[nfbmi-talk] interesting article from inclusion daily

[ly schuck]

 Hi, thought this might interest some of us on the list,

 
S.E. Smith: Social Obstacles Are The Real Problem For Disabled People
(The Guardian)
September 24, 2010

FORT BRAGG, CALIFORNIA-- [Excerpt] Reading obituaries, I am usually
struck by a recurring narrative which often appears when high-profile
people with disabilities die. Inevitably, the words "overcome" or
"courage" crop up, often in the first line of the obituary -- as seen in
the case of Helen Keller, eulogized in the New York Times as a person who
"overcame blindness and deafness" right in the opening line. 
Christopher Reeve, the attorney Thomas Siporin and the baseball pitcher
Mordecai Peter Centennial Brown (known as "three finger" after his
disability) are also regularly referred to in those terms. The most
recent example was Ian Cameron's death last week, typified in this
extract from an article in the Times: "Ian Cameron was determined not to
be limited or defined by what he has always refused to call his
disability." 
The term "in spite of their disabilities" is often used to describe
successful disabled people, eliding the many factors that contribute to
their success. Oddly enough, despite the assurance in the obituary that
these individuals refused to be defined by their disabilities, their
memorials often have the effect of reducing them, and their
accomplishments, to their disabilities: they are role models and heroes
because they had full lives while disabled.
Some of the high-profile disabled people dying today were born in an era
when the disability rights movement was a far cry from what it is now,
and thinking about disability was very much informed by 19th-century
ideas. Disability was primarily perceived as a problem among war
veterans; public accommodation for disabled people was minimal, and
disabled children were deemed to be figures of tragedy. Had they been
born into different families, their life stories might have been
radically different.
Entire article:
Social obstacles are the real problem for disabled people
http://www.InclusionDaily.com/news/2010/red/0924g.htm