So much for my career ;)

Found this discussion topic at Amazon.com disability forum:

In the current issue of NEW MOBILITY, Jody Michelle Powers writes:

“Unless people have personal connections to the disability world, they have no business writing or speaking about disability issues. It’s that simple.”

I went to find the article (I used to be subscribed to New Mobility, but I let it lapse), and read it on the author’s personal page.

I understand and respect her point that she is not comfortable with non-disabled people speaking on her behalf. Certainly, a lot of my rants here are against shows and books that blatantly did not consult actual disabled people and relied on stereotype instead of doing real research.

However, I also don’t think it’s as simple as she suggests. There are a lot of people with a lot of different types of connection to disability. I don’t think the writing of someone who does not have a disability or a disabled family member can automatically be discounted.

Mainly I think that because that describes me.

I have created connections because of my interest in disability rights, but I was writing and speaking about disability first and formed connections from that.

I care deeply about these issues and it is a big part of my life, but apparently, I have no right to it.

Oh well, I guess she’ll just have to hate me.

*****

(I’m sorry to say, the actual article is pretty disjointed. First she says that people who write about disability but have no connection to it would “tend” to write stereotypes, but “tend” is just a generalization and does not apply to everyone. Also, at the end she says that some authors use research and that is also a problem. Yet no explanation of the problem is given, in fact she seems to be in support of authors who use research to write realistically about disability despite not having a connection to it. So that seems like it undermines the message of the article. I’m a bit confused.

I like her webpage, though, she has a kind and fun voice and I enjoyed reading her material).