Disability Rhetoric

“We Can’t Go Back” by Ricardo T. Thornton Sr.

Summary:

This piece begins with speaker Ricardo T. Thornton Sr. stating the statistic that close to 92,000 people still live in institutions and large public and private facilities for people with intellectual disabilities despite their quality of life being so poor as a result of the harmful structure of these facilities. As someone who grew up in an institution, Thornton describes how no one ever attempted to teach the residents anything or all them to make any decisions for themselves. Even as basic information as who they were related to wasn’t something the staff thought they should know, and Thornton describes how he didn’t know he had a brother and sister living at the institution with him. Thornton goes more into depth about his life story, from leaving the institution to marrying his wife who is another person with an intellectual disability. Both him and his wife are important, active, and productive members of their communities and advocate for change, because all people are more able to thrive in community environments where they are supported by others, have a expectations placed on them, and are given opportunities to enjoy their lives in the way they want to and make their presence known to a community audience.

Quotes:

“People need to have high expectations for people with disabilities because then they’ll give them opportunities to learn and grow” (Wong, 87).

“When I was at Forest Haven, I had a chance to go to the cottage that had the people with the most severe disabilities, who mostly stayed in bed all day. Someone at Forest Haven got a grant so that we went in, gave people musical instruments, and played music while they played along. They loved it and never wanted to go back to their beds” (Wong, 88).

Reflection:

The section I most emotionally connected with in this piece is where Thornton describes how those living in the cottage who had the more severe disabilities at Forest Haven were given the opportunity to use musical instruments and engage with each other and others in a fun and expressive way. The fact that they were only able to do this because of a one time grant and afterwards they had to go back to their previous way of life is incredibly disturbing. I think a lot of nondisabled people don’t understand that for people with disabilities, their human desires for entertainment, expression, and connection are not eliminated. People might say that those with severe disabilities are safer and better off staying in bed all day, but refuse to recognize that many may only stay in their beds all day because their environment given them no compelling avenue to interacting with a community, nor the emotional bandwidth to fight against those in charge.