Handy Cap

Handy Cap

Our words affect our thoughts,
Our thoughts affect our beliefs,
Our beliefs affect our feelings,
Our feelings affect our behavior,
and
Our behavior affects the world.
Shirley Devol VanLieu, Ph.D.

Several good, considerate people recently have used the word “handicap”
to refer to persons with disabilities. When I hear that word and it is not used referring to handicapping golf or horse races, I think of the way the word was used historically. People in the disability community were thought not to be able to provide for themselves. They had a “handy cap” to ask for alms. But they CAN be productive, if there are no barriers unthinkingly placed before them.
Stephen Hawking is a quadriplegic. While he can’t walk, talk or write, he may be one of the greatest astrophysicists in the world today. Is he handicapped? Well it depends on what he wants to do, doesn’t it? What if he wanted to create a new way to think about the theory of relativity? No! In fact he is one of the few capable of that effort.
A short, able-bodied person wants to play with the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team. Are they handicapped? Yes! A very tall person wants to be a
gymnast. Are they handicapped? Yes, although not for any lack of strength and agility. It is their environment for what they want to do that handicaps them.
Handicap is not a description of a person. It describes the environment. Have you ever seen a wheelchair basketball game? You would be amazed at the skill of the players!
I wish we could rethink the phrase “handicap parking”. It makes me want to look to see if they parked oddly because they are chronically bad drivers. Why not use “Reserved” and the universal disability symbol of the person using a wheelchair?
I believe the use of “handicap” by government leads many to feel it is correctly stated. But the government thinks capital punishment and marriage only between a man and a woman are right. The government always lags the thinking of the people. Now women have the right to vote, and we no longer have slaves. The government at one time thought differently.
June Kailes wrote an excellent article when she was Executive Director of the Independent Living Center in Los Angeles. A wheelchair user, she suggests we should refer to the person first. That is what is important. We don’t refer a person who broke a leg as a “broken legged person.”
Some blacks prefer being called African-Americans. Their heritage is what
is important not their appearance. Indians didn’t choose that name for themselves. Obviously, Indian is a misnomer; these people aren’t from India. Most choose to be referred to as Native Americans. The correct heritage is important. To say again, the part of a person you want to draw attention to should come first — the person, not the disability.
On a similar note, I have yet to meet a person who uses a wheelchair that sleeps in it at night. But I hear on T.V. all the time “she was confined to a wheelchair” or “he was wheelchair bound.” (You mean he was tied to it?) I know people who wear contacts all night when they sleep. Are they confined by them? No, it is simply easier than fumbling for their glasses in the morning.
In addition, while the word ‘victim’ is appropriate to use immediately after a diagnosis or injury, it is inappropriate to use for an ongoing situation. A person is not a victim of Multiple Sclerosis, Cerebral Palsy or a stroke for a lifetime. Instead we should say, “He had polio.”

“Language Is More Than a Trivial Concern”, June Isaacson Kailes, 11/1990