Even more wisdom re: disabling metaphor

is available in this thread from Alas, a Blog, hosted by Wheelchair Dancer with major lifting from Leora.

Yes it's long, but for analogy-loving me, it's a gold-mine. Commenter Leora, in particular, explores the "disability is a natural part of life" issue by comparing "mental retardation" to math skills; using public transit vs driving; differential muscle strength between men and women; black and white; and most memorably, the "loss" of disability to the death of one's parent:

 begin quote  For example, my mother died [... snip ...] and I grieved that loss, not unlike the times I have grieved for the loss of my sight. But people’s parents die. It happens to all of us. And others might say, how sad that your mother died. But after the initial grieving period, people don’t think about it much in regards to you. They do not define you by what they perceive as what they think your loss feels like. Different people are going to react to losing a parent differently. Some might find relief if their parent was abusive, some might be devastated for years, some might be sad about it and then move on. Other people allow you to do that. They don’t define every conversation, every thought, every perception and judgment about you by how they think THEY would handle your loss. Would you like it if five or ten years after your mother died, every single person you talked to said, “Gosh! I’m so sorry about the loss of your mother. It must be so hard to get through the day. Oh? You’ve moved on and now you want to talk about the job opportunity? Well, I just don’t know if we can do that! If I had lost my mother, it would be such a loss. I don’t know how I would even work and enjoy life if my mother had died. I mean, having a mother alive is so much better than having a dead one. There is no way you can say that you’ve learned and grown from the experience and you are a better person for it. I think you are wrong about being okay with the loss of your mother.” And on and on and on infinity with every single person you ever talk to for the rest of your life. quote ends 

Foolish me didn't research in the blogosphere before the "Disabling Metaphor" panel, and it turns out there's tons o' post on this topic. And that's probably why so many of the folks at the panel were so primed to discuss it!

The Feminist Philosophers' take on the topic includes some close reading of the language that I'm too medicated to decode. Commenters to Tekanji's post at the Official Shrub Blog unlike the folks at Alas, are not too painful to read.

Instead of any of the seven perfect posts

...I've been obsessively contemplating and editing and researching, I must fling this out from Mandolin at Amptoons :

 begin quote It’s not okay to call a coward a pussy, or a bad thing gay, they argue, because there’s nothing bad about having a vagina or being homosexual. But there IS something bad about not being mobile! In fact, it’s no fun at all, just totally miserable. All other things held equal, isn’t it better to be not-lame than lame?

[... snip ...]

But even accepting that impairment to mobility is itself a sucky thing, MAYBE DISABLED PEOPLE DO NOT APPRECIATE BEING THE CULTURAL GO-TO FOR THINGS THAT SUCK. quote ends 

Yes yes yes yes yes! This post (as supplemented by commenter Lexie) succinctly explains why epithets-based-on-impairment* are not just rude, but actively disabling—they create the social conditions that make living with bodily difference difficult.

* E.G., "Iranian ruling classes are deaf to the chants of demonstrators."

ETA Hah! Mandolin's insight was nourished at WisCon!