This morning in our local paper, the Press Democrat, a columnist said, talking about the invitees for an upcoming community supper, \u201cThe idea is that folks wealthy and poor, native-born and immigrant, able-bodied and disabled\u2026will sit and visit\u2026 .\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I wrote to thank the columnist, Chris Coursey. When I read the column I was struck and pleased that people with disabilities are included in the list of invitees. It\u2019s rare that we\u2019re mentioned when talking about diversity issues. (I think diversity gives us the best place to examine our attitudes and prejudices about disability.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Secondly, he made the dichotomy \u201cable-bodied and disabled,\u201d rather than any of the other forced and fuzzy nomenclature, such as \u201chealthy and disabled,\u201d or \u201cnormal and disabled.\u201d I\u2019ve been touting just that usage for a couple of years. Often my disabled friends and colleagues in the local community and the Society for Disability Studies resist the usage. Both of the terms \u201cable-bodied\u201d and \u201cdisabled\u201d are social constructs that define who we (people with disabilities) are and who we are not. Maybe people resist the usage because it so accurately and painfully describes how we\u2019re seen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This morning in our local paper, the Press Democrat, a columnist said, talking about the invitees for an upcoming community supper, \u201cThe idea is that folks wealthy and poor, native-born and immigrant, able-bodied and disabled\u2026will sit and visit\u2026 .\u201d I wrote to thank the columnist, Chris Coursey. When I read the column I was struck […]<\/p>\n