A Taste of Disability History: When Oppressors Use Disability to Legitimize Their Actions

Here in the United States, school curriculum is greatly lacking in the area of disability history; however, the term disability, terms that can be used interchangeably with disability, or terms that fall under the category of disability, are not completely scarce from History text books. Ironically, when these terms appear, they are not describing events that have happened to the disabled population as a whole, what it was like to have a disability in past eras, what policies greatly impacted the lives of people with disabilities, nor how these past events have and continue to effect those with disabilities today. Maybe the disabled will surface when talking about the veterans that returned home from the First and Second World Wars, but nothing in detail beyond that. Maybe students are informed that FDR -- the 32nd President of the United States -- used a wheelchair due to contracting polio, but not about the stigma that surrounded him and others at that time, nor his pride that kept the world from knowing the extent of his disability. Instead, these terms appear when studying the history of other people groups.

Historically, people mistreated blacks, immigrants, and women through identifying skin color or gender as a disability. Slavery was rationalized by portraying blacks as inferior due to their lesser mental capability and by the belief that blacks were at a higher risk of becoming disabled if they were set free. People were also afraid of those who were unknown, thus they were considered to be defective and termed disabled; this rationalization was used to keep undesired immigrants out of the country. The United States used the stigma of disability to rationalize their behavior. Men were also successful in arguing against women’s suffrage by threatening the acquisition of a disability upon any woman stepping outside the set gender roles established by society; women, afraid of being labelled disabled, assimilated into this role imposed upon them. Women were also determined to be feeble minded and frail in relativity to men, which can be translated into women being disabled simply due to their gender. The oppressors used the negative stigma of people with disabilities with the intention of controlling those they considered to be lesser than themselves.

Today, society does not outwardly express that people of color and women are disabled due to their skin color or gender, but the historical residue still, subtly but surely, continues to resonate in the mindsets of society that both people of color and women are inferior. However, there is a deeper issue; if an oppressor can use disability to legitimize their actions, then people who have a disability are automatically inferior no matter the color of their skin or their gender.  

In the recent decades, the increased advocation for the acceptance and equality of all people has brought about awareness to the subtleties of racism and sexism that still exist in our culture today. However, ablism -- which constitutes any form of discrimination against a person with a disability and stems from a long line of generations hiding and exterminating the disabled -- is generally shoved under the rug and ignored. Leaving ableism out of discussions about discrimination does not allow for a solution to this underlying problem; oppressing and discriminating the disabled has become second-nature to society through the false understanding that disabled people are inherently unable to contribute to society, therefore, are a burden and a liability, and ultimately inferior. This negative stigma placed on people with disabilities creates the tendency to not award people with disabilities the same rights as able-bodied people forcing the disabled to have to fight for their dignity and respect. It has become so deeply ingrained in the back of people’s minds that people with disabilities are not able to contribute to society as a normal person. The rights of people with disabilities are often seen as privileges rather than just human rights; this dehumanizes people with disabilities. If someone is treated of lesser value, they inevitably begin to psychologically internalize these lies and draw the conclusion that they are inadequate. If people with disabilities believe the disabled community to be inadequate, it will continue to be easy for stereotypes to be placed on the disabled community, and for disability to be used as a justification for racism and sexism.

Even though people have used disability as a justification for the discrimination of minorities, historians have failed to see disability as something to be explored and have ignored its cultural construct; they instead consider disability a tragedy. This fallacy needs to be exposed; the topic of disability can no longer be a taboo so that people understand that disability is not bad. Disability history needs to be taught and the stigma of disability needs to be erased in order for people with disabilities to be treated as people. Until disability is no longer a legitimate reasoning behind treating those of a supposed lesser race or gender as inferior, racism and sexism will continue to exist; racism and sexism will not cease until ablism is eliminated first.