"normal"

RAB: O’Toole’s Insight on Celebrating Crip Bodyminds

unsureunderwaterobot1 Comment

Celebrating Crip Bodyminds
By: Cobett Joan O’Toole

An objective summary of the reading:

O’Toole begins by summarizing their book, explaining their first-hand experience being disabled, and years of studying disability studies. They give anecdotal evidence of just how complex disability is, through a story about a group of women, unable to commit to the term “disabled”. Then they explain the importance of disabled communities and why disabled circles are so important. O’Toole emphasizes the idea that disability is not a monolith, yet it is a communal experience.

O’Toole explains the terms and labels they use throughout their writing and give the reader a literary ground to stand on. Additionally, they provide cultural context, discussing how nondisabled society has determined what “normal” is and how disabled folks navigate this false ideology. From there, O’Toole dives into the misconceptions nondisabled folks have, emphasizing on the erasure or idealization of disabled people.

Later, O’Toole goes back to the language of disability, both in their own life and an academic setting. They give tools and tricks for identifying people based on their intersectional identities.

3 or more quotations (with page numbers):

The page numbers included are the pages from the dox. document!

“Being disabled is a cultural experience which shares many commonalities, even with others with very different disabilities” (pg. 7)

“Normal” is an artificial construct built upon the white, middle-class, male, nondisabled bodymind” (pg. 10) “Nobody is normal” (pg.12).
“Acknowledging that there is no ‘normal’ doesn’t mean that everyone experiences disability as a political and social identity. Acknowledging that there is no ‘normal’ creates a society where difference can be recognized without being diffused or ignored. It does not take away the culture of disability, only adds an opportunity and awareness for us to be more integrated into society as a whole” (pg. 12)

“What do you call a disabled person?” I don’t know the ‘right’ answer, but may I suggest calling him by his name, Bob? But I digress.” (pg.39)

“Was I going to use the academic language? Was I going to use the language of service professionals? Was I going to use the disabled peoples’ self- and community-identifiers? How should the time (late 20th century) and place (United States, more specifically Berkeley, California) shape the language choices?” (pg.37)

“So while I am widely known as being queer in disability, I was much quieter about being queer when negotiating school services for my disabled daughter. I was no less queer, but the school environment was significantly less friendly to queer parents than to non-queer parents. So I prioritized my daughter’s need for services over my own need to educate them about queer and disabled parents.” (pg. 41) Codeswitching and intersectionality

Thoughts:

Something that stuck with me was the way the author wrote. It was a beautiful combination of rightfully unapologetic and understanding of the readers’ potential ignorance. I was struck by some of the language I didn’t know, as someone who is part of the disabled community. Primarily, I had never heard the term “consumer” for a mental disability. I’m eager to learn more about disability studies and the language used both within and outside of the disabled community. I have always found language to be so important, when identifying people; I value language that leaves a baseline for humanness, while making space for differences to be seen and valued. I included a quote about calling a disabled man “Bob” because that’s his name and I found that so grounding!

Identifiers span cross identities, both chosen and culturally given. I admired how the author explained their experience with intersectionality. In the final quote I included, they explain an instance when they code-switched to protect themselves and their daughter. No human fits into a box, we are all combinations of privilege, lack thereof, and positionality. It is so humanizing to recognize these combinations and have the language for them. Language also leaves space for like-bodyminded folks to feel supported and not alone. #intersectionalityordie

O’Toole, Corbett Joan. “Celebrating Crip Bodyminds”

TuesdayLeave a comment

Fading Scars: My Queer Disability History, 1st ed., Autonomous Press, June 9th, 2015, pp.13-53

Summary

In this reading, O’Toole explores the boundaries they faced while writing about other disabled people and their stories. O’Toole starts their exploration by explaining their beliefs about why disability should be talked about and how discourse if thoughtless can enable ableist rhetoric. The most significant aspect of O’Toole’s writing is their classification of people as “disabled”, “nondisabled”, or “unknown”. They explain their reasoning for including people’s disability status, is to combat erasure of disability, one of the forms of ableism. Early on, O’Toole establishes their belief of two distinct forms ableism, erasing disability and idolizing perceived struggles. The latter is mostly done by non-disabled individuals and focuses on assumed struggles without seeing the disabled person as a person. This leads naturally into a discussion of society’s relationship to the concept of “normal”. They make a point that the more normal an “abnormal” condition is made the more rights people with that condition will be able to enjoy. This is the main reason they purposefully mention disabilities but do not make it the focus of a person’s introduction in their book. The language used around disabilities varies widely depending on who is speaking. O’Toole voices a hesitance to use medical and “formal” terminology as often that vocabulary is rejected by disabled groups. However, they do express a need to use it as most people who do not consistently interact with disabled people only know the “formal” terminology. They also make a point that outside of the “formal” language used to discuss disability there is not a consistently agreed upon lexicon. So, for the sake of transparent communication they used a mix of the “formal” and the commonly used lexicons. They also acknowledge the potential labeling people has for harm. This is the reason they classify people as “unknown”, to avoid labeling people something they have not chosen to be known as. By using this method, O’Toole is respecting other’s identity while bring awareness and normalizing situations that would otherwise be portrayed as different or downplayed.

Quotations

“Refusing to explore language options for people’s relationship to disability harms the nondisabled people by ignoring the ways that ableism also impacts them as they go through life with disabled people.” (43)

“There is no standard grammatical structure in how people use their chosen disability-specific terms. People with hemophilia call themselves ‘hemophiliacs’. The deaf community has a convention of using ‘Deaf” to mean people that are affiliated with the cultural and linguistic community of people who use American Sign Language and ‘deaf’ to indicate that someone has a hearing disability but is not necessarily tied to the cultural and linguistic capital ‘D’ Deaf community.” (37)

“A significant problem in American culture, as in many Western cultures, is the presumption that preforming ‘normally’ is required for competence to be presumed.” (22)

“When deviations from “normal” occur, our society reacts as if all efforts should be made to bring the deviant back to as close to normal as possible, and if that is not possible, to eliminate the deviant.” (18)

Reflection

I enjoyed reading this excerpt quite a bit. O’Toole probably had the most understandable explanation of “normalizing disability”. To be completely honest, I have been struggling to understand what each of the examples we have seen so far in this class mean when they say they want disability to be normalized. Up until this point, I have just placed the concept to the side as much as I could. That is a very unfortunate way approach the conversation we have been having as normalization is reoccurring theme. I also feel as if O’Toole has given me some of the context that has been lacking in most of the material thus far. The discussion of language and O’Toole’s method was very thorough addressing all sides of the conversation. I think the biggest part of O’Toole’s writing I noticed was their honest attempts to reach all sides. They were purposely tailoring their writing so that it would be understandable to as many people as possible. They were not catering to one group of people but considering all potential audiences. I am interested to hear their perspective on some other intersectional topics. They clearly are very conscious of differences and struggles that relate to those differences. Terminology seemed to be the largest struggle they faced. This is understandable because if used improperly, someone could be offended and/or the original narrative can be completely lost. I found the way they approached labeling interesting. I am personally very conflicted about labels. I at this point pretty much refuse to apply a label to myself in any way. I have never felt comfortable with any label I have been assigned. And I say assigned, because even if it seems that I am the one choosing the label, I am not. Most labels, even chosen ones, are based on how others perceive us and how we relate to others’ perceptions. I do, however, understand that labels really help people feel comfortable. So, it was interesting to see someone make a case for labels and a case against label usage at the same time. Without the explanation they gave, I believe I would have probably taken some issue with them labeling people as disabled or not throughout their writing.