Poster Child - Disability edition
The status of “Honorary able-bodied”
Pick a person, who you know, has a chronic illness. A person, who you know, struggles with something in private.
Now, ask yourself why you picked that person in specific? How well do you know their struggle? Do you believe, sometimes, that they are exaggerating their struggle, because they are so very put together? Or is it hard for you to believe that they even have the disease/disorder/disability because you cannot see it?
How close are you to them? Do you see their struggle day in and day out? Are you only aware of the vibrantly beautiful visage that they present to look, and be treated, as ‘normal’. Or do you know of the daily emotional and physical turmoil that they go through?
How much do you truly know about them? And why did you pick that very specific person?
I speak a lot about ‘the way I look at the world, and the way the world looks at me’. Very little about the positioning of the self, in the world, that is rapidly restructuring itself when one starts feelings the symptoms, is diagnosed, forced to confront their need for support that “normal” people might not need.
There are few things that happen when you are categorised as a non-able bodied person, societally speaking. One might be minimised to their disease. They might be told they are exaggerating because their struggle is not visible, or relatable. The non-able bodied will start to learn that the structures of society were made primarily, and to the benefit of, able bodied people, forcing them to perform “normality” for the sake of the able bodied. (Or as I say, to protect the delicate sensibilities of the able bodied. Not confront their mortality, or their privilege, in terms of health.) And for their own sake, to avoid micro and macro aggressions that might and will penetrate all parts of their life, personal and professional. It is much easier to laugh off the pain, than to correct rude behaviour.
The other aspect, the aspect of representation, and palatable visible pain.
I have learnt that we search for an imprint of ourselves in history and the structures of society. To understand, console and learn to believe that, we as creatures, can be more than just our illnesses; we can be inspirational and aspirational. That differently-abled people do not need the title of an honorary able-bodied person to be accepted in society, or permission to exist contrary to the structure of hidden histories (Sandell, 2007, p-138).
In my desperate attempt to find more people with invisible disabilities in history, literature, art, et al, I learnt that the definition of disability is not expansive enough in the present collective memory of society. I had observed that what one thinks of when disability is mentioned ranges from visible physical impairments to invisible psychological disorders that to this day are largely stigmatised.
Both of these groups force able-bodied people to confront their mortality inspiring the question of whether the lack of representation is because we are prioritising the delicate sensibilities of able bodied people over the hurt we might inversely cause differently-abled people (Sandell, 2007, p-138).
Conversely I also question if the lacking structure of etiquette in between able-bodied people and differently-abled people is crippling both sides. This is seen in Richard Sandell’s ‘Displaying Difference: Revealing and Interpreting the hidden history of disability’ where he mentioned that in a study they did ‘Buried in Footnotes,’ they found out that museums are often hesitant to draw connections in between items they have in their collection and disabilities due to fear of wrong interpretations or the hurt and stereotypes they might perpetuate, unintentionally; leading to them not exhibiting the items with the added history of disability. (Sandell, 2007, p-138)
The hidden history in Hindu mythology we have almost completely forgotten or misinterpreted is, Kurukshetra the war fought in Mahabharat, the Indian epic, due to the pernicious actions of Shakuni, was vengeance against an entire clan for the slight that was the kingdom asking for Shakuni’s sister, Gandhari’s, hand in marriage to the blind king of Hastinapur, Dhritrashtra. (Kumari, 2019)
An exampled of what performing “normality” would look like is perfectly illustrated in ‘The Cancer Journals’ by Audre Lorde. Audre Lorde, after the amputation of her breast because of cancer, was forced into a prosthesis. When she refused to wear it before her discharge, the nurse forced her into it. When she did not wear it for a check up much later, the nurse brought her aside and spoke to her about how Audre refusing to wear her prosthesis was making others uncomfortable. How it was disrespectful.
There is a voracious need of the able bodied that the society has constantly satiated by the erasure of everything that could be considered a deviation from its understanding of what “normal” is. Either erasure, or by stereotyping what disability looks like, feels likes, or by equating disability to a person’s morality.
The first is seen in ‘Displaying Differences,’ a format of it making itself into ‘The Cancer Journals’ by Audre Lorde. The second and third is seen in media, books, history, mythology, it can even be seen in ‘The Cancer Journals’ by Audre Lorde, or museums, art, the way differently abled people are spoken about.
The people, conditions, diseases/disorders/disabilities that force themselves through the door, build an image that is wholly theirs, face this issue of palatable visible pain. A pain that is real and acknowledged only insofar as it does not confront, or force able bodied people to acknowledge their privilege.
Lastly, the people who are categorised as “honorary able bodied”. It is the greatest form of disrespect, callousness, and brutality. It is not perpetuated by an individual, it is forced on the individual by a larger system. This tells non-able bodied people that they will have to work 10 times harder than their peers to be considered an equal, to be considered an honorary able bodied person. It tells the non-able bodied that their best is not good enough, and the able bodied that their minimum is good enough.
It is a slanted scale. Based on which we make a disability (invisible and visible) poster child.
Bibliography
Lorde, Audre, and Tracy K. Smith. The Cancer Journals. Penguin Classics, 2020.
Kumari, N., 2019. Karmic philosophy and the model of disability in Ancient India. Shanlax International Journal of Arts, Science and Humanities, 7(1), pp. 39-43.
Sandell, R. & Sandell, R., 2007. Displaying Difference: Revealing and Interpreting the Hidden History of Disability. In Museums, prejudice, and the reframing of difference. London: Routledge, pp. 138-213.
