With her poem “The Right To Mourn,” author Shelia Black introduces the idea that becoming “able” is almost a loss. Using lines such as “and I loved it as you love your own country” and “how I would have nested in it,” Black speaks on the idea that regardless of whether or not someone’s body is different, what is most important is that the individual is comfortable in it. Black mentions that she had doctors straighten her legs because society made her “feel like the exile” she believed she was. But Black immediately follows this up by saying she feels lost in her new “fixed” body. This ferocious comparison allows Black to shed light on the main idea she is presenting to readers, that individuals with a disability should not fall victim to the judgements of society, and that if they are comfortable and feel satisfied with themselves, that’s what matters, because when you change who you are to please someone else, you’re ultimately becoming a stranger to yourself.
Author: Nordeel16
Zachary Welsh’s Thoughts on To Kill A Mockingbird Chapters 9-14
While going through these chapters, we as readers are introduced to a new and rather intriguing character named Tom Robinson. The character himself really stuck out to me due to the fact that I feel as though he embodies one of the previous topics we had discussed earlier in the course. Specifically, I feel as though the character of Tom Robinson as well as how his character affects other supporting characters, hearkens back to the ideas and concepts introduced and touched on in Jasbir Puar’s The Right to Maim. In her piece, Puar mentions how one’s race could essentially be looked at as a disability in the fact that individuals of certain races face problems and stigmatization that others do not and I feel like that is clearly seen in Tom Robinson’s character. This is evident in the fact that Tom Robinson is an African-American male who is being accused and tried for the rape of a white woman even though he is innocent. He also must face the debilitating circumstances of being an accused African-American being tried by an all white jury. On top of Robinson’s case, hist story and unfortunate circumstances also lead to other African-American characters directly linked to him being faced with hardships. Atticus, the person in charge of defending him is being stigmatized and called racial slurs, Helen Robinson, Tom’s wife, is unable to get any work due to her husband’s current status, and main characters Jem and Scout become subjects of whispers and glances around the town. The character of Tom Robinson directly embodies the ideas presented in Puar’s The Right to Maim and displays them to the reader in hopes to increase awareness of and to shed light on these issues that are still happening today.
Breakout Rooms 2/25/2021 recorded by Zachary Welsh
Members: Zachary Welsh, Taylor Boris, Jessie Harper, and Daniel Huffman
To Kill A Mockingbird:
Jessie: What do you think of boo?
Taylor: He’s an enigma that’s for sure. After taking this course, reading this book feels different and there’s things that I hadn’t noticed before.
Jessie: I dont think hes a monster like everyone thinks he is
Daniel: Why do you think Lee included his character?
Jessie: If it wasn’t for boo I don’t think the kids would’ve considered the race issue as much.
Daniel: Speaking in terms of race and disability, I can’t help but feel like we have to discuss them together.
Jessie: No, they definitely run parallel with one another. I can’t wait for my kid to actually read this book so I can get their perspective on it.
Zachary: I feel like Boo kind of represents the stereotypes that are associated with people with disabilities. Like these characters know nothing about him and yet he’s described as a recluse and a freak or when he’s called a malevolent phantom. And I think it’s interesting because even today people stereotype disabled individuals even without knowing anything about them, so its an important thing to discuss..
Taylor: Yeah that’s definitely true, I think that’s a good point.
Daniel and Jessie: I feel like he might be on the spectrum but I could be wrong.
As Good As It Gets:
Taylor: It talked about the queer side of disability which I thought was interesting because I feel like that’s one of the most marginalized groups that aren’t talked about.
Jessie: Yeah that group in general isn’t talked about.
Taylor: There’s a lot of good points that are brought up in here
Jessie: Yeah it’s like a whole group that isn’t even talked about here
Daniel: No one ever breaks down the LGBT community so it was really nice to get an article about that
Taylor: I feel like this reading talks a lot about how there’s a lot more to people than others assume.Jessie and Daniel: This is such a massively under talked about group because people don’t think about them.
Zachary Welsh’s Thoughts on To Kill a Mockingbird
Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird has a lot to say, but one thing in particular that really stood out to me and that I found fascinating to read about, is the character Boo Radley. While it’s never specifically stated that Boo has a disability in the story, it’s often left open to the reader’s interpretation and we can infer from Lee’s way of describing the character that Boo, to some extent has some sort of disability and I think Lee’s handling with the character really shines a light on the stereotypes that surround individuals with disabilities.
Early on in the book, Boo Radley has become famous around town as a recluse that is hardly seen by almost anyone. He is often described by his neighboring individuals as a freak, an outcast, a lunatic, and is even referred to as a “malevolent phantom” who eats squirrels and cats by one of the main characters of the book. However, as the story develops and readers get further into it, we learn that Boo is actually a really genuine person. We come to learn that it is Boo who mends Jem’s pants and that it is also him who has been placing the presents in the tree.
I would argue that Boo is an embodiment of the stereotypes that nondisabled individuals place associate with people with disabilities. Unfortunately, as we have learned throughout the course, nondisabled individuals oftentimes view disabled people as a problem that needs fixing, a monster, or a victim of their disability, when that’s simply not true. A disabled person may have a physical or a mental difference from a nondisabled individual, but that doesn’t make them some sort of creature. When it comes down to it, disability or not, we’re all people and oftentimes some individuals fail to see that, so they stigmatize a and stereotype people that are different from them, and thats not okay. It’s an unfortunate thing that happens even today, so I think it’s an important topic of discussion to be had and I commemorate Lee for discussing such matter within her novel.
Zachary Welsh’s Thoughts on Weise’s Nondisabled Demands
In her poem “Nondisabled Demands,” author Jillian Weise points out just how much individuals with disabilities are expected to label themselves as disabled or prove to others that they have some sort of social value. In lines such as “It’s not fair,” and “You can’t expect people to read you / if you don’t come out and say it,” Weise is communicating that nondisabled people almost expect disabled individuals to reveal their disabilities to prove some kind of worthiness. What speaks volumes is that when describing the motivations behind making this poem, Weise is quoted saying that “This poem comes from real advice and performance art. Someone told me I had to come out and state my disability in every poem I write.” What’s also worth noting is that in an attempt to avoid situations such as these, Weise actually began writing under the pseudonym Tipsy Tullivan, a nondisabled writer, someone almost completely different than the true Weise. With her poem, Weise essentially argues that a disabled individual shouldn’t need to come out or be labeled as such, they are people just like anyone else.
2/23/2021 Breakout Room Notes Recorded by Zachary Welsh
Members: Zachary Welsh, Keona May, Taylor Boris, Maddie Simpson, Sonia Joshi
Zachary: There’s a quote that I really liked where Thomson said “feminists, businesswomen, Asians, Northerners, and black professionals are oftentimes stereotyped as highly competent an so they are often envied, while on the other hand housewives, disabled people, blind people, elderly people, and the so-called retarded people warm and having low competence, thus they were pitied.” I think that’s an important discussion point because stereotypes are a problem even to this day so I think it’s important to bring those to light and discuss those.
Sonia: Stereotypes exist but that doesn’t mean they should exist.
Keona: I agree with that too because I feel like while stereotypes might have an ounce of truth to them, it’s important to look into them and see what’s actually true.
Taylor: Stereotypes are very narrowing. It’s interesting how the article talks about feminism and race and how they connect to disability.
Maddie: So…. I found that admission that feminist theory tends to focus only on reproductive disability to be really interesting. Focusing on reproductive rights and advocating for reproductive equality isn’t all feminism and disability have to promote, and I like how this article focuses on that!
Sonia: It’s important to factor everything when trying to understand individuals.
Keona: We talked about how there’s not only one way to be an activist and in some way everyone is an activist to a certain extent and i think it’s interesting that this is coming up in this course. But yeah, it’s important to look at all factors when knowing someone instead of just the stereotypes.
Sonia: I liked what maddie said and I think it’s important to take into account that each community will have their own issues that may not be part of the whole, but that doesn’t make them unimportant.
Sonia: On page 264, there’s a bit where she talks about a poster with a girl in a wheelchair and I feel like that’s really alarming to see that they were pushing stuff like that on a large scale and it’s creepy that their wellness cards say stuff like “snap out of it.”
Keona: We shouldn’t even look at disabilities as something that needs to be cured. It’s not like disabilities are a disease so we shouldnt see them as one.
Maddie: The article talks directly about the feminist disability community focuses on the broad undersztanding of disability that focuses on marginalizing and stereotyping bodies. I think this broad understanding is both recognizing the entire community, but loses highlighting what is important in each aspect of the community.
Sonia: It’s odd that the sexualized pictures of the athlete don’t have any reference to her disability. And i think it’s odd because she said it’s hard for someone disabled to feel sexual
Keona: There’s a quote about how women have different identities and I think it’s interesting how women have to balance all of these identities.
Zachary Welsh’s Thoughts on Thomson’s Feminist Theory
In her Integrating Disability, Transforming Feminist Theory writing, Rosemarie Garland-Thomson is explaining. to readers how gender, specifically in the aspects of representation, the body, and activism, can be looked at in certain ways as a disability. This of course hearkens back to Jasbir Puar’s The Right To Maim, where the author talks about how race can be viewed as a disability in the fact that Thomson is opening readers eyes to yet another form of every day disability that we may not realize we are witnessing. Thomson explains how stereotypes of individuals, particularly women can place these people in a negative light, but also put them is debilitating situations, essentially almost labeling them as disabled. Thomson even states that feminists, businesswomen, Asians, Northerners, and black professionals are oftentimes stereotyped as highly competent an so they are often envied, while on the other hand housewives, disabled people, blind people, elderly people, and the so-called retarded people warm and having low competence, thus they were pitied. I think Thomson’s approach and views are extremely important to take in and evaluate, as they do prove a point in that stereotyping can be a very debilitating and negative thing. With her piece, Thomson is also bringing to light a new way to look at feminist theory and how it can directly relate to disability theory.
If anybody has any exciting or interesting thoughts to share about Rosemarie Garland-Thomson’s Integrating Disability, Transforming Feminist Theory piece, or if they have any insightful discussions they want to have about the material, I would love to hear what your ideas are on that in the comments 🙂
Zachary Welsh’s Thoughts on Hypoesthesia by Laurie Clements Lambeth
With her poem Hypoesthesia, author Laurie Clements Lambeth is attempting to portray to her readers, what he life is like with a physical disability that can often result in pain and loss of physical sensation. Lambeth’s poem discusses the subject matter in a very personal way and brings to life the disability that is part of her everyday life. In her poem, Lambeth is striving to portray to readers the lack of sensation and her inability to share life’s most intimate moments with her significant other. With her poem, Hypoesthesia, Laurie Clements Lambeth is not only describing to readers what having this disability is like, but she is getting them as close as possible to understanding how her disability negatively affects her life.
Zachary Welsh’s Thoughts on Toni Morrison’s Sula
I think Toni Morrison’s Sula is not only an engaging and thought-provoking novel that deals with disability and its ramifications, but I would also argue that it circles back to the fist week of our Disability and Literature course with the concepts and ideas that it presents within itself.
Something that I immediately noticed when reading Toni Morrison’s Sula, is that it builds off of the ideas from Jasbir Puar’s The Right To Maim in that race and ethnicity can be looked at as a disability to some extent. Specifically with this novel, we see multiple examples of disability represented through the main ensemble of African American characters. Not only do we have Eva, who is placed under such stressful life circumstances that she willingly lets her leg get run over by a train to receive insurance money, but we also see evidence of race-related disabilities when Jude Green attempts to apply for a better, more secure job and is immediately turned down due to the color of his skin. This topic is further explored with the character of Chicken Little when his drowned body is found and one of the first suggestions as to what to do with it is throw it back in the water.
Sula also harkens back to one of our first class readings in which we discussed how disabilities relate to “cure or kill” storylines in books and we see that come into play firsthand this time around. After he suffers traumatic experiences from WW1, the character of Plum is doused in kerosene and burned to death by his mother, Eva, who claims that he “became a child again” and that he “wanted to climb back in the womb.” This plot threat links directly to our beginning-of-the-year reading in which a disabled person is involved in a “cure or kill” storyline where one of the characters may feel that a problem will be solved by the disabled individual’s death. In this case for Eva, she not only rid herself of the responsibility of taking care of Plum, she, in her mind gives him what he wants instead of living a life of suffering.
Toni Morrison’s novel also forges a new path for us as a class in that it starts introducing more mental disabilities as well. As previously stated, not only does Plum develop an almost ptsd like mental disability from the war, but Sula arguably has a mental disability with her loneliness/sadness and her disconnect from society. We see this not only in the way that she just watches as her mother burns to death, but also by her frequent affairs and how she uses them to fill her sense of forlornest and detachment.
While we aren’t finished with the book yet, Toni Morrison’s Sula has been a surprising hit for me and I am really looking forward to getting to finish it and see what other interesting ideas and concepts it plays with.
Zachary Welsh’s Thoughts on Chris Bell’s A Modest Proposal
Something that really stood out to me about Bell’s proposal was his justification of and preference to discuss what he prefers to call White Disability Studies. i think what makes it particularly interesting is that it is a topic that I can see both a positive side and a negative side of.
On the one hand, I can almost see where Bell is trying to come from with his White Disability Studies approach in that he wants to view everyone as an equal. He states in his proposal “do not forget to revel in the idea that as more and more disabled people enter the main stream all disabled people irrespective of the racial and ethnic subjectivity occupy the same place at the table.” To further explain his stance, Bell mentions in his post-proposal notes that “far from excluding people of color, White Disability Studies treats people of color as if they were white people, as if there are no critical exigencies involved in being people of color that might necessitate these individuals understanding and negotiating disability in a different way from their white counterparts.” While I can understand the idea that it could potentially be a good idea to not include race as a factor and just look at someone’s disability, I can’t say I completely agree with Bell’s approach to disability studies. In fact, I would argue against it and actually say that race should be a major discussion point when studying disability because there are in fact gender, race, and ethnical injustice based disparities between members of the disabled population, and I think it’s important to recognize those differences. I would also point Bell in the direction of Toni Morrison’s Sula or Jasbir Puar’s The Right To Maim as clear examples of how race and ethnicity can play into disability studies.
As I said, I can understand where Bell is coming from with his approach but I do not necessarily agree with his stance on disabilities and our approach to studying them. I do think however that there is enough wiggle room and evidence to possibly back up either side and I would love to hear other people’s comments and their stance on the matter.
