Spinoff to discuss semantics

[bookwormde]

I'm pretty sure that if a non-disabled person came on here and posted that they laughed at people with disabilities, there would be an uproar, and rightfully so.

Yes you make the point exactly, laughing "at" someone never OK, laughing with someone is OK if you are sure how the other person feels and that feeling is positive.

 

[slcmom]

And while I might laugingly describe my stomach as an ever extending "gatenkaas" (sorry, Dutch word for cheese with loads of air holes, no true english word for) with all of the holes and tubes in it, I wouldn't dare expect someone with the same tubes and ostomies to use the same words, let alone expect to have the same light sentiment about it.

LOL. No more tubes in my tummy, although there were for months (even a vacuum inside a wound) except my urostomy, but with the ever-growing hernia behind it, I love your description! May I adopt it too?

 

[cobright]

People need to be sensitive to the terms that are preferred by the community of people having the disability.
If you tell a deaf person they are disabled because of their deafness they are very insulted. They can do anything you and I can except hear.
People who have mobility issues don't want to hear someone call them a crip and so on.

I have a problem with letting an un-elected 'community' decide what is and isn't acceptable, and I tend to favor frank and unchecked dialogue.

Where I see a lot of problems arise is in the use of descriptive versus judgmental speech. Saying my neighbor has a crippled leg is descriptive. It absolutely describes his leg that no longer functions as it was designed. Saying that my neighbor is a cripple would be insensitive and not nearly as accurate because as a whole person he gets around about as well as anyone.

Calling a deaf person disabled probably doesn't do the person as a whole justice, yet saying that person is 'hearing disabled' should not be a controversial thing. Sometimes I just ask it as a question, how the person prefers to be described.

Sometimes I want to help someone, sometimes it's a person with a physical disability and sometimes it's just an average Joe with an armfull of groceries, whatever; so it's icy out and I walk up and say, "can I steady your chair while you transfer into your car?" I've done this on a couple occasions. Never a bad reaction. No one assumes I'm condescending to them and even if they did. I don't worry about offending people anyway. We're all on this blue marble together after all.

 

[cobright]

To me having a hearing loss and being Deaf is not a disability but an ability to live in both world so an enhancement. Because I grew up hearing I speak well and can deal with the hearing world as long as I am one on one through speech reading. But I am also involved in the Deaf world and use ASL. My Deaf friends consider deafness as a different normal. We have the ability to communicate in sign language and with paper and pencil as well as using technology such text and videophone to make phone calls to both deaf and hearing friends and family. We don't consider deafness a disability and for me hearing can be a disability because background noise drives me up a wall.

From a purely descriptive approach, I think this is asking too much. It requires that objective comparisons terms be redefined for only a very limited and special circumstance.

Hearing is an ability. You are able to hear or you are not (or some gradients between the two). Calling it an ability is not a judgement that hearing is good. If you don't like hearing stuff it does not become a disability, you are simple able to do something that you don't enjoy.

analogs:

Feeling pain is an ability. Most people don't like pain, yet we do not call feeling pain under normal circumstances a disability. Quite the opposite, someone who does not feel the pain of a burn or injury is said to be disabled.

Reading Lips is an ability. I hate the fact that I end up reading the lips of all the idiots in the room when my mind wanders, yet my reading lips does not become a disability just because I don't enjoy it.

If you have an ability and lose it, the correct term is disabled.

If you should have an ability and don't, the correct term is disabled. Of course 'should' implies a judgement and if you wish to argue that a person born deaf was supposed to have been born that way for some reason then we deviate into the perfectly valid realm of philosophy.