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the
role of pride in other social movements
alienation
from our history, culture, and each other
what
is disability pride?
disability
history resources
other
disability pride resources
what is disability
pride? how do you personally define it?
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DISABLED AND PROUD
By Sarah Triano
In his final published work, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
outlined what he considered to be one of the most serious
barriers for black people in American society, what he referred
to as "cultural homicide." "One must not overlook,"
he wrote, "the positive value in calling the Negro to
a new sense of manhood, to a deep feeling of racial pride
and to an audacious appreciation of his heritage. The Negro
must be grasped by a new realization of his dignity and worth.
He must stand up amid a system that still oppresses him and
develop an unassailable and majestic sense of his own value.
He must no longer be ashamed of being black" (Where
Do We Go, p. 41).
Thirty-five years later, the "cultural homicide"
of diverse peoples everywhere continues, and is particularly
apparent among people with disabilities. Even though I have
never felt the sting of racial discrimination, as a young,
disabled woman growing up in America, I know first hand what
it feels like to be ashamed of being disabled. I know what
it feels like to live in a society where the contributions
of disabled Americans are largely ignored. And I know what
it is like to be stripped of my personhood by a culture that
defines "disability" - a fundamental part of who
I am - as a deficiency, disadvantage, and limiting impairment.
Although there are many barriers facing people with disabilities
today, the single greatest obstacle we face as a community
is our own sense of inferiority, internalized oppression and
shame. All you have to do is ask most disabled people
today how they feel about themselves to know that the sense
of shame associated with having a disability has reached epidemic
proportions. I direct a Leadership/Organizing Training Program
for Youth with Disabilities at Access Living in Chicago, and
in my work with disabled youth I am struck everyday by the
overwhelming sense of shame they live with on a daily basis.
Some won't even admit they have a disability, let alone take
pride in it. The Disability Rights Movement has made many
gains in the area of civil rights over the past decade, but
what good is an Americans with Disabilities Act, an Individuals
with Disabilities Education Act, or Section 504 if people
will not exercise their rights under these laws because they
are too ashamed to identify as being disabled? The civil
rights and women's rights movements would have never succeeded
if civil rights activists and feminists were ashamed to be
black and women, respectively. "As long as the mind is
enslaved," Dr. King wrote, "the body can never be
free." As long as people with disabilities remain ashamed
of who we are, we will never realize the true equality and
freedom we so desire. We must first take pride in ourselves
as a community. We must no longer be ashamed of being disabled.
THE ROLE OF PRIDE
ON OTHER SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
Dismantling centuries of internalized oppression, however,
and promoting a widespread sense of pride within a particular
community is easier said than done. For the African-American
community, it took leaders like Dr. King and Malcom X publicly
calling for unity and self-love to begin the process of developing
community pride and a sense of power. According to Cone (2000),
the dominant theme of Malcom X's ministry was unity, and "unity
depended on genuine love for each other." "If blacks
were going to achieve the unity necessary for the attainment
of their freedom," Cone writes, "then self-hate
- according to Malcom the number one problem in the black
community - had to be replaced with a love of themselves.
However, genuine love of each other was possible, in Malcom's
view, only to the degree that blacks were able to acquire
a true knowledge of their history and culture. Malcom
told blacks that they were 'culturally dead,' alienated from
their past and from each other. That was why they did not
love each other and could not achieve the unity that was necessary
for their freedom" (p. 105). Dr. King similarly argued
that three important things had to happen to instill a deep
feeling of pride within a particular community: 1) people
in the community must develop an "audacious appreciation
of [their] heritage"; 2) they must be "grasped by
a new realization of [their] dignity and worth"; and
3) they "must stand up amid a system that still oppresses
[them] and develop an unassailable and majestic sense of [their]
own value" (Where Do We Go, p. 41).
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ALIENATION
FROM OUR HISTORY, CULTURE, AND EACH OTHER
Knowledge of one's history and culture, therefore, is an
essential component in the development of community pride.
Unlike other civil rights movements, however, people with
disabilities - like members of the GLBTQ (gay, lesbian,
bi-sexual, transgender, questioning) community - do not
always have the benefit of a generational transfer of disability
history, culture, and pride through the family structure.
Oftentimes we are the only disabled person in our family.
There are no "disability churches" per se, neighborhood
enclaves, or other communal institutions where people with
disabilities can consistently receive positive messages that
counteract the depredation wrought by the onslaught of cultural
terrorism. Like other civil rights movements, however,
people with disabilities have been stripped of our history
and culture. Even today, there is little, if any, mention
of Disability history in schools, colleges, and university
history courses and most people are hard pressed to even name
one significant figure in Disability rights history. Not only
is the dominant society stripping us of our history and culture,
however. The gap in the historical record regarding disability
is also being used against us to strip us of our civil rights.
On February 21, 2003, the Supreme Court ruled in Board
of Trustees of the University of Alabama v. Garrett that
lawsuits under Title I of the Americans with Disabilities
Act for damages against states are unconstitutional. In their
ruling, five justices said there were only "unexamined,
anecdotal accounts of adverse, disparate treatment" of
people with disabilities "by state officials" in
the historical record. This, in spite of a large collection
of state statutes, session laws, and constitutional provisions
that illustrate pervasive state-sponsored discrimination against
persons with disabilities, dating from the late 19th century
to the present, compiled by over 100 historians and scholars
(http://www.raggededgemagazine.com/garrett/statediscrim/statediscrim.htm).
Disabled people have been alienated from our history and
culture and we are paying dearly for it.
We are not only paying for it with our civil rights, however.
We are also paying for it with our lives. In April of
2003, a 7 year-old girl with a learning disability in Connecticut
named Sara was shot in the chest while sleeping with a .30
caliber rifle by her mother. Less than 3 months later in July,
in New York an 8 year-old disabled girl named Stephanie mysteriously
died and her foster mother put her in a garbage bag and dumped
her on the sidewalk. And just three weeks ago, in August 2003,
in Minnesota a 6-month old baby girl with Down Syndrome named
Raya was killed by her mother when she slit Raya's throat
twice with a kitchen knife. All three of these disabled children's
deaths have largely gone unnoticed by the general public and
by the Disability rights movement in the U.S. Perhaps if
we were more attuned to our history and culture, we would
recognize this modern-day infanticide as a continuation of
the eugenic thinking of the 20th century that resulted in
the sterilization, institutionalization, segregation, social
degradation, and economic exploitation of disabled people
throughout history. Perhaps if the dominant culture were
more attuned to Disability history and culture, parents
of Disabled children would realize that Disabled people can
lead fulfilling lives just like others, and that Disabled
people have fought valiantly, contributed a great deal to
our nation's history, and have maintained our humanity through
centuries of the most unimaginable oppression. Perhaps
if we were not alienated from each other as a community of
people with disabilities - and so consumed with reactionary
tactics to divisive policies created by and for non-disabled
bureaucrats, we could unite together and fight for the one
inalienable right that all human beings should have: the fundamental
right to life.
The Deaf community is the one notable exception to
this cultural alienation within the larger Disability community.
"Deaf Pride" activism first gained national visibility
in 1988 when students at Gallaudet University in Washington,
D.C, successfully blocked the appointment of a hearing university
president by organizing student protests. As Young (April
2002), notes, the "Deaf Pride" movement "has
consciously modeled itself not only on the civil rights activism
of the 1960s but even more directly on the gay pride movement.
Just as gay activists have sought to remove the stigma of
"sickness" from homosexuality, deaf activists have
been trying to challenge the view of deafness as a deficiency.
They draw an explicit analogy between efforts to restore hearing
to the deaf (or to prevent deafness altogether) and efforts
to "cure" homosexuality. The activists also insist
that "deaf culture," complete with its own language
- American Sign Language, or ASL - is no different from any
other ethnic or linguistic culture."
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DEFINITION
OF "DISABILITY PRIDE"
What is Disability Pride?
As a larger Disability community, we have a great deal to
learn from our sisters and brothers who are Deaf. Taking their
lead, I propose a definition of "Disability Pride"
that is explicitly modeled after one used by the gay pride
movement (http://www.gcn.ie/newgcn/pride/history.html):
"Fundamentally, Disability Pride represents a rejection
of the notion that our difference from the non-disabled community
is wrong or bad in any way and is a statement of our self-acceptance,
dignity and pride. It signifies that we are coming out of
the closet and are claiming our legitimate identity. It's
a public expression of our belief that our disability and
identity are normal, healthy and right for us and is a validation
of our experience.
While as children we may have been helpless to challenge
society's discrimination, as adults we have a chance to change
the situation. We now have the choice to challenge ableism
and society's definition of disability. Indeed, some would
argue that this is one of the major responsibilities of our
community. We need to proactively create opportunities
to make our community more visible to those who are young
and newly disabled and ashamed of their disabilities. This
may reinforce for them the key message that 'disability is
beautiful' and that 'disabled country' is out there. By
individually and collectively making these and other choices
we can begin to untangle ourselves from the complex matrix
of negative beliefs, attitudes, feelings and behaviors that
grow from the assumption that there is something wrong with
our disabilities and identity. We can learn to express our
true feelings, desires, beliefs and aspirations and grow into
the individuals that we all are. We can be ourselves and
be proud of ourselves. We can get on with whatever it
is that our lives are meant to be about or whatever we want
our lives to be about. This is the aim of our quest for emancipation
and is at the core of Disability Pride and the Pride Parade."
At the request of Sage Publications, I wrote the following
definition of "Disability Pride" for the Encyclopedia
of Disability:
"Disability Pride represents a rejection of the notion
that our physical, sensory, mental, and cognitive differences
from the non-disabled standard are wrong or bad in any way,
and is a statement of our self-acceptance, dignity and pride.
It is a public expression of our belief that our disabilities
are a natural part of human diversity, a celebration of our
heritage and culture, and a validation of our experience.
Disability Pride is an integral part of movement building,
and a direct challenge to systemic ableism and stigmatizing
definitions of disability. It is a militant act of self-definition,
a purposive valuing of that which is socially devalued, and
an attempt to untangle ourselves from the complex matrix of
negative beliefs, attitudes, and feelings that grow from the
dominant group's assumption that there is something inherently
wrong with our disabilities and identity.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once wrote, "One must not
overlook the positive value in calling the Negro to a new
sense of manhood, to a deep feeling of racial pride and to
an audacious appreciation of his heritage. The Negro must
be grasped by a new realization of his dignity and worth.
He must stand up amid a system that still oppresses him and
develop an unassailable and majestic sense of his own value.
He must no longer be ashamed of being black." Although
there are many barriers facing people with disabilities today,
one of the single greatest obstacles we face as a community
is our own sense of inferiority, internalized oppression and
shame. The sense of shame associated with having a disability
has, indeed, reached epidemic proportions. Disability rights
movements in different countries have made many gains in the
area of civil rights over the past decade, but what good is
an Americans with Disabilities Act or a Disability Discrimination
Act if people will not exercise their rights under these laws
because they are too ashamed to identify as being disabled?
"As long as the mind is enslaved," King wrote, "the
body can never be free." As long as people with disabilities
remain ashamed of who we are, we will never realize the true
equality and freedom we so desire. We must first take pride
in ourselves as a community. We must no longer be ashamed
of being disabled.
Dismantling centuries of internalized oppression, however,
and promoting a widespread sense of Disability pride is easier
said than done. Unlike other civil rights movements, people
with disabilities do not always have the benefit of a generational
transfer of disability history and pride through the family
structure. There are no "disability churches" per
se, neighborhood enclaves, or other communal institutions
where people with disabilities can come together by choice
and consistently receive positive messages that counteract
the depredation wrought by the onslaught of cultural terrorism.
There is a tremendous need to create a counterculture that
teaches new values and beliefs, and acknowledges the dignity
and worth of all human beings. Disability pride is a direct
response to this need."
Sarah Triano, National Disabled Students Union
Today marks the beginning of our efforts to develop a
whole community of people with disabilities and allies who
are proud to be who we are, who do not see ourselves as victims,
who expect more from ourselves and those within our community,
and who are committed to building an inclusive community that
recognizes the dignity, humanity, and worth of all
people. We must put our efforts into transforming the
hearts, minds, and souls of our people, for that is where
our true power lies. As the great leader of our movement,
Ed Roberts, once said, "My ability to regain the
pride in myself as a person with a disability is one of the
most important things that's coming out of what's happening
here today." Whether or not Ed Roberts and his comrades
successfully won regulations for Section 504, they left that
important fight in our history with a new sense of pride in
who they were - and that is their legacy and our heritage….
a heritage which I cherish and celebrate fully. I am Disabled
and Proud!
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Disability History
Resources
What is Disability Pride? Pride in our History
and Heritage:
Click on the following link for Sarah Triano
and Amy McWilliams' Required Reading/ Video/ Website/ Resource
List for Emerging Leaders with Disabilities. This list includes
sections on, "History of the Self-Advocacy, Independent
Living, and other Disability Rights Movements," "Community
Organizing," "Disability Policy," "Other
Must Reads," "Other Must Visit Websites," and
"Videos." Sarah
Triano and Amy McWilliams' Required Reading/ Video/ Website/
Resource List for Emerging Leaders with Disabilities
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Other Disability Pride
Resources
What is Disability Pride? Explore these other
resources to find out more!
Mad Pride, http://www.mindfreedom.org/mindfreedom/madpride/
An excerpt from the website: "Mad Pride
began in England. Learning from the gay rights movement, activists
there held celebrations with lots of music from great bands
to celebrate being different in a positive way.... And that's
something everyone can be proud of. You are invited to hold
a Mad Pride event! Celebrate the social change movement for
human rights and alternatives in the mental health system
every You may hold an event large or small. Of course you
may hold Mad Pride events any time during the year, though
we are especially encouraging events each July -- Mad Pride
month. For two decades, July 14 ("Bastille Day")
has been a day for psychiatric survivors to speak out about
human rights. If you do plan a Mad Pride event, just let Support
Coalition know by contacting us.To get a flavor of the origins
of Mad Pride, you may want to check out the book Mad Pride
and the CD "Nutters with Attitude" (that includes
many bands that played during Mad Pride events) in the Mad
Market."
The Disability Pride Project, http://www.cara-seattle.org/disabled.html
An excerpt from the website: "The Disability
Pride Project generates radical action against violence and
oppression within the disabilities community. We challenge
the oppressive stereotypes that surround this community and
explore ways of resistance that are educational, creative,
and political. The Disability Pride Project increases our
community's capacity to support survivors of sexual violence
and bolsters community efforts to promote safety, support
and liberation in a manner that challenges rape and oppression.
We achieve this goal by fostering education through critical
dialogue, strengthening coalitions between people with disabilities
and our allies, and by supporting community action that increases
awareness of sexual violence, safety, and informed decision-making."
Youth Project: Disability Pride, http://www.eocil.org/youth.html
An excerpt from the website: "Disability
Pride is a project — and an attitude — that encourages
children with disabilities to take pride in who they are and
what they have to contribute to their communities. Many of
us have been told for years that our lives are of little value.
But the truth is that our needs are important; our skills
and experience are of huge value to our communities, our society,
and our world. To enhance self-confidence, self-respect, and
self-worth, Eastern Oregon Center for Independent Living is
developing a Disability Pride Project, which consist of four
components: Teaching children with disabilities the history
of the disability civil rights movement. This will give the
children a solid foundation to build upon and promote a sense
of unity and a part of the disability community. Children
with disabilities will develop a web page promoting disability
pride and awareness. Children with disabilities will a collaboration
network via DisabilityPride.com Web page. Children will be
able to assist each other with disability related issues.
Children with disabilities will organize Disability Pride
Celebration Days that will promote disability awareness and
full community inclusion. Celebrations will be held on July
26 and December 3 each year: July 26 is the anniversary of
the signing of the Americans Disability Act and December 3
is the identified World Disability Awareness Day established
by the United Nations."
The Disability Pride and Awareness Committee,
http://www.inclusion.com/N-DisabilityPride.html
An excerpt from the website: "Dave Hingsburger
(writer, speaker, advocate) and a brilliant team have just
created a remarkable collection of three 30-second commercials
on Disability Pride."
LD Pride, http://www.ldpride.net/
An excerpt from the website: "Inspired
by Deaf Pride, this site has been developed as an interactive
community resource for adults with invisible disabilities
(ID) such as learning disabilities (LD), mental illness, Attention
Deficit (Hyperactivity) Disorder and other neurological disorders."
What is Deaf Pride? http://www.zak.co.il/deaf-info/old/deffman-pride.html
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