Disability History in Context

Disability History in Context
Written for DSAB 620

Reaction paper 1

Keith Murfee-DeConcini

Disability being studied or not being studied in the scope of human history is a very intriguing subject to ponder. The two readings this week--- “Disability History: Why We Need Another ‘Other’” (Kudlick, 2003) and “Who’s Not Yet Here? American Disability History” (Burch & Sutherland, 2006) --- did a good job at beginning to explore this topic and all the subtopics related to it (e.g. different groups contained within the scope of the disability history/identity). I think that the histories of disability are viewed by the vast majority of scholars as not rating as a distinct culture compared to other minorities (e.g. women studies, African American studies) because of how society views the term of “inclusive diversity.”

It was not long ago, in relation to topics being studied and taught in schools, that the minorities mentioned above were not being studied and yet now they are, after many years of being excluded from the textbooks. Society and scholars (especially in Western society) seem to think, very erroneously, that the term “inclusive diversity” has been fully defined already --- and that definition does not include the disability community and all the sub-communities within it.

As one of the articles pointed out, once you start looking for disability in history, you will find it throughout. By studying history, it becomes clear that the concept of disability is not a new concept at all. Disability has been a part of existence like the concept of time, always present, however often hidden from the everyday consciousness of society.

Why society has sought to either banish or eliminate disability completely from being recognized as a part, a natural part, of the historical discourse, is in itself a complex topic.

The reason that stands out most chiefly among the rest to explain the negative societal reaction to disability is, however, unsurprisingly clear. As Burch & Sutherland state “Perhaps the greatest challenge for Disability history and for Disabled people is ignorance and fear. Society and academe still rely heavily on the medical model of disability, enforcing prejudice against people with disabilities…. To date, no American history textbook has included Disability in a meaningful way, rendering it invisible, insignificant, inaccessible.” That quote was from 2006 and more than ten years later, progress is slowly inching on. Yet the fact remains that many professors in traditional academics view disability as a non-subject, or if they view it as a subject, it is one that is barely worth noting, to begin with. Programs like this one being offered at CUNY, the University of Illinois at Chicago and a few others are the exception to the overall norm.

How did society get so entrenched in this mindset of ignorance and fear? People are often afraid that they will “catch a disability” just by being around a person who has one; or the viewpoint that disability is a trait of declining health. Religion plays a big part, as the early Christian teachings about visions of hell teach us. Meghan Henning wrote about how this came to pass long ago, in her chapter (Weeping and Bad Hair) in 2017’s Phallacies: Historical Intersections of Disability and Masculinity. Henning states that “By threatening disability as a punishment, the bodies that we find in hell intensify and reinforce the ancient idea that bodily difference was a punishment for sin…. The sinful body is abnormal, dysfunctional, weak, penetrable, porous, and leaky.”

That line of thinking and other types like it have permeated generations and have influenced the current viewpoint and understanding that society applies to disability. In essence, I believe that Kudlick got it right when she stated that, “Like the sidekick who never gets the girl but who causes the romantic lead to discover love, disability is too often the unacknowledged enabler that helps define and construct the social order. Each time communities banished them, charities helped them, socialites pitied them, institutions cured or abused them, schools trained them, governments assisted them, medicine treated them, or sterilization destroyed them, disabled people became unwitting participants in the redemption of the non-disabled who struggled to secure their own status as “natural” or “normal.”

References:

Burch, Susan, and Sutherland, Ian, “Who’s Not Yet Here? American Disability History” in Radical History Review, Issue 94, Winter 2006

Henning, Meghan. 2017. “Weeping and Bad Hair: The Bodily Suffering of Early Christian Hell as a Threat to Masculinity.” In Phallacies: Historical Intersections of Disability and Masculinity, edited by Kathleen M. Brian and James W. Trent Jr., New York: Oxford University Press.

Kudlick, Catherine J., Disability History: Why We Need Another “Other.” The American Historical Revie, (2003) vol. 108, No. 3.