Linton, Simi. “Reassigning Meaning”. Claiming Disability: Knowledge and Identity. (New York: New York University Pressm 1998).

Summary

Linton begins by informing the reader of the disabled community’s efforts to reclaim what it means to be disabled and the terminology involved. She talks about the oppression of the disabled community, how the previous way of defining and identifying the community no longer serves purpose, accompanied by a brief discussion of how the medical definitions of disability form certain stigma in practice. Linton continues by looking at the term “disabled” as an identity marker and how the definition creates a separation between “disabled” and “non-disabled”, which should remain as a way to identify community but not to exclude others. She covers the concept of people without disabilities creating alternative language to boost the views of people with disabilities, including the term “special education” for children. Linton also discusses how “nasty words” have also been used for the disabled community and how the concept of overcoming denotes an inferiority compared to others without disabilities. In discussing the concept of “passing”, Linton covers how exhausting and minimizing that can be for someone with disabilities, and how the concept of normal vs. abnormal creates a dichotomy of self-worth and identity. She also talks about how people with disabilities are often seen as passive “victims” of their conditions, rather than in control of how they live their lives. Linton then discusses how some words have double meaning and can ascribe hurtful ideas to people with disabilities and how the connotations of the prefix “dis” come with the concept of “to be apart”. Linton concludes the writing by talking about the need to denote a socio-political axis category for which disability can be separated from its medical origins.

Direct Quotes:

The decision to assign medical meanings to disability has had many and varied consequences for disabled people (11).

Because it is physically impossible to overcome a disability, it seems that what is overcome is the social stigma of having a disability (17).

The message that I read in this action: You are like everyone else, but only as long as you hide or minimize your disability (21).

Reflection:

There is a certain desire for people to be able to put a name to something, whether to then identify with the name or to use it as a way to define and separate two entities. While this desire is natural, it certainly can create some problematic situations, as it has for the disabled community. As someone who understands science, I understand the need to create medical definitions of conditions that people have as a means to discover treatments or accommodations that can be created to give them greater access. However, I do understand that the point was lost along the way and it has instead devolved into a means of separating the abled from the disabled. I have never appreciated the exclusionary efforts of people to created spaces where people exist “within or without”, and efforts like this drive me up the wall. That people with disabilities are asked to “overcome” is a failure within itself. People with disabilities have been the other for so long that it is absolutely possible that the only time an abled child or teen has had interactions with someone who is disabled is through inspiration porn. All they know are the “overcoming” narratives instead of stories of the lives of people with disabilities or the stories they have to tell that are not specifically about their disability. And where is the humanity in that? Why do people with disabilities have to prove themselves “normal”? When growing up there is such an immense pressure to be “normal” or to “fit in” that parents have to tell a child, “It is okay to stand out!” Then when people do stand out, they are scrutinized until they feel the pressure to conform, or “pass”. As a society, we have created a mainstream understanding of how a person should look, act, think, and exist, and when someone doesn’t fit the mold, or God forbid they have a disability, they are “abnormal”. I appreciate the author’s emphasis on redefining these terms that have for so long been used as inherently ableist definitions for a faux state of being. Not only will this effort require a reshaping of the understanding of disabilities, but it will also require a redefinition of how we view normalcy. People deserve the choice to put a name to something they experience, but they also deserve the right to be seen as they are: whole.

**Note: I use the term “disabled community” because “community of people with disabilities feels disingenuous. However, I currently stand by using “people with disabilities” as opposed to “disabled people”.