Showing posts with label Seven Wheelchairs Memoir. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Seven Wheelchairs Memoir. Show all posts
01 March 2009
Disliking Cheney, Disliking Wheelchairs, Part II
I'm puzzled at the reaction among some disability activists in response to the Cheney-in-the-wheelchair affair.Some say objections to Chris Matthews remark ...
"And I can tell you again that metaphor here of the Vice President in that wheelchair - it is a metaphor for the low esteem with which he's held in this country. His numbers are pathetically low.
... are petty, and the energy could be better expended elsewhere. Some even accept and amplify the analogy.I don't agree, especially because the former vice president's use of a wheelchair became metaphorical fodder for a number of commentators ranging from the serious to the comedic.As a wheelchair user, I despise being used as a bad example, as a metaphor for punishment.If people with disabilities acquiesce to wearing an element of our lives as a mark of less-than, if we are assigned to appear in public as people suffering penalty, we are agreeing that others have a right to mistreat and exclude us.This goes beyond access and becomes a factor in the discussion of euthanasia.Of course, I have no right to dictate other people's responses, but I truly believe that the wealthy white men who comprise the chattering class have the displayed rank prejudice and ugly ignorance with their glib remarks about Cheney's wheelchair use.
Gary Presley
"And I can tell you again that metaphor here of the Vice President in that wheelchair - it is a metaphor for the low esteem with which he's held in this country. His numbers are pathetically low.
... are petty, and the energy could be better expended elsewhere. Some even accept and amplify the analogy.I don't agree, especially because the former vice president's use of a wheelchair became metaphorical fodder for a number of commentators ranging from the serious to the comedic.As a wheelchair user, I despise being used as a bad example, as a metaphor for punishment.If people with disabilities acquiesce to wearing an element of our lives as a mark of less-than, if we are assigned to appear in public as people suffering penalty, we are agreeing that others have a right to mistreat and exclude us.This goes beyond access and becomes a factor in the discussion of euthanasia.Of course, I have no right to dictate other people's responses, but I truly believe that the wealthy white men who comprise the chattering class have the displayed rank prejudice and ugly ignorance with their glib remarks about Cheney's wheelchair use.
Gary Presley
Now Appearing on the Camroc Press Review
'Tis good to have friends who are editors. Barry Basden of The Camroc Press Review has published an adaptation/condensation from my memoir, Seven Wheelchairs: A Life beyond Polio.I say "adaptation/condensation" because CPR word-limits at 550, and I am a verbose sort, To make a coherent narrative, I was forced to fiddle with a significant junk of text.Or to state it another way, the piece is not taken word-for-word from Seven Wheelchairs.
Read the piece on the Carmoc Press Review here ...The Part that Kept Me from Screaming
by Gary Presley
Read the piece on the Carmoc Press Review here ...The Part that Kept Me from Screaming
by Gary Presley
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