June 09, 2008
"This I Believe" by Colin Bates ( a Man Who has Discovered the Core Value of Disability Culture -- "Interdependency" )
I believe in helplessness.. We are all helpless to each other...Most of the people that I know are embarrassed by what they can't do on their own
- Colin Bates
Listen to someone who has overcome his lack of disability to share in the wisdom of our culture -- the culture of the disability community:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91244099
It is a hopeful sign that the impulse behind the electoral mantra "Change!" can be cultivated at its cultural roots rather than simply "xeroxed".
Apologies to my Disability Studies and crip activist colleagues who may find Bate's lexical choices awkward or his TAB status as illegitimizing his core assertion as a violation of "Nothing about us without us." I have been practicing "clarification of thought", "corporate theological reflection," "cultural work," "projetos de conscientização," and other transgressive acts of social transformation since long before our cultural-linguistic reality had a self-awareness; long before our democratic tool of self-naming was subverted by the parodying label "political correctness." We are not so fragile as to be divided by argument over a newcomer's struggle to find the right words and images to describe the resiliency of a culture of interdependence.
Bate's personal achievement of cultural autonomy through crossing over to the heart of gimp culture is to be celebrated as strengthened solidarity for all of us.
Posted by rollingrains at June 9, 2008 02:42 PM