[stylist] question

[John Lee Clark]

Helene:

"Sighted wannabe" would be as ambiguous as, say, a black wannabe.  Tell me
what a black wannabe is.  Or an amputee wannabe.  Or a deaf wannabe.  I'm
telling you, the word wannabe tends to confuse.

That's fine if you consider yourself disabled, and no better or worse than
all those people you mentioned.  But I am coming from a different position,
because I believe that none of those people--blind, wheelchair flyers,
spaghetti spinal cord, Downs syndrome--none of them are doing better or
worse than the so called able-bodied.

If there is a real disability, it is the disability of being human.  The
human body is incredibly weak, its senses quite dull and limited.  Nobody
can see very well at night, not like the majority of species on earth can.
Nobody can smell to save his own life.  Human speed is a jokie, and in a
race millions of other animals, small and great, will leave the fastest man
in the dust.  We cannot fly.  We cannot hold up any significant weight for
more than two minutes--one hundred pounds, maybe, but not for much longer,
certainly not to carry it for miles, like many animals can.  We cannot stay
underwater for more than three measly minutes.

What on earth does able-bodied mean?  Nobody is very able, not even the
strongest, fastest, and fittest among us.  The differences between some of
us are all so minimal, so tiny, so slight that it's a joke.  

If there is a redeeming advantage, it is the human mind.  The human mind is
what makes it possible for humans to overcome their universal problem of
being merely human physically.  And do you know what?  The blind, the
legless, the deaf, and the rest, they all have got the human mind, too!

There are only two elements of difference: One is that certain groups have
been mobilizing resources and engineering stuff for themselves longer or
perhaps better than other groups have.  Two, said certain groups have the
tendency to want to keep their power and wealth to themselves and to exclude
the rest.

It's just that sighted and hearing people have succeeded in coping with
their problems and limitations and also have chosen to design their
technologies for coping with being human in special exclusive ways.  And
then they make a big deal out of slight differences in other groups in order
to remain exclusive.  Society has used religion in this way.  Gender.  Color
of skin.  And now slight differences in our bodies.

But let me assure you that they are just as much disabled as we are.  They
just have better technology.  But they need technology bad.  Nobody can read
at night without a lamp.  Humans are that weak and that much in need of an
aid like that.  But we are catching up.  We just need to change the
technology, not only for us, but for everyone else, too, so that we share
the same breadth and depth of access to technologies, tools, and aids that
enable all of us to move very fast, communicate long-distance, and to fly.

And yes we can fly.  We just need to figure out how to fly in another way
than in coach.  Planes were first inspired by and modeled after birds.  But
if Adam and Eve were blind, and the great majority of humankind was blind
all through the generations, planes would be inspired by and modeled after
bats.  There is no stopping the human mind from taking flight, and sooner or
later, the body will come along for the ride.  It's only natural, and we all
are part of this nature.

John

   

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