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GETTING BEYOND STEREOTYPES
FROM AN INTERVIEW WITH Irv Zola, 1995 "The most troubling aspect about stereotyping is that it doesn't just include negative images, but sometimes also what the outside world thinks of as positive. So we thought that it was positive to stereotype the black individual as having natural rhythms, and greater possibilities of athleticism, and for women to be naturally motherly and nurturant. For people with disabilities, it's sometimes been the adjective of brave and courageous in the face of such adversity, but what we've experienced it as meaning, you think that it's a fantastic thing, that I'm able to climb a flight of stairs, or walk out in the sun, just like anyone else. Sometimes it's the endowment of special qualities, the blind person who can hear so extraordinary... who because he or she has had that, has emerged as a better person, for it. And because we tend to think of those as positive, we don't think that we're stereotyping, or in fact even putting the burden on it."
Discriminatory categories are often so automatic and so deeply held that their limiting effects are rarely recognized. Almost everyone believes they treat people with disabilities with kindness and concern, and this is assumed to be a sufficient, appropriate response. Many of the people interviewed for Beyond Affliction: The Disability History Project cited pieces of work that had a revelatory effect on their vision of themselves. One is Erving Goffman's Stigma: The Management of Spoiled Identities. The other is "Uncle Tom and Tiny Tim: Brothers Under The Skin" by Leonard Kreigel, author of numerous essays and books about the experience of polio. |
Courtesy LEONARD KRIEGEL |