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CRIPPLED BY GOOD INTENTIONS

When John Callahan appeared recently on a TV show to plug his new book, he was introduced as ”handi-capable,” one of a growing list of newly coined terms intended to focus on the abilities rather than limitations of people with disabilities.

”I couldn`t help but laugh,” said Callahan, a cartoonist and author of

”Don`t Worry, He Won`t Get Far on Foot,” who became quadriplegic 10 years ago and uses a wheelchair. ” `Handi- capable` sounds like I should be dressed up in a clown suit. I rebel against any politically correct terms. I`m paralyzed. Why mince words?”

The use of terms like ”handi-capable,” ”physically challenged” or

”inconvenienced” rankles many activists in the community of people with disabilities. Regarding the newest phrase, ”people with differing

abilities,” Paul Longmore, historian and visiting scholar at Stanford University, who had polio as a child, said, ”Perhaps it was invented by someone with a linguistic disability.”

Most consider these terms euphemisms that soft-pedal or sugar-coat the realities of having a disability. ”They have the same semantic hopefulness that transformed countries from `underdeveloped` to `less developed` to

`developing,` ” said Nancy Mairs, the author of ”Carnal Acts,” who has multiple sclerosis. ”Yet people have continued to starve in those countries during the shift. Some realities don`t obey the dictates of language.”

”Some people have said we have been `severely euphemized,` ” added Longmore.

Choosing terms that are honest and reflect reality, yet do not insult or demean, is part of the process of a minority community defining itself. ”In every civil-rights movement, and this one is in its infancy, the first battle lines are always drawn around labels,” said Irving Zola, professor of sociology at Brandeis University and publisher of Disability Studies Quarterly. ”It`s far easier to agree on what words should not be used than on what to replace them with.”

Few are sorry to see old terms like ”invalid” or ”retard” or

”cripple” dropped from general usage. Used as nouns, they equated the person with the condition. A preferred term today is ”person with a disability,” a description that doesn`t side-step reality yet implies that the disability is only one dimension of a person`s identity. ”A four-word phrase is cumbersome to write and say, but it also makes the listener stop and think about what is meant,” said Zola.

But Nancy Mairs decided several years ago that a mainstream term like

”disabled” did not describe her. ”Too broad and suggests any incapacity,” she said. Neither did ”handicapped,” which implied being put at deliberate disadvantage.

Instead, Mairs calls herself a ”cripple.” ”It`s straightforward and describes my condition accurately,” she said. It is a personal choice-she would never call anyone else a cripple-but she wears it like an ironic badge of honor. ”Perhaps I want people to wince, to see me as a tough customer-who can face the brutal truth of my existence squarely. As a cripple, I swagger.” Unlike ”black,” once a derogatory term that the black-power movement turned into a banner of pride, ”cripple” doesn`t lend itself to this kind of transformation. ”It`s still considered the most offensive term by most people-equivalent to `nigger` and `kike,` ” said Longmore. ”When I use it, I`m making a statement about how society treats me.”

Judy Heumann agrees. ” `Cripple` had such a hurtful meaning to me as a child,” said the veteran disability rights activist and vice president of World Institute on Disability in Berkeley who had polio. ”But it`s a powerful thing to use that word, and if it comes from a disabled person, I respect it.”

The war over words is ”only part of what is really a search for identity and a sense of history and pride,” said Longmore. But so far, efforts to forge a common identity and sense of community in the face of pervasive prejudice and discrimination has met with limited success.

People with disabilities are not a monolithic group, but consist of distinct groups with overlapping concerns. ”Sometimes this makes for uneasy coalitions,” said Longmore. For instance, many people in the deaf community define their deafness not as a disability, but merely as a ”human

difference.” But critics argue that by defining deafness simply as a linguistic difference, not a disability, the deaf distance themselves from the larger community and perhaps, unintentionally, reinforce prejudice against people with visible disabilities.

Even more difficult to overcome are the negative feelings and images that many people with disabilities have about themselves. Unlike members of minority groups who grow up in families and in neighborhoods with people like themselves, those born with disabilities grow up isolated, without role models and without a sense of belonging to a group that supports a shared identity. Instead, most are socialized into the world of ”normal” with all its values and prejudices against the disabled.

Language, many believe, can be a powerful tool in shaping attitudes and behavior in this struggle for equal status. But Longmore disagrees. ”I don`t think attitudes can be `educated away,` ” he said.

Legislation, rather than language, is the key to social change. The passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990 extended the same legal protections against discrimination that were granted to racial minorities by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to an estimated 43 million disabled Americans.

”Our first priority must be to insist on our rights and on nondiscriminatory behavior,” said Longmore. ”When behavior changes, then attitudes will follow.”