In Disability History, Kim Nielsen examines how the U.S. has historically sought to protect the "national body" by excluding, institutionalizing, and sterilizing those deemed undesirable - often using eugenics, immigration restrictions, and forced institutionalization. These strategies reveal the deep intersections of ableism, racism, and gender and sexuality discrimination.

• Friday, February 7th: Canaday A18 at 3pm,  a welcoming session to explain the mission of the Disability, Unity, and Innovation Center 
• Friday, February 21st in Canaday A18 from 2-5pm: A presentation on accessible design practices followed by a workshop for people to brainstorm together the best way to arrange the DUIC to maximize accessibility.
• March 20-21st: DeafSpace

Similar to our discussion on Thursday about how theories of eugenics originated from statistics, Chapter 6 highlighted how other aspects of science were used to promote “ideal” traits. For example, they brought up the work of Gregor Mendel on genetics which helped argue that those with disabilities should not reproduce as they had defective hereditary traits. Mendel genetics are taught in introductory biology courses essentially everywhere, however we never learned about this unfortunate application of Mendel's work. Additionally, it was appalling to learn that there were more than 65 thousand forced sterilizations in the US by the 1960s and that the forced-sterilization laws in the US actually influenced Hitler’s plan to create national racial purity.

This reading clearly expressed the uses of language in its contribution to power and how society is led to percieve disability and people living with disabilities, utilizing normalcy along with its origins in eugenics, statistics, and industrialism. The generalizing term "normal" not only generalizes desirable traits but it especially emphasizes what are deemed undesirable traits.

Apologies for it being so small. I couldn't seem to fix that.

My portrait only contains part of my body because a full portrait felt too whole, too complete. A full face or full body portrait would feel like a lie. I focused on my ear because I felt self-conscious taking a photograph of my lips- a portrait focusing on them seemed too easy to misconstrue- and, aside from my inability to speak, my propensity towards wearing headphones is probably the most physically characteristic thing about me. At this point in my life, perhaps less than ten percent of those I interact with on a regular basis have seen me without my headphones. That feels important, somehow. The covering, the masking, the “this is how you see me, but it isn’t who I am.” I don’t know how to create an accurate representation of myself without shattering it.