March 19, 2018 - 22:45
I was thinking a lot about the language and labels used in Good Kings Bad Kings and the relationship to pride as discussed in "The Disability Gulag". Nussbaum uses a wide variety of labels associated with the people at ILLC. Some of the characters use empowering terms like "crip" while others describe the patients or even themselves as "handicapped" and "retarded". Each character's word choice is indicative of their upbringing, relationship with ILLC, familiarity with disability as an identity, pride movement, and/or community, and at times their supposed mental capacity. Joanne discusses the uses of "handicapped," "disabled," and "crip" and explains why she prefers "crip." Her perspective is that of a physically but not mentally disabled adult who is fairly familiar with disability pride. On the other hand, Teddy refers to himself and his friend Ryan as "retarded" because that is the word the institutions he's encountered have used. He seems largely uninformed about the greater disabled community and disability pride but still resists the negative term because he doesn't "feel retarded" (43).
The language in Good Kings Bad Kings made me think about the role of disability pride in institutions. Johnson talks about how the institution strips away so much of a person's identity. In addition to the parts of self that she mentions--long hair, jewelry, the right to privacy--it seems like the ability to identify as disabled and have a sense of pride in this identity is also put at risk in the disability gulag.