Inside the Little Plastic Castle

I'd like to suggest that society as a whole has not paid the same kind of attention to disabled people's concerns about language. By not paying attention to the literal value, the very real substantive, physical, psychological, sensory, and emotional experiences that come with these linguistic moves, we have created a negative rhetorical climate. In this world, it is too easy for feminists and people of colour to base their claims on argumentative strategies that depend, as their signature moves, on marginalizing the experience of disabled people and on disparaging their appearance and bodies.

So, say you have a characteristic that society sees as less than. Oh, what is a good example? Say you aren't good at math, for whatever reason. (Many people aren't good at math, but it isn't considered a disability. People just work around it.) Say all the sudden, your deficiency in math (which, I guess isn't as "good as" someone who is good at math) is visible to the naked eye and seen as a disability. Say every where you go, people treat you with pity, and they don't let you handle money because you aren't good at math. And you aren't allowed to drive a car or hold down a job because you aren't good in math, even if a simple calculator or a talking pedometer would accommodate you. And whenever anyone makes a mistake mathmatically, they are teased and said to have Mathitis, like you do. They must just be a mathtard. And the implication is that they are less than and can't do anything for themselves. And perhaps when you went to the doctor, they didn't treat your cancer as aggressively as they would someone without mathitis, because your quality of life isn't as good as others and so you would just be wasting resources. And say people asked you all the time, even on the streets, if you have checked into this cure or that cure for your problem, or if you've ever thought of killing yourself because of your problem.