So today's class brought out many frustrations on what the correct way of terming an individual with a disability was. This post is somewhat of a relation to last week but I wanted to further investigate into what the proper ways of addressing those that have certain obstructions were. This file from the Amherst Museum of Disability (the same museum that we will be visiting this weekend) shows a list of commonly used terms towards people with disabilities and addresses the correct way of terming people.
http://museumofdisability.org/pdf/List_Acceptable_Terms.pdf
Many of the terms listed include the words, "people" and "person" and do not address the obstacle head on. The class also focused their attention towards certain people embracing their issues and others trying to stay away from the spotlight. As a society, I think we should learn to respect those decisions instead of criticizing them because the social aspect is diminished for these individuals. Do you feel like there should be classifications of people? Do these classifications help with understanding an individual's problem and allow anyone to help? I listened to how people were addressing the issue and could not think of the proper way of addressing the issue without stepping on some sharp rocks.
Darren Pope
I agree with this statement Darren. I don't think that there should be any classifications of people. Let's take the education perspective. We keep classifying people by their learning abilities and I think its stupid. I was classified when I was younger because I had a learning disability. It hurt being separated by others. My point is, I don't think that we should classify people, even if other people think that people are mentally handicapped.
ReplyDeleteI simply think people should be able to classify themselves and have the rest of society simply respect their viewpoint. There are a myriad of ways to term people with disabilities and it is impossible to attempt to broadly label all of them. Instead of trying to tip toe around people with disabilities and try to use a politically correct term as deemed by the list you posted, why not simply just call them a person? This is just naive, wishful thinking but in a perfect world this would be ideal.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Robert, that people should be able to define themselves and live by this identity. However, the sad society that we live in is that other people are constantly labeling you and maybe not in the way that you want them too. Although society is not perfect, I do believe that people can and do define themselves but it is disregarding the labels that other people give you in order to avoid that stereotype threat that is important. If people were half as worried about themselves than as they are about labeling and defining other people, then maybe we wouldn't have so much stereotyping and negative words thrown around.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great resource that should be more widely used and made available. We always try to be so careful with out words when applying it to individuals with a disability. When we try to say the right thing, sometimes we end up saying the wrong thing, or sometimes that sensitivity plays no role and we abuse words when not even applying it to the individual at all, but more so in a casual setting. This guide also give the reasoning as to why anything other than the acceptable terms should not be used.
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