Found within this short introductory text, Baynton gives readers a glimpse of the rest of the book as well as the most fundamental idea of the relations between immigration law and disability; disability was and is utilized as a tool to create inequality.
This inequality forced upon the “defected” populous is seen blatantly through the lens of immigration laws of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The inequality brought about by disability serves two purposes here, the first being that inequality is used by those who lie within the status quo of important identity throughout most of history: white males. This is seen in the text with the mentioning of, “constitutional deficiencies,” otherwise known as using an identity such as a person’s race or gender to assign them an inherent characteristic that allows those in power to keep that person out of society. An example from this in the text would be the sentence in which Baynton says that opponents of racial equality stated that African Americans had inherent defects such as feeblemindedness, impaired reason, and more dramatic claims such as having a stronger propensity of being blind. These constitutional deficiencies were used to combat the successful entry and livelihood of every person who wasn’t a healthy, white male.
The second purpose found here in the utilization of disability as a tool for inequality would be the unmentioned (in the text) yearning for a modern, utopian society. This drive for innovation inadvertently caused our culture to accept disability only as a hindrance to the successful society. This utopian, new-age attitude is precisely what caused many of the inequalities that we reflect on (such as the “unsightly beggar” ordinances) and still see throughout the world especially among disabled life in third world countries. Rather than combat disability by accepting it and creating a world where anyone can thrive, the United States in its’ immigration policy chose to combat it by literally blocking disability and difference from entry.
This gives us as non-participant observers a chance to learn about modern day disability representation and governmental interference. From these past ordinances and laws, it can be said that our world needs an individualist attitude in how it tackles disability. The utilization of government influence to define and suppress people with disabilities is the wrong way to go about fixing the problems within these discussions. In order to accurately accept disabled peoples into modern society without hurting their chance at a normal life, it must be accepted that every person with a disability is different. Disabilities manifest themselves differently in every person just as every person is inherently different with varying personal tastes. This knowledge can lead towards the determination that every person must be treated as an individual with their own upbringings and desires; every person with a disability should be able to determine what they need in order to thrive and feel accepted in this ableist world of ours.
In ending, the most important takeaway from this text is that disability has been and is still used as a means of oppression from those who feel they are more of a person than those with disability and that the only way to prevent this inequality that is introduced from this is by tackling disability individually just as we would with anything else regarding any one person’s identity. By taking disability as an individually occurring phenomenon we are finally able to move on from characterizing people and restricting their lives by way of excluding them from the “normalcy” that does not even actually exist.
Word Count: 615 Honor Pledge: Dylan Lassiter
