA) events as an accommodation for his disability.21 Arguments opposing Martin's case frequently depended on the rhetorical norm "body is able" by locating his ability entirely in his body; sport's presumed celebration of natural physical prowess obscures the ways rules always already privilege some physical capacities over others. Presuming that the rules created a "level playing field" to which everyone had equal access, advocates for the PGA argued that "fair play" required that nobody be given the unfair advantage of using a device that others were not allowed to employ. Although the decision to grant his accommodation was ultimately upheld by the Supreme Court, the widespread opposition to Martin's case showed the depth of this norm's pervasiveness. As this case demonstrates, the ableist equation of ability and body protects ableist institutions and architecture from scrutiny, locating as simple knowledge the clearly questionable assumption that one's abilities inhere in one's physical corpus. As the capacities privileged, rewarded, and normalized by cultural systems that depend on their presence and performance, "abilities" are thoroughly social constructs communicated rhetorically. Knowing them as such reverses the ableist episteme that "body is able," opening to critique potentially any claim that some skill should be favored over others.

In this article I analyze "normal is natural," a third rhetorical norm that obscures as "natural law" the ideological preference for things "normal." Like "deviance is evil" and "body is able" this warrant justifies ableist discrimination by providing rationale for subordinating disabled people. It works by deploying the idea of the normal body as a fact of nature, thereby absolving responsibility for employing it in medical, scientific, political, and religious institutions. According to this norm, valuing normal bodies and devaluing "abnormal" bodies reflects sensible awareness of the way things naturally work instead of employing questionable ideology. Presumably dispassionate and objective science that merely describes natural law presents the idea of the normal body as "objective truth." Normality thus becomes an inherent and relatively unquestionable characteristic, appearing against a framework grounded in scientific certainty. Historically, society often declaims discriminatory assumptions as scientific fact. As Robert Garland observes: "Modern science has often served merely to reinforce our cultural presuppositions."22 Scientific or medical evidence can redefine what counts as normal because generally the culture considers these approaches (at least when conducted "objectively") to merely report "facts." In contrast, social criticism and commentary (particularly when conducted "subjectively") struggle for legitimacy. This tends to bury and protect the roots of ableist discrimination. As Abby Wilkerson argues, this division between the natural and the social works "to obscure the social origin of practices that differentially harm members of oppressed groups, while making these harms appear to be 'facts of nature.'"23

Impact - Oppression

Ableism is a system of oppression and that must be conquered

Siebers, University of Michigan Literary and Cultural Criticism Professor, 09

[Tobin, 10-28-09, Disability Aesthetics, “The Aesthetics of Human Disqualification”, http://www.isu.edu/~garijose/Pages/Course%20Syllabi/PDF/Aesthetics/SiebersDisabiityA2.pdf, Pg 26, Accessed 7-6-14, CX]
Oppression is the systematic victimization of one group by another. It is a form of intergroup violence. That oppression involves “groups,” and not “individuals,” means that it concerns identities, and this means, furthermore, that oppression always focuses on how the body appears, both on how it appears as a public and physical presence and on its specific and various appearances. Oppression is justified most often by the attribution of natural inferiority—what some call “in-built” or “biological” inferiority. Natural inferiority is always somatic, focusing on the mental and physical features of the group, and it figures as disability. The prototype of biological inferiority is disability. The representation of inferiority always comes back to the appearance of the body and the way the body makes other bodies feel. This is why the study of oppression requires an understanding of aesthetics—not only because oppression uses aesthetic judgments for its violence but also because the signposts of how oppression works are visible in the history of art, where aesthetic judgments about the creation and appreciation of bodies are openly discussed.

One additional thought must be noted before I treat some analytic examples from the historical record. First, despite my statement that disability now serves as the master trope of human disqualification, it is not a matter of reducing other minority identities to disability identity. Rather, it is a matter of understanding the work done by disability in oppressive systems. In disability oppression, the physical and mental properties of the body are socially constructed as disqualifying defects, but this specific type of social construction happens to be integral at the present moment to the symbolic requirements of oppression in general. In every oppressive system of our day, I want to claim, the oppressed identity is represented in some way as disabled, and although it is hard to understand, the same process obtains when disability is the oppressed identity. “Racism” disqualifies on the basis of race, providing justification for the inferiority of certain skin colors, bloodlines, and physical features. “Sexism” disqualifies on the basis of sex/gender as a direct representation of mental and physical inferiority. “Classism” disqualifies on the basis of family lineage and socioeconomic power as proof of inferior genealogical status. “Ableism” disqualifies on the basis of mental and physical differences, first selecting and then stigmatizing them as disabilities. The oppressive system occults in each case the fact that the disqualified identity is socially constructed, a mere convention, representing signs of incompetence, weakness, or inferiority as undeniable facts of nature.

As racism, sexism, and classism fall away slowly as justifications for human inferiority—and the critiques of these prejudices prove powerful examples of how to fight oppression—the prejudice against disability remains in full force, providing seemingly credible reasons for the belief in human inferiority and the oppressive systems built upon it. This usage will continue, I expect, until we reach a historical moment when we know as much about the social construction of disability as we now know about the social construction of race, class, gender, and sexuality. Disability represents at this moment in time the final frontier of justifiable human inferiority.

Ableist language excludes those who are differently abled and perpetuate violence and oppression

Cohen-Rottenberg, The Body Is Not an Apology content manager and writer, 13

[Rachel, 9-14-13, Disability and Representation, “Doing Social Justice: Thoughts on Ableist Language and Why It Matters”, http://thebodyisnotanapology.tumblr.com/post/86596200516/doing-social-justice-thoughts-on-ableist-language-and, Accessed 7-5-14, CX]

When a critique of language that makes reference to disability is not welcome, it is nearly inevitable that, as a disabled person, I am not welcome either. I might be welcome as an activist, but not as a disabled activist. I might be welcome as an ally, but not as a disabled ally. I might be welcome as a parent, but not as a disabled parent. That’s a lot like being welcomed as an activist, and as an ally, and as a parent, but not as a woman or as a Jew.

Many people have questions about why ableist speech matters, so I’ll be addressing those questions here. Please feel free to raise others.

1. Why are you harping so much on words, anyway? Don’t we have more important things to worry about?

I am always very curious about those who believe that words are “only” words — as though they do not have tremendous power. Those of us who use words understand the world through them. We use words to construct frameworks with which we understand experience. Every time we speak or write, we are telling a story; every time we listen or read, we are hearing one. No one lives without entering into these stories about their fellow human beings. As Arthur Frank writes:

“Stories work with people, for people, and always stories work on people, affecting what people are able to see as real as possible, and as worth doing or best avoided. What is it about stories – what are their particularities – that enables them to work as they do? More than mere curiosity is at stake in this question, because human life depends on the stories we tell: the sense of self that those stories impart, the relationships constructed around shared stories, and the sense of purpose that stories both propose and foreclose.” (Frank 2010, 3)

The stories that disability metaphors tell are deeply problematic, deeply destructive, and deeply resonant of the kinds of violence and oppression that disabled people have faced over the course of many centuries. They perpetuate negative and disempowering views of disabled people, and these views wind their ways into all of the things that most people feel are more important. If a culture’s language is full of pejorative metaphors about a group of people, that culture is not going to see those people as fully entitled to the same housing, employment, medical care, education, access, and inclusion as people in a more favored group.

Ableist language inherently causes negativity towards the differently abled

Schalk, Indiana University Department of Gender Studies Professor, 13

[Sami, 2013, Disability Studies Quarterly, “Metaphorically Speaking: Ableist Metaphors in Feminist Writing”, http://dsq-sds.org/article/view/3874/3410, Accessed 7-4-14, CX]

Disability rhetoricians have brought attention to the fact that "when Americans think, talk, and write disability, they usually consider it as a tragedy, illness, or defect that an individual body 'has,'… as personal and accidental, before or without sociopolitical significance" (Wilson and Lewiecki-Wilson 2001, 2). In other words, when disability is used in figurative and metaphorical ways, it is primarily understood in terms of inability, loss, lack, problems, and other forms of negation (Titchkosky 2007, 8). Although, unlike gender, disability is not centrally implicated in the basic grammatical system, the use of disability as a metaphorical construct is nonetheless prevalent and implicit in our language. Just as a word such as seminal has lost its original etymological connection (in this case, to male ejaculation) in our contemporary connotations, so too many words that refer to disability have transitioned from medical discourse into common speech and slang and have lost their linguistic connection to the original referent. In this regard, Jay Dolmage (2005, 113) gives as examples the words crippled, retarded, and handicapped, to which I would add idiot (once a medical category of cognitive disability), dumb (once used to refer to lack of oral speech communication, as in the phrase "deaf and dumb"), lame, crazy, and insane. Though most of these disparaging words are no longer generally recognized as connected to, or associated with, specific impairments, they have nevertheless retained connotations of insult, inability, and lack due to more widespread negative conceptions of disability. This, then, is indirect ableism. Vidali, May and Ferri, and Dolmage are among the disability studies scholars who have explored disability metaphors, that is, the way that metaphors of disability are used as a source domain that confers negativity upon things not themselves directly associated with disability due to the retention of broader negative cultural connotations of disability itself. As I indicate above, the work of these scholars has tended to deal primarily with conventional, rather than creative, metaphors by citing a variety of brief examples, rather than considering the role that these metaphors play within the wider context of the original text's argument. By analyzing the creative disability metaphors of "emotional cripples" and "the mute body" in the feminist texts of hooks and Modleski, I expand on the work of these scholars, modeling a process of transgressive reading that reveals how extended disability metaphors impact the overall argument of the texts. Knowles and Moon (2006, 12) note that metaphors allow an open-endedness that is less precise than literal language, which gives metaphor its creative, emotional, and intellectual potential. A transgressive reading of disability metaphors mines these creative, emotional, and intellectual potentialities with a "commitment to retelling the stories of disability in such a way that resists the illusion that disability is a limit without possibility" (Titchkosky 2007, 131).

Impact - Exclusion

Ableist metaphors perpetuate false ideas about disabilities and create spaces of exclusion

Ben-Moshe, University of Toledo Disabilities Studies Assistant Professor, 2005

[Liat, 2005, ““Lame Idea”: Disabling Language in the Classroom,” Building Pedagogical Curb Cuts: Incorporating Disability in the University Classroom and Curriculum, The Graduate School, Syracuse University, page 107-109, KMM]

In the English language, using disability as a metaphor, an analogy and a derogatory term is common. Examples of such phrases and terms include: lame idea, blind justice, dumb luck, felt paralyzed, argument fell on deaf ears, crippling, crazy, insane, idiotic and retarded.

One might argue that using these words without relating them to particular individuals is not offensive. However, using disability as an analogy not only offends certain individuals, but it also impedes clear communication, perpetuates false beliefs about disability and creates an environment of unease and exclusion.

Disability Denotes Deficiency

Disability has negative connotations when used metaphorically, while the real experience of living with a disability can be quite enriching and empowering. In all the examples above disability is used in a value-laden way. “Lame idea” means bad idea or one that is not constructed in a sufficient and persuasive manner. When we call a notion or act “idiotic/moronic/ retarded” we are trying to convey the message that the idea or notion is ill-conceived, lacking in thought or unintelligent. When we describe someone as “blind” to a fact (for example, men are blind to sexist practices), we mean that they are lacking knowledge or have no notion of what transpires around them. “Crazy” means excessive or without control. None of these signifying phrases carries positive and empowering interpretations.

As educators, we must bear in mind that disability labels have a history, and that those labels have been highly contested over the decades. These words were actually created to describe people with different abilities as inferior within particular value systems. For instance, the words “moron,” “idiot” and “imbecile” were used throughout the 20th century as medical classifications to denote different levels of intellectual deficiency. Later on, all these terms were conflated under the umbrella of “mental retardation” (Clark & Marsh, 2002).

The category of mental retardation, by itself, is highly contested for its reification of all perceived differences in cognitive abilities into one unified category. The important fact here is that mental retardation is a social construction, not a real condition that is innate in people’s minds. The only requirement for inclusion in this category is deviation from a norm (usually prescribed by the use of IQ test) and perceived incompetence. Mental retardation is by itself a linguistic metaphor that means “cognitively delayed.” When used metaphorically in everyday speech, “retarded” stands for slow or underdeveloped thought processes.

When we use terms like “retarded,” “lame” or “blind”— even if we are referring to acts or ideas and not to people at all— we perpetuate the stigma associated with disability. By using a label which is commonly associated with disabled people to denote a deficiency, a lack or an ill-conceived notion, we reproduce the oppression of people with disabilities. As educators, we must be aware of the oppressive power of “everyday” language and try to change it.

Ableist language is detrimental to education and non-exclusionary communication

Ben-Moshe, University of Toledo Disabilities Studies Assistant Professor, 2005

[Liat, 2005, ““Lame Idea”: Disabling Language in the Classroom,” Building Pedagogical Curb Cuts: Incorporating Disability in the University Classroom and Curriculum, The Graduate School, Syracuse University, page 114-115, KMM]

The language that we use in our classrooms has far-reaching implications on the education of students. Just as we would not tolerate sexist, misogynist or racist language, we must not tolerate disabling imagery and phrases. In particular, we should not contribute to reproducing it. Disability is not merely a metaphor or an analogy, but it is an identity for some of us as well as for some of our students. Disability is defined almost arbitrarily and the line between the disabled and the nondisabled is not a clear one. We must not assume disability, or the lack of it, by mere observation. Abelist language can be offensive and hurt some of our students while interfering with our original messages. We can either create barriers to communication or we can create classrooms in which we all feel equally challenged.

Ableist rhetoric reinforces false notions of disabilities and normalizes them into learning

Ben-Moshe, University of Toledo Disabilities Studies Assistant Professor, 2005

[Liat, 2005, ““Lame Idea”: Disabling Language in the Classroom,” Building Pedagogical Curb Cuts: Incorporating Disability in the University Classroom and Curriculum, The Graduate School, Syracuse University, page 109, KMM]

We learn about disability through everyday use of language. In the same way that racist or sexist attitudes, whether implicit or explicit, are acquired through the “normal” learning process, so too are negative assumptions about disabilities and the people who are labeled as having them. Our notions of people who are blind, deaf or labeled as mentally retarded come into play when we use disabling phrases, and these notions are usually far from accurate. They do not convey the complexity of living in a society that regards people with disabilities as the Other on the basis of perceived mentally or bodily difference.

The use of disability as a metaphor perpetuates false beliefs about the nature of impairment and disability. People who are blind, for example, do not lack in knowledge; they simply have different ways of obtaining it. Paralysis does not necessarily imply lack of mobility, stagnancy or dependence since there are augmentative instruments, such as wheelchairs and personal aids, that secure independence and mobility. The continued use of disabling language in the classroom perpetuates ignorance and misconceptions in regards to the lived experience of people with disabilities.

AT: Language has Fluid Meanings

Ableist metaphors are not floating signifiers, they represent and perpetuate real suffering

Ben-Moshe, University of Toledo Disabilities Studies Assistant Professor, 2005

[Liat, 2005, ““Lame Idea”: Disabling Language in the Classroom,” Building Pedagogical Curb Cuts: Incorporating Disability in the University Classroom and Curriculum, The Graduate School, Syracuse University, page 110-111, KMM]

Using disability as a metaphor to represent only negative aspects of a situation is problematic. It is made worse by the fact that blindness, deafness, paralysis, etc., are not floating signifiers, but have real referents behind them—people with disabilities. When using disabling language, we do not only de-value the lived experience of people with disabilities, but we also appropriate these lived experiences for our own use. This means that disabled people have been presented as socially flawed able-bodied people, not as people with our own identities. As responsible instructors, we must ask ourselves, when was the last time we discussed disability in our classrooms, not as metaphors, but as lived experiences?

The consequences of this exclusion are that most students know disability only metaphorically (unless they have disabilities themselves), and that we fail them as teachers by not providing descriptions of what disability actually means to the people who embody it. As critical teachers, we should counteract the use of disability as a metaphor in everyday language, in media and in literary representations. This pedagogical goal can be achieved by introducing more complex accounts of the disability experience through autobiographies, guest speakers or critical accounts by people with disabilities or by scholars of disability studies.

To make matters more complex, we must consider that some of our students might have disabilities themselves. These can be hidden and not visible. When we use disabling language, we alienate our students from our arguments and from feeling included in the classroom. As a wheelchair user, I find that when people use terms like “crippling” or “disabling” as rhetorical devices, I am distracted from the discussions. I cannot listen to arguments that make their point by using my identity as a rhetorical device. When a student tells me, “‘I didn’t know what do. I was paralyzed,” I think to myself, “funny, I’m paralyzed, but I do know what to do.” I stop listening to my student’s complaint and feel offended by the conversation. When this happens, I feel “mugged by a metaphor” in the words of Wahneema Lubiano (1996). 1

AT – Not How It’s Used Now

Despite modern usage, ableist language still inherently entrenches the idea that those who are differently abled are lesser

Jean, Staff writer, 09

[Abby, 11-11-09, Bitch Media, “The Transcontinental Disability Choir: What is Ableist Language and Why Should You Care?”, http://bitchmagazine.org/post/the-transcontinental-disability-choir-what-is-ableist-language-and-why-should-you-care, Accessed 7-4-14,CX]
A lot of people argue that while these words may have been associated with disabilities in the past, modern usage has diverged so dramatically from those past uses that the words no longer have any relation to disability. This is usually just not true. For instance, the Mirriam-Webster definition of "lame" lists the primary definition as "having a body part and especially a limb so disabled as to impair freedom of movement." The official psychiatric diagnosis is still "mental retardation." But regardless of whether the term is currently used in a disability context, the current meanings of the word to mean flawed, weaker, irrational, or otherwise lesser than an expected standard. That connotation provides meaning to the word - and is the core of the ableism that makes the word problematic.