DISABILITY CULTURE
I think that disability rights and independent living movements have accelerated the transmission of disability culture. As I experience more through work and courses I am struck by the common usage and understanding of such terms as “ASD,” “supercrip,” “overcoming,” “medical model,” and such concepts as adversive disablism, normalization, and inclusion. Many of our emotional reactions and beliefs regarding issues such as eugenic abortion, nursing homes, community access, entitlement to accommodation, media images and “special” anything are becoming universal. This is due, I believe, not only to our exchange of more information, but also to our transmission of values about life with a disability.
Maybe “culture” is not the proper term for a set of elements deriving from a mixture of: inherent differences, societal treatment and transmitted facts, interpretations, and preferences. But what better term is there for that collection of common views and expressions that increasingly characterize disabled people everywhere? What else do you call that familiar, comfortable idea of shared meanings that disabled people, even strangers, fall into when they meet? That wide-ranging compatibility is difficult to convey to those outside of their community, however sensitive we may be to disability rights issues.
Disability culture seems to have become a popular term among people whether activist or not, young or old, scholarly or undereducated. I see an underlying claim that goes something like… they have learned something important about life from being disabled that makes them unique yet affirms their common humanity. They refuse any longer to hide their differences. Rather, they explore, develop and celebrate their distinctness and offer its lessons to the world. The world just needs to listen. What can possibly be wrong with that?
