"In My Language" (Amanda Baggs):

• "In My Language" (Amanda Baggs):• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnylM1hI2jc

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Disability and Social Justice

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Disability and Social Justice

Dennis Lang

Disability Studies

[email protected]

http://depts.washington.edu/disstud

• Talk (DRC UK):• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSG6LGutkHo • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpdyIYEmrs8 • "In My Language" (Amanda Baggs):

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnylM1hI2jc• Being an Unperson (Amanda Baggs):• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4c5_3wqZ3Lk • Difference Is Normal (UN):

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylFwcdNfVhE • Visa TV Ad starring Bill Shannon “Crutch master”

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6RGyJirL3g • Rjd2 - Work It Out (Bill Shannon): • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxjrBd4WE2U

AgendaI) Review– Language (What Do I Say)– Stereotypes

II) Disability Studies & the Disability Rights Movement

- Examining the Body/Mind (INDIVIDUAL MODEL)- Medical- Moral- Personal Tragedy

- Disability Rights Movement Pushes Back (The Social Model)

What Do I SayUSE EITHER:

Person with a Disability (PWD)(People 1st Language)

or

Disabled Person; Deaf (Identity Language)

Language

• YES: Person who has/is…. (intellectual disability; deaf/hard of hearing; learning disability; cognitive disorder; mobility impairment….)

• YES: wheelchair user

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Language

• NO: The “R” word

• NO: wheelchair bound

• NO: Suffering from

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Talk (DRC UK):http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSG6LGutkHo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpdyIYEmrs8

Stereotypes

• 1. Pitiable and Pathetic• 2. "Super-Crip.“• 3. Sinister, Evil and Criminal.• 4. Better Off Dead.• 5. Maladjusted.• 6. A Burden.• 7. Unable to Live a Successful Life.

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Pitiable and Pathetic

Heroic, inspiringSuper-crip / “Overcoming your disability”

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Terry Fox

Quality of Life (Better Off Dead) :

belief that one is better off dead than living with

disabilityThe Standard View

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The Standard View

Belief“…that disabilities have very strong negative

impacts on the qualities of life (QOL) of the individuals that have them.

This view is widely held by nondisabled people, both in popular and in academic culture.” - Amundson

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The Anomaly

When asked: disabled people report a QOL only slightly lower (than reported by nondisabled people), and

much higher than that projected by nondisabled people.

Both the Standard View and its Anomaly have been robustly demonstrated in a number of studies.

Disabled and nondisabled people have very different assessments of the quality of disabled people’s lives. - Amundson

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“I feel the weight of a social obligation to be either healthy or miserable. Nevertheless, I have concluded that I am always sick and often happy, and that this seems very peculiar in my culture.”

Susan Wendell, The Rejected Body

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Ableism "discrimination in favor of the able-bodied." Oxford Wordfinder

– person is determined by their disability (Globalization)

– Disabled People are inferior to nondisabled people

– ableism is analogous to racism and sexism in that it is a system by which society denigrates, devalues, and thus oppresses those with disabilities, while privileging those without disabilities.

– morality, worth and intelligence equated to being able-bodied or able-minded, while disability is conflated with immorality, stupidity, and worthlessness, and disabled lives devalued: belief that one is better off dead than living with disability.

Question

What is the greatest factor that influences one’s QOL?

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Question

How do you treat a Person With a Disability?

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Rjd2 - Work It Out (Bill Shannon): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxjrBd4WE2U

Disability Studies & the Disability Rights Movement: Disability Models

Examining the Body/MindINDIVIDUAL MODEL

“You'd the Problem” (focus on the Individual)

Examining the Body/MindINDIVIDUAL MODEL: MEDICAL MODEL

The medicalization of the body/ mind:

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR) International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD) International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF)

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Michel Foucault’s analysis of “biopower”

• Medical-scientific knowledge claims and solutions to the “problem” of disability (e.g. madness diagnoses).

how we conceive of the meaning of "disability“ has enormous practical, social, and legal effects, reframing and urging one conception of disability over another is deeply and fundamentally connected to power structures

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Statistical bell curve (1835) invented in the era of efficiency, progress,

eugenics

• Statistics created “the tyranny of the norm,” really the ideal.– The disabled fall short.

• Statistician Francis Galton founded the eugenics program of eliminating deviations from the norm (in one direction only).

• Before the 1700’s “Normal” did not exist in language

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Sara Baartman, exhibited in Europe as Hottentot Venus, died 1815, dissected & displayed

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IQ testing• 1905 invented by Alfred Binet.

– “abnormal” children can be educated.

• 1910s US psychologists corrupt this goal.– Mental testing industry.– Hereditary / Eugenics– Measure & label & institutionalize.

• “Menace” to society. – Moron – imbecile – idiot scale.

– By 1920, 328 institutions, with 200,000 people labeled mentally impaired.

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From segregation to prevention of “unfit” births = the eugenics movement 1900-1940

• Social costs, burden of supporting the “feebleminded” and their offspring.

• vs. desirable traits = white, middle-class norms…

• US sterilizes 60,000 people in institutions.

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“Ugly Laws” Early 1900's – 1970’s it was illegal to be "found ugly" on the streets of many American cities like Chicago, Illinois Omaha, Nebraska and Columbus, Ohio. Punishment for being caught in public ranged from incarceration to fines.

“No person who is diseased, maimed, or in any way deformed so as to be an unsightly or disgusting object is to be allowed in or on the public ways or other places in the city. If such a person exposes himself to public view, he shall be subject to a fine for each offense.” Chicago ordinance

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Eugenics1920 “The Permission to Destroy Life Unworthy of Life,” Germany. Karl Binding , a lawyer, & Alfred Hoche, a psychiatrist.

• 1927 Buck v. Bell United States Supreme Court upheld the concept of eugenic sterilization for people considered genetically "unfit." Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., stated: "Three generations of imbeciles are enough.“

Upheld Virginia's sterilization statute which provided for similar laws in 30 states, under which an estimated 65,000 Americans were sterilized without their own consent

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US Set the Example• Nazi Germany -between1933-

1939, 375,000 people in Germany sterilized

• 1939 T4 program – Start of Germany’s Euthanasia program ~275,000 Disabled People murdered.

The medicalization of the body/ mind Individual: Medical Model

Americans with Disabilities Act – ADA 1990

– (1) has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits a major life activity,

– (2) has a record of such an impairment, or

– (3) is regarded as having such an impairment.

Examining the Body/MindINDIVIDUAL: MORAL MODEL

Religious and Spiritual origin

Character weakness

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Moral Model

Religious and Spiritual origin• Punishment from God (ie: due to displeasure)

• Evil spirits - possessedWitchcraft

• Bad Karma (did something evil in the past)• Gift from God (cross to bear, angelic)

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Moral Model (cont.) Character weakness:

• Corruptness • Immoral-ness

• Examples: villains in movies, • refrigerator mothers,

• faking,• Lazy/ unmotivated

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INDIVIDUAL : PERSONAL TRAGEDY MODEL

• Disability is considered a tragedy

• Society needs to take care of / protect persons with disabilities

• Examples: inspiration news story, telethons, charities

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Examine Society: Social Model• Instead of disability originating within the

person, disability originates from society

• Disability results from society, (Ableism), and the environment:– Physical barriers– Attitudinal barriers– Political/Policy barriers

Social Model – Origins (Britain) Union of Physically Impaired Against Segregation

UPIAS definitions of disability, 1976:

• • Disability: The disadvantage or restriction of activitycaused by a contemporary social organization whichtakes no or little account of people who haveimpairments and thus excludes them from participationin the mainstream of social activities

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Social Model Variants – UK

Marxist and materialist interpretation of the world:

– The historical convergence of industrialization and capitalism as restricting impaired people’s access to material and social goods, which results in their economic dependency and creates the category of disability

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Social Model Variants – US

Culture & Attitudes– Assumes that inappropriate and

discriminatory social attitudes and cultural phenomena are the central problem for people with impairments

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Social Model Variants - Minority

• Political based used to counter discrimination and advocate for civil rights – Primarily US

• disABILITY identity / Pride / Culture

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Social Model Variants – Postmodern Theory

• sees disability as constructed via discursive practices (Talk / write=create disability)

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"Through framing disability, through conceptualizing, categorizing, and counting disability, we create it.”

Higgins, Paul. (1992) Pp. 6-7 Making Disability: Exploring the Social Transformation of Human Variation. Springfield, Il: Charles C. Thomas

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Social Model Variants – Dismodern Theory

• Lennard Davis– Sees imperfection as the norm– Normal is a fairly new term…

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Social Model Variants – Summary

1.disability is restricted activity (caused by social barriers)

• 2. disability is a form of social oppression

• 3. disability is created by categorizing bodies/minds as normal or abnormal

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WHY CARE?

How Disability Is Defined

Determines What Is Measured

= Allocation Of Resources

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EXAMPLES• Social Security Disability Insurance• University of Washington Accomodations• World Bank • Oregon

In 1989, passed legislation rationing health care to all state residents who were on Medicaid.

Difference Is Normal (UN):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylFwcdNfVhE

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UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities UNCRPWD

(in effect May 3rd 2008)

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The United Nations General Assembly has unanimously adopted a treaty on the rights of

disabled peopleThe convention is the most rapidly negotiated human rights treaty in the history of international law - the first such treaty in the 21st Century.

• "Too often, those living with disabilities have been seen as objects of embarrassment, and at best, of condescending pity and charity,"

• "On paper they have enjoyed the same rights as others. In real life, they have often been relegated to the margins and denied the opportunities that others take for granted."

• The convention sets out in detail the rights of disabled people.

• The treaty also recognizes that attitudes need to change if disabled people are to achieve equality.

• Countries that adopt the treaty will have to get rid of laws, customs and practices that discriminate against disabled people. –BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/6173073.stm

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Purpose of Convention (Article 1)

To promote, protect and ensure the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms by all persons with disabilities, and to promote respect for their inherent dignity

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A Paradigm Shift• The Convention marks a ‘paradigm shift’ in attitudes

and approaches to persons with disabilities. (Social Model!!)

• Persons with disabilities are not viewed as "objects" of charity, medical treatment and social protection; rather as "subjects" with rights, who are capable of claiming those rights and making decisions for their lives based on their free and informed consent as well as being active members of society.

• The Convention gives universal recognition to the dignity of persons with disabilities.

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What is Disability?• The Convention does not explicitly define

disability

• Preamble of Convention states: – ‘Disability is an evolving concept’

• Disability results from an interaction between a non-inclusive society and individuals

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Models – Summary

• Problem is the Individual– Medical– Moral– Personal Tragedy

• Problem is Society– Social Model & its variants

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History of institutions for mentally impaired people

• By 1700, France had 100 “general hospitals,” mixed poor, sick, disabled, mental disorders.

• 1377 London’s Bethlehem asylum (“Bedlam”)

• Until late 1800s, most lived in family, community– Able to contribute in pre-

industrial economy; work in home, fields; unpaid labor still valued.

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Abuses in madhouses (1700-1850)

Bedlam hospital provided Sunday afternoon entertainment. The chained patients were placed in cells and galleries. The asylum received large sums of money from the visitors until 1770 when it was decided that they tended to disturb the tranquility of the patients by making sport and diversion of the miserable inhabitants and that admission should be by ticket only.

1848 Dorothea Dix (Mass.): "More than 9000 idiots, epileptics, and insane in these United States, destitute of appropriate care and protection. Bound with galling chains, bowed beneath fetters and heavy iron balls, attached to drag-chains, lacerated with ropes, scourged with rods, and terrified beneath storms of profane execrations and cruel blows; now subject to jibes, and scorn, and torturing tricks, now abandoned to the most loathsome necessities or subject to the vilest and most outrageous violations."

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THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTION

• 1841- 1870s Dorothea Dix – 30 state public institutions for people with mental impairments built

• 1870s Poor funding, growing size of institutions - Overcrowded, dirty institutions. Segregation of middle class / poor. Husbands could commit wives.

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THE RISE OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTION

• By 1850, 55 asylums - ~ 45,000 ''known insane persons'‘

by 1900, 328 institutions - ~ 200,000 patients

• The peaked in 1955 at ~ 560,000

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ICE PICK

LOBOTOMY

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In 1936, Walter Freeman performed his first lobotomy operation. Inserting an ordinary ice pick above each eye of a patient with only local anesthetic, drive it through the thin bone with a light tap of a mallet, swish the pick back and forth like a windshield wiper and - a formerly difficult patient is now passive.

Used it for everything - psychosis to depression to neurosis to criminality. He developed assembly line lobotomies, going from one patient to the next with his gold-plated ice pick.

Between 1939 and 1951, over 18,000 lobotomies were performed in the US, and many more in other countries. It was often used on convicts, and in Japan, it was recommended for use on “difficult” children. The old USSR banned it back in the 1940s on moral grounds!

In the 1950s protests began. The general statistics = ~ a third of lobotomy patients improved, a third stayed the same, and the last third actually got worse!

Walter Freeman performed his last lobotomy in 1967 after his patient died from the procedure. Overall he preformed over 3,000 lobotomies with a fatality rate of %14.

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Life Magazine "Bedlam 1946"

Philadelphia State Hospital, known as Byberry, originally built in 1912. Byberry has been investigated so many times that in 1987, an 18-member task force decided to close the hospital in the interest of the patients. The

hospital officially closed its doors in 1990. http://www.abandonedasylum.com/psh1.html

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"Bedlam 1946" by Albert Q. Maisel, Life Magazine (5/6/46)

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Byberry: "Four hundred patients were herded into this barn-like dayroom intended for only 80. There were only a few benches; most of the men had to stand all day or sit on the splintery floor. There was no supervised recreation, no occupational therapy.. Only two attendants were on this ward; at least 10

were needed." (the Shame of the States, Albert Deutsch)

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This is the bed-jammed corridor of Ward N-7, for female patients, at Bellevue Hospital as sketched by Eric Godal immediately after a personal tour in the

summer of 1947. City Hospitals Commissioner, Edward M. Bernecker, refused permission to take photographs inside the hospital, so Godal sketched this

drawing. (the Shame of the States)

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1950s-1970s Deinstitutionalization State Institutions

1972 The appalling conditions at Willowbrook State School in New York City for people with developmental disabilities are exposed as the result of a television broadcast by Geraldo Rivera from the facility. (POP ~5,700)

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Courts begin to reflect changing attitudes

• Justice Marshall in Clebourne decision (1984) summarized the treatment of people with disabilities as follows: – “a regime of state-mandated segregation and degradation soon

emerged that in its virulence and bigotry rivaled, and indeed paralleled, the worst excesses of Jim Crow. Massive custodial institutions were built to warehouse the retarded for life; the aim was to halt reproduction and nearly extinguish their race. Many disabled children were categorically excluded from public schools, based on the false stereotypes that all were uneducable and on the purported need to protected nondisabled children from them. State laws deemed the retarded “unfit for citizenship.”

Documents

"In My Language" (Amanda Baggs):