conuly | Having been told often enough not to say "wheelchair bound" I generally don't

But is this a "don't say it" sort of thing or a "don't say it, and politely ask others not to either" sort of thing?

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

cosmolinguist

Ask others not to. I've done that a lot.

From:

conuly

Great.

From:

cactuswatcher

I don't know you well enough to get into this. But as someone who has quadriplegic friend, I will say that the popular terminology of the moment is an utterly trivial matter compared to helping people with that kind of condition and giving them a chance. Changing the words doesn't help. Helping does.

From:

pauraque

Why not both? (To add context: I also have friends who use wheelchairs and some of them do care about the terminology.)

Edited Date: 2018-03-09 03:34 pm (UTC)

From:

cactuswatcher

Because changing the terms just gives those who want to be hurtful, a wider vocabulary to work with. Look up the terms idiot, moron, and so on, for mental deficiency and see how they progressed from the correct thing to say to horrible insults. 'Underprivileged' was the polite term for a lot of different problems when I was in college. It became an insult almost immediately. Though saying today's right thing might spare someone's feelings for a moment, it doesn't help a bit in the long run, and can actually hurt other people down the road more.

From:

pauraque

In linguistics this is called the "euphemism treadmill" — words for things that societal attitudes deem unpleasant have to be changed regularly because they become 'tainted' by association. The phenomenon is certainly well known, and I agree with

cosmolinguist's explanation of what motivates it and why it's not a bad thing, so I won't repeat that.

In response to your idea that by coming up with new words we are coining the insults of tomorrow and ought not to do that, I can only say that I'm afraid people who wish to insult others are more than capable of creating as many colorful words to do so as they require.

From:

cosmolinguist

I think changing the words does help, it's part of changing the world and doesn't at all come at the expense of other kinds of help.

(I am disabled but not a wheelchair user, though I'm friends with several.)

In my experience, politely asking someone to use preferred language about disabled people is a good shibboleth. How they react to that, and how up-to-date they are on their terminology in the first place, gives me some sign of how willing they are to prioritize disabled people's voices over their own feelings.

Having to acknowledge that we've made mistakes is never fun for anybody, and some people will push away that discomfort by making it the disabled person's fault for wanting other language. "I know a person with X disability and they say they're fine!" may be true, but it indicates to me that the person is fine with dehumanizing or inaccurate language.

Whereas if somebody says, to use this example, "gosh I never realized that wheelchairs aren't something people are bound to, that they're freeing and promote independence, and it's ableist to think of them as a tragedy" (assuming that's the explanation they've been given for why they should stop saying it, which is the one I'd use), then I actually expect they will be the people who help in other ways: who signal boost disabled voices, call their representatives to advocate for disabled people, and generally be on our side. People who double down on "wheelchair bound" or "the blind" or whatever are really much less likely to join us in other causes that might seem more important.

I think they're all important, though, as they're all parts of how society is disabling us.

From:

cactuswatcher

I don't suggest insulting people. But do not mistake form for substance!

From:

cosmolinguist

I think you are failing to appreciate how many people do find "wheelchair-bound" insulting.

From:

lilysea

As someone who has been using a wheelchair for 8 years now, and who also has many wheelchair using friends:

please, please stop using the phrase "wheelchair bound", and please correct anyone else you hear using the phrase.

Wheelchairs mean freedom. Without them, we'd be stuck in bed/at home.

Edited Date: 2018-03-09 04:06 pm (UTC)

From:

cactuswatcher

I've known my friend for 40 years, and what you say about freedom is certainly correct. But I don't think what you are saying is actually the way people are misusing the term. They aren't saying you can't get around. Thinking that absolutely no one who uses a chair is able rise up and walk even a few steps is the bigger mistake, and I think that is the way most people misuse the term. The chair doesn't keep you from moving and some folks who use them (perhaps including you) are in no way trapped in the chair once they are in them. I wish I could say the same for my friend.

From:

pauraque

The way I've handled it is by repeating the way a wheelchair-using friend explained it to me. "You know, when you think about it that's an odd phrase, wheelchair bound. People who need a wheelchair to get around are not restricted by it, they're actually freed by it. They'd be more 'bound' without having access to the wheelchair!" That generally gets a positive response and prompts folks to think about their words and what they imply, rather than reacting defensively. Just my two cents.

From:

cactuswatcher

This is absolutely true. Not everyone in a chair is stuck in it, all the time. Spreading this kind of information is far more helpful than, worrying about words in general.

Edited Date: 2018-03-09 04:05 pm (UTC)

From:

anankastick

I would add that we're not just talking about freedom to sometimes get up from the chair when we say we're not bound to it. Freedom means that being in the chair allows access to places we couldn't otherwise go, allows us to be more independent--the chair is often a boon, not a burden or a restriction. Most of the time when you feel restricted as a wheelchair user it's because of barriers put up by people who aren't. (Terrible sidewalks, no ramps, impossible doors, ADA-violating spaces, people grabbing/pushing/touching your chair, people treating you like less-than because you're in it, etc.) So even for folks who use chairs all the time, "bound" is still a problematic term, from my understanding.

I'm a part-time chair user, so I can't speak personally to the experience of full-time people, but that's what I've heard and read and I've definitely experienced constructed disability often. :)

I also agree with hollymath's explanation of how language can shape perception and therefore behavior. And on the receiving end, it makes a difference. When I hear someone making an effort to use positive language or affirm my identity/rights, I know I have an ally--it builds trust and larger community.

From:

pauraque

Yes, all of this is exactly what I was trying to get at. Thanks!

From:

anankastick

From:

greghousesgf

I haven't heard anybody use that expression in a very long time but I'm lucky enough to live in an area that has a long history of being very aware of disability rights.

From:

elf

If you search Google for the terms "Wheelchair bound" news article, you'll see it gets used plenty in mainstream news.

I've been avoiding it, and occasionally correcting other people who use it, because most of the people I know who use wheelchairs are mobile enough that "bound" seems horribly wrong. Even aside from "this device brings freedom," they're not using the chair because they can't move around without it; they're using it because they can walk maybe a quarter mile a day, and they're saving those steps to get to the bathroom unassisted.

From:

conuly

People keep saying it on the internet. ALL. THE. TIME.

From:

kengr

Busting the Myth of ‘Welfare Makes People Lazy’

One bit in there made me want to scream. The bit about the conservative dogma that "welfare discourages people from working".

I've been on welfare (while waiting for a decision on my disability benefits) And the truth is, the rules *penalize* you for working!

For starters, they subtract your *gross* income from your benefits, not your net income.

And if your income varies (which is almost certain at the low end where you are working part time on varying schedules) they want a copy of your pay stubs. Which means for a biweekly paycheck, you can't get your benefits for up to 2 weeks after the start of the month, because they will want the stub that includes the last day of the month.

That practically guarantees late fees on bills.

From:

marahmarie

I have a similar reason for wanting to scream (though a bit different): it's not that being on benefits (of any sort) encourages one to not work but that once on them, one risks having them drastically cut or stopped if they *do* work, even if in any realistic world the money made at a job won't replace what's taken away (food, medical, rental assistance and so on), so what happens is people caught in such circumstances walk a financial and emotional tightrope of seeing how if they "go over hours" this week then food's getting cut down (or off) next month or if they "work too many hours" this month then there goes rental assistance next year, and so on...

The situation just winds up piling on more stress (on top of the already-rampant stress and exhaustion of being poor, discriminated against, and socially and systematically oppressed and disregarded because of mindsets not of our own making) because a) in the US especially, no matter which benefit's being discussed, it's not enough to cover what a human being and/or their family actually needs and b) no matter which benefit's being discussed, one can lose it rather easily just by having an income that's still insufficient to replace whatever the state takes away as "punishment" for earning said income.

If they want to encourage the ability to actually *have* any independence from the state/government/system without poor people meeting disaster (and they don't - they'd personally love for all poor people to meet exactly that), the system would need to a) be more generous to begin with and b) not cut a person back or off so quickly once they show any income over the pitiful levels the system sets to ensure a benefit's "safety". Until it gets to the point where benefits are expanded and not taken away so quickly or easily over a person's provably meager and insufficient-to-live-on earnings, the need for assistance will continue, unabated (and will get even worse as they cut more and more of them off for more and more people, as they're planning to do), resulting in poor people making no advancements, except in suffering.

Edited (clarity, mixed up a thought) Date: 2018-03-10 10:06 am (UTC)

From:

kengr

Yeah the "resource" limits are a bad joke.

For me it was $50. and *technically* I was in violation from the point I got my check until I paid the rent & utilities.

But it's a combo of believing urban myths about aid recipients, politicians catering to those who believe them, and a strong dose of "don't confuse me with facts, my mind is already made up"

From:

marahmarie

I think the most inane part of it is at any moment it could be them. So many of the less than entirely rich people don't realize they, just like the rest of us, could be just one medical emergency or car total or job loss away from facing the same (perhaps permanent) impoverishment they've trained themselves to despise others for facing.

I always say, "What if it's them? What if one day, God forbid, it is?" I've had personal experience with someone who was like that, then it was him, and to say the least he did *not* handle it too well. How could he, when he so vocally hated the very sort of person he now was? I hate to say it served him right, but from a solely karmic retribution standpoint, it most certainly did.

Edited (clarity) Date: 2018-03-11 01:26 am (UTC)

From:

conuly

These are the same people who think not opening the mail when you can't pay the bills is a moral failing. Hypocrisy, thy name is neocon.

Seriously, they can't afford to think that way, because it'd shatter too many illusions.

From:

marahmarie

Actually, with people I've known like that (definitely more than one) it's been the opposite: they don't open their mail because they literally don't want to know. They're always behind on rent/mortgage/other bills, the electric bill is always way too high (like, unjustifiably so, which they defend as a right because of having to work at a job), and they always justify all of it by saying they deserve (italics verbally included) to buy themselves All The Things to make up for the endless suffering of having to work, and they're always male.

Just my observations over quite a few years with more than one dude who was or is just like that.

Edited (typo) Date: 2018-03-12 06:01 am (UTC)

From:

conuly

I'm pretty sure, like, 99% sure, that this is because they hate the poor.

From:

kengr

It's more a case (in *most* cases) of not understanding the way the world *actually* works (and has worked since the 80s or earlier).

They think that you have to have done something *wrong* to not have a good job or be out of work. They think it's your *fault*.

The reality is that *they* could be in just as bad a situation if they didn't "know people". It's bad luck or lack of resources (degrees, having "connections", or even just the right ancestry (or living in the right/wrong area))

It's the poor's *misfortune* not their *fault*.

But as long as they think there's fault involved, it's effectively the same as if they hated the poor.

From:

conuly

The just world fallacy lets them imagine it won't happen to them, but it still sucks.

From:

mommy

Jacob Jessop said his religious beliefs prevented him from working for a woman and with people who are not sect members, according to resignation letters obtained Thursday by The Associated Press through a public records request.

I was expecting the municipal workers to be more subtle about their reasons for leaving. Resignation letters don't typically contain blatant sexism and religious intolerance in my experience.

From:

conuly

Welcome to life in the FLDS, I guess?

From:

archersangel

that was a funny comic.

From:

conuly

It's just so... cuuuuuuute.

From:

pauamma

I'm firmly encamped in the "live and let live" side of things, so not commenting on others' use of it, even though I wouldn't use it myself.

From:

elenbarathi.livejournal.com

"But is this a "don't say it" sort of thing or a "don't say it, and politely ask others not to either" sort of thing?"

It's a "don't say it" sort of thing, unless the others you speak to are children under your direct supervision. This is because there is no way to "politely" correct the speech of another adult (http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1985-11-27/entertainment/8503220249_1_correct-etiquette-advisers-foreigners).

I adore the baby rhino! Wonder if that's little Fiona at the Toronto Zoo? What a cutie-pie!

From:

dandelion.livejournal.com

"Mother's Day: The Belgian nursery school ditching traditional celebrations (The interviewed parents claim they understand but don't approve, but since they only mention children with two fathers I think they don't understand at all. I'm thinking this benefits the kids who have dead or abusive mothers and don't need that thrown in their faces at school.)"

I think people always like to assume everyone's got two, wonderful parents. I always had this problem with Fathers' Day (present but emotionally abusive), but after general issues with both parents this year (my parents guilt-tripped me about how I hadn't arranged anything for Christmas, then refused to see me) it was really really difficult to find a card which didn't say something like "world's best mum" or "to the most amazing mother".

Edited Date: 2018-03-09 09:44 pm (UTC)