On-line class conversation

One of the elements of the chapter “The Poor, the Vicious, and Infirm” that struck me was the concurrent presence of both advanced and narrow-minded thinking with regard to how disability was perceived in colonial communities. On the one hand, Massachusetts enacted a statute in 1694 that stated neighboring society members were required to support individuals from their community who had disabilities (A Disability History of the United States, 25). There also existed rulings that protected individuals with disabilities from certain legal punishments, which emerged from the notion that not all of these individuals had complete control over their actions. While these standards were by no means perfect (one need only to refer to the language used in them to refer to such individuals to discern some flaws), their overarching principles suggest that those who helped establish the laws held compassion for individuals with disabilities as well as valued them (something that certainly was not reflected in, say, the case of Le Rodeur, which occurred over 100 years later).

However, the idea of “monstrous births” as punishment for sinful women is also present in this chapter, an analyzation that occurred within the same time period and location as the enactment of the above regulations yet reflects quite less forward thinking. Anne Hutchinson and Mary Dyer, both of whom were accused of heresy, were said to have been divinely disciplined for their actions by giving birth to children that were “monstrous” (or “stillborns”). Even though their respective condemnations occurred before the aforementioned laws were established, the fact that such disparate realities could have existed within the same period initially surprised me. It is thus that I began to ponder similar unsettling realities that exist within the world of disability today.

Indeed, though current special education laws are much more thorough and inclusive, many teachers and administrative members nevertheless do not carry out the duties that they are required to do by law. For example, as special education attorney Daniel Heffernan writes in Transition and Planning Services, some school districts have tried to “trivialize or eliminate non-academic goals in IEPs to lessen their obligation to provide services to meet those goals,” while others have “made a strong effort to ‘push’ children off the school rolls by offering diplomas when further services are necessary” (D. Heffernan). Even though non-academic goals are essential to Individualized Education Plans (IEPs), particularly for individuals who are about to graduate from secondary education and potentially transition into different living situations, many schools try to find ways around these requirements. It is thus that, amidst both colonial times as well as today’s world, inequalities persist within the world of disability-though conditions are indeed improving today significantly.

In reading Nielsen’s A Disability History of the United States, Kristin asked us to view the book as “intervention in our understanding of U.S. history.” I find this way of framing Nielsen’s work to be extremely helpful. What she lays out for her readers is simply a history of the United States—but one that breaks away from society’s ableist master narrative in order to highlight the crucial role that disability has played in shaping our country’s past. Disability does play a central part in the American history that we learned about in high school, yet this reality is disregarded or dismissed when it comes time to teach the course content. Reading Nielsen’s book, however, is helping me see just how much disability has influenced (and continues to influence) our country’s history and values. It is clear that disability is bound up in so many different forms of oppression and so many different aspects of the American experiences. As Neilson reminds us, including disability in the historical narrative is simply telling “the American story in all of its complexities” (xiii).

            One thread from this book that I found particularly compelling was the link between race and disability—and between racism and ableism. There are many similarities between race and disability in terms of their impact on and import for American society. Both race and disability can be seen as social constructs. They are artificial, man-made labels that were created in order to categorize people and delineate their social positioning. Additionally, both constructs have been used a means of discrimination and as a way to maintain a power imbalance and social hierarchy. Similarly, race and disability have both been sources of dehumanization and marginalization. As Neilson points out, “disability has served as an effective weapon in contests over power and ideology” (xii). The same can be said for race. Thinking about other ways in which race and disability are intertwined, it is important to note how certain racial identities have been construed as disabilities. Neilson discusses this phenomenon in relation to blackness and the treatment of African Americans. For a long time, the a black body was seen as inherenlty disabiled—as  mental and physical weakner than that of a white person. To this point, Neilson tells us that “slavery and racism rested on the ideology that Africans…lacked intelligence, competence, and even the humanity to participate in civic and community life on an equal basis with white Americans” (57). This belief served as a way to justify slavery, as blacks were thought to be incapable of living without the dominance of whites over them.

Another key connection between race and disability is the fact that people of different races experienced severe mismatches in their access to resources and support in the treatment of disability. This is a clear example of white privilege, in which being white and disabled made you far more likely to receive quality medical care and social assistance than if you were black. To this point, Nielsen tells us that “doctors took skimpy case histories of their African American patients…. Hospitals provided inferior living conditions, and black patients received their care from the least experienced physicians” (92). This evident inequality of care helps us to understand the intersectionality of oppression. When one’s identity is layered with a number of marginalized statuses—like being black and also being labeled as having a disability— the extent and nature of the discrimination faced will change and will often be worsened.

One question that this race-disability connection brings up for me is how this intersection might be recognized and used to the advantage of activists fighting against these oppressions. If racism and ableism have so much in common and have such a shared history, could activists working on either of these causes strengthen their approach by coming together? How could these two movements work in tandem, combining their interrelated aspects, into one more effective and powerful effort? This is something that Eli Clare discusses in his writing when he talks about the connection between anti-nursing home and anti-incarceration activists. “How would a vision of liberation be reshaped,” he says, “if these two groups understood and acted upon the connections between “ them (xxi). The question, then, is how this combined effort might be realized and what it might look like if it were to occur. Are there ways in which it is happening already? 

One topic that drew my attention was the freak shows mentioned in where human bodies were displayed because they were considered "both wondrous and freakish" (90). Though freak shows may have been part of American history, I don't think that America has stopped using freak shows as entertainment purposes. I don't know if this would be considered the equivalence of freak shows, but there TV shows like Little Couple or Little People, Big World where dwarves are televised because of their dwarfism. Or we live in a society where media draws attention to weird birth defects such as werewolf syndrome (Hypertrichosis) or elephant man syndrome (Neurofibromatis). Or even the model, Chantelle Winnie, who suffers from a skin pigmentation disorder (Vitiligo). I don't think America has moved away from their fascination of "different" human bodies.