Grateful to write today for Cognoscenti/WBUR, Boston’s NPR station: “The language we use and the stories we tell shape our behavior, writes Amy Julia Becker. And whether it is the overtly offensive mockery of the R-word or the suggestion that disability threatens our collective health and safety, this administration is telling a misleading and inaccurate story of disability as defect.”
This rhetoric sets up a hierarchy of human value in which the disabled fall to the bottom of a competitive heap. The Trump administration is telling a false story not only about disability, but about who we are as humans.
I’m particularly attuned to the language surrounding disability because our 19-year-old daughter Penny has Down syndrome. When she was diagnosed at birth, doctors and nurses gave us words like birth defect, chromosomal abnormality and intellectual disability to describe her condition. The initial story I was told about our daughter was framed in the language of deficit and problem.
Over time, our family learned a different way of understanding Down syndrome, which began with getting to know our daughter…
The Trump administration’s use of accusatory and demeaning language for people with disabilities creates a narrative that calls their worth into question. The language of defect leads easily to divisive and dehumanizing policies.
Keep Reading: The Trump administration’s rhetoric about disability diminishes us all
MORE WITH AMY JULIA:
- Free Resource: From Exclusion to Belonging
(a free guide to help you identify and create spaces of belonging and welcome) - S8 E6 | A Life Worth Living? Reimagining Life, Choice, and Disability with Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Ph.D.
- S8 E10 | The Myth of a Colorblind, Meritocratic Society with David M. Bailey
Let’s stay in touch. Subscribe to my newsletter to receive weekly reflections that challenge assumptions about the good life, proclaim the inherent belovedness of every human being, and envision a world of belonging where everyone matters. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube and subscribe to my Reimagining the Good Life podcast for conversations with guests centered around disability, faith, and culture.
