A Disability History of the United States

[jesse_the_k]

Kim Nielsen is a disability historian. Her one-volume A Disability History of the United States provides an overview of living with disability in these colonies from founding to 1990. What particularly interested me is how non-white-male bodies were defined as disabled, and then how the divisions changed.

http://www.beacon.org/A-Disability-History-of-the-United-States-P836.aspx

On Worldcat in print, braille, and ebook

On her author blog, her essay "God’s Real Name: On Rescues, Ableism, and Unexpected Empathy" explores her reaction to a homeless man who blesses her.

begin quote
My own ableism, my own class squeamishness, and bigotry, my interpretation of his religiosity as distasteful insanity, had led me to dismiss the man. I had excluded him from our joint rescue plan--indeed, had understood him as something to be rescued from--and ignored his offer to gift me with help and rescue.
quote ends

http://www.beaconbroadside.com/broadside/2014/03/gods-real-name-on-rescues-ableism-and-unexpected-empathy.html

Comments

[capri0mni]

I bought that book in hardcover when it came out a few years ago.

...Unfortunately, search as I might, I cannot find it on any of my shelves now.

Thus opening the question of whether I should get the ebook version (which would make it easier to quote online).

One thing that I did find disconcerting is how she lumped all Native American attitudes together into a single philosophy, and there was also a whiff of "noble savage," as I recall feeling at the time.

(Another disconcerting thing is that she marks the "modern era" of the disability rights movement at 1965 -- a year after I was born.

Does that make me a de facto Disability Elder?

[jesse_the_k]

Absolutely. It makes you a defacto and dejure Wise Woman.

Lumping all the thousands of Native cultures together is indeed thoughtless and ahistorical.

For example, from chapter 1: “In the traditional indigenous worldviews of North American peoples, it is believed that every person and thing has a gift (a skill, ability, purpose). When individuals, communities, and the world are in harmony, individuals, often with the help of others, find and embrace their gifts and put them into practice.”

She cites six scholars of disability in US native societies. I'm afraid her "summarize all the things" approach doesn't let her gracefully say, "Well, we have patchy info. Draw what you will from this scattered research."

I find myself more and more hesitant to buy anything in print form. If I like it well enough from the library, I get it in ebook. (Except comics. Because ... comics!)

[capri0mni]

*Nod.*

But I rather like having books on shelves, too.

I'm imagining zipping forward to some future time, visiting someone's house and not seeing bookshelves, or any books on view.

How am I to know about this person? What can I do to retreat when everyone is talking about a subject I can't converse on, if I can't reach out, take something down from their shelves and leaf through it?

...And that makes me sad.

(and yes, the passing of the oral tradition as the primary mode of storytelling also makes me sad).

[sasha_feather]

Own this but haven't read it!

[oracne]

That sounds like an interesting read.

[garrideb]

I read this a couple years ago, and I remember learning a lot about Ellis Island and the intersection of race and disability. I also remember learning about how disability activists were responsible for changing sexual assault laws to include instances where the survivor couldn't or wouldn't physically fight back, which just seems so obvious to me but I hadn't known how recently those laws didn't include those instances. So it was an informative book for me!

[untonuggan]

oh this is so completely my jam and i am bookmarking for when I have less brain fog.