Short Reading Response

Alex Slaughter’s Response to Stephen Kuusisto’s Plato, Again and Laura Hershey’s Working Together

In the short reading, Plato, Again, Stephen Kuusisto writes about disability through the character Caroline Moore, a woman who had breast cancer and has had a mastectomy, which will eventually become a double mastectomy. While Caroline is considered disabled due to the surgeries she has had, she is a fifty-two year old, black woman with a master’s in computer programming. This being said, if she did not have the breast cancer, she would be seen as an abled-bodied person. This story illustrates how many people with disabilities are discriminated against simply because they have a disability, but it also presents how disabled individuals can be taken advantage of and sometimes sexually assaulted.

When Caroline Moore returns to work, she gets sexually assaulted by her boss, Densk. When she returns to work after her first surgery, he brings her into his office and eventually after asking if “it,” in reference to her missing breast, hurt, he touched her where her breast used to be. This action is an example of what we had a discussion about in class regarding disability and having a prosthetic limb. For example, some people see someone who has a prosthetic leg and proceed to ask if they can touch it. For abled-body people, this does not occur as it is seen as odd; however, apparently, it is not odd or weird to ask a disabled person.

Kuusisto emphasizes at the conclusion of the story that his aim was “to show how ableism, sexism, [and] racism are utilized as workaday tools.” This comes in to play because as previously stated, Caroline is black, a woman, and disabled, so all three of those attributes intersect in the discrimination against her. In the office Moore worked at, she originally held a manager position, but upon returning was demoted to a lower, full – time job, and upon returning a second time, she was demoted to a part-time position even if she had more experience. Kuusisto compares this to an experience of his own. As a blind man, he was once told by a superior that if he wanted to keep his provisional faculty appointment, he would have to take a summer job driving a golf cart around campus. After telling him he could not do this because of his disability, the superior told him that he was not competitive enough for continued employment. Using both his example and the one in the story, this reveals the discrimination that many people do not want to admit occurs to those individuals that are disabled on a daily basis.

In Laura Hershey’s poem, Working Together, she portrays disability through the lense of the disabled speaker, who is making a comparison between their job and their caregiver’s job on a daily basis. Throughout the poem, the caregiver’s job involves physical tasks while the speaker’s job usually involves vocal instructions or simple and easy movements. This poem illustrates the different tasks one may do when taking care of someone. The last stanza stands out to me. It emphasizes how one’s job might not be what they ever expected to be doing especially when taking care of an adult. This can be seen in the line “Her job: what no one thinks of doing / except for self or child.” This poem reveals that the speaker feels almost a sense of guilt for being disabled and having to have someone take care of them as if they were a child.

Word Count: 576

I pledge. Alex Slaughter

Molly’s Response to Flannery O’Connor’s “Good Country People”

In Flannery O’Connor’s short story “Good Country People,” disability is portrayed through Hulga (or Joy), who has a prosthetic leg. While this is just a part of Hulga, all the other characters in the story see her as less capable due to this disability, and ogle at her wooden leg. The three most prominent characters in the story Mrs. Hopewell, Mrs. Freeman, and Manley Pointer all view her leg differently. How they view the leg is a reflection of who they are.

Hulga is the 32 year old daughter of Mrs. Hopewell, a traditional woman who doesn’t seem too fond of her daughter. Mr. Freeman (who is only mentioned) and Mrs. Freeman have worked for Mrs. Hopewell for the last four years, the longest Mrs. Hopewell has kept anyone. Manley Pointer is a travelling bible salesman, who manages to snag a date from Hulga, but is later revealed that he is a con artist that is after her wooden leg.

Mrs. Hopewell is brokenhearted over her daughters lost leg. Mrs. Hopewell does not like the leg at all, and hates it when Hulga purposely walks louder than necessary with it. Throughout the story it seems that after 20 years she is still grieving Hulga’s accident, as proven by the line “it tore her heart to think instead of the poor stout girl in her thirties who had never danced a step or had any normal good times,” (O’Connor 274). It is said she thinks of her daughter as if she is still a child even though she is 32 and more educated than her. She is unable to see her as anything but her disability even though she has proven herself to be more than that. Mrs. Hopewell is brokenhearted over her daughters lost leg, because to her Hulga losing her leg may as well have been Hulga losing her life. This tells us that she is a old fashion woman, who thinks that if a woman cannot be perfect, then she has no true purpose.

Mrs. Freeman is fascinated by the concept of Hulga’s wooden leg. She constantly asks to hear the story from Mrs. Hopewell, and it is said that she “could listen to it any time as if it had happened an hour ago,” (O’Connor, 275). She finds a sense of pleasure from Hulga’s disability, and compares her own daughters to Hulga. Both Mrs. Freeman and Mrs. Hopewell think of her daughters as some of the finest girls ever, and tend to be the center of conversations more than Hulga. Mrs. Freeman is fascinated by Hulga’s wooden leg, because it gives her a sense of superiority over the family she’s working for. This tells us that she is insecure about her life, and feeds off tragedies of others to validate herself.

Manley Pointer wants the prosthetic leg, and this is shown two different ways. At first the want is metaphorical. It’s not that he wants to take it for himself, but that he wants someone who is strong enough to keep fighting through the pain. To him, the leg means that she was “so brave and all,” (O’Connor 285). Later though, it is revealed that the persona of “want” he puts on was not metaphorical, but literal. By revealing he was a con artist, the leg in his is view became a prize to be won. It didn’t matter to him who the person was, the leg itself was the jackpot. Manley Pointer wants the prosthetic leg literally rather than metaphorically, because he collects prosthetic parts from disabled people. This tells us that he is, for lack of a better word, a total asshole.

Word Count: 607

I pledge: Molly Avery

Daley’s Response to Kafer’s “Introduction to Imagined Futures”

The introduction of “Imagined Futures” highlights the hypocrisy of the treatment of disabled people by the hands of able-bodied people. How a disabled bodied person future is seen as best told by someone who isn’t affected personally by it, and by doing that are mistreating them even when they don’t mean to. This is echoed in pages 232-233 in “To Kill a Mockingbird” when Mrs. Merriweather talks about hoe the people in Maycomb are hypocrites, because they act all high and mighty when they freed their slaves, but still hold the foundation of racism against them. While Mrs. Merriweather is no better in her opinions, she does not try to be polite and hide them behind accusations and unfair trials.

The two ways presented by Mrs. Merriweather parallels in the two predicted futures for disabled people on page 2 of “Imagined Futures”. Kafer talks about how there are two futures presented to her, one where her disability is a “pitiable misfortune” and will be a weighing down on her forever, while the other is based around the obstacle of ableism, and how only ignorance can stand in the way of her having a good life. While one is more accepting of a disability, it still makes the same assumption as the other, that life will be hard because of a disability. In comparing the two situations, Tom Robinsons story line does confirm the two ideations. Here he is in Maycomb, where there are no slaves, only colored people who work for families and Atticus Finch is his lawyer when he is accused of a crime he didn’t commit. And yet, because of the racism that goes on behind the scenes of Maycomb, he is doomed to the same fate that any black man is in either of the two towns.

There are of course some huge differences in both cases, whereas disability actually affects a person way of life, while a color of someone’s skin would have no bearing on the person’s life if there was no prejudice against it. Tom Robinson has disability and while being an African American but does not feel the pity that Kafer suggested that it usually does. It can then be inferred that Kafer is white and hasn’t had to face the kind of discrimination that automatically comes to mind when someone sees someone else’s skin color. So while the two are comparable, it’s obvious that Kafer would get the benefit of the doubt from her friends and family, who believe she could somehow fight against the odds that people would have against her because of her disability, while in the case of Tom Robinson, like the book said, his fate was sealed when the girl opened her mouth to scream.

Both are trapped by the holds that society put on them, and while Robinsons predicament is more of a short leash than Kafer’s, both show how little we focus on those who say right but mean wrong, and those who say wrong but mean right.

Word count:503

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Rebecca Young’s Response to Tobin Seibers’ “Disability in Theory” and Sheila Black’s “What You Mourn”

As Tobin Seibers discusses in “Disability in Theory”, the social constructionist model of viewing disability implies that the body itself is a social construction; further, our overall views of the body are dictated by society’s standards of normality and physical ideals. While Seibers also presents counterarguments to using this theory in the context of disability studies, I still believe that its central points are applicable to this field and can enrich our studies of disability as a part of our society.

The main point of social constructionism is that all of our ideals and standards, what we consider “normal”, is influenced by our society as a whole. When changing the societal context in which we view a certain body, the actual view of that body is altered accordingly as well. As Seibers wrote in his article, “In a society of wheelchair users, stairs would be nonexistent,” (p. 174). This is a simple example which reinforces the discussions our class has been having for over a month, that an individual is not disabled until their society makes it so. As a personal example, I am incredibly nearsighted, and depend fully on glasses and contacts to navigate my world. If I lived in a society in which these resources were inaccessible or considered abnormal, I would be disabled; however, since this is not the case in our society, I merely have a vision impairment, which is easily adapted into my life. This again shows the dependence we have on our society to determine how our bodies are viewed, treated, and accepted (or not).

In addition to this, I felt that Sheila Black’s poem “What You Mourn,” spoke volumes to the conversation which Seibers has in “Disability in Theory,” and ultimately reinforces the strength of social constructionism as a theoretical argument in disability studies. While the poem’s narrator has a physical disability which has been “fixed,” the narrator themself is mourning the body they were born with. Regardless of how their physical impairments made “normal” activities difficult or impossible for them, the narrator is speaking of their disabled body as a lost love of sorts. In response to the societal voices which called their body “crippled… disabled and then differently abled,” the narrator explains that these labels were given from an external point of view, from people who had never shared the narrator’s experiences. In discussing the ongoing commentary about their body, the narrator explains that “none of [these outsiders] could imagine / that the crooked body they spoke of / … was simply mine.” Here the narrator is saying that their disabled body had inherent value despite their society saying that it didn’t; instead of looking at their impairments as flaws in need of perfecting, they saw them as unique differences which enhanced their value. At the poem’s conclusion, the narrator compares loving their unique and “abnormal” body to one loving one’s country, including “the familiar lay of the land, the unkempt trees, / …down to the nameless / flowers at your feet.” Regardless of how society views the physically impaired body, this poem allows us to view this situation from the perspective of someone who values their supposedly disabled and undesirable body, and ultimately ties in perfectly with the theory of social constructionism by showing that societal views of the body are not universal.

Word Count: 553

Rebecca Hinson’s Response to Robert McRuer’s “Introduction: Compulsory Able-Bodiedness and Queer/Disabled Existence”

Heterosexuality and able-bodiedness has been defined not by what they are, but by what they aren’t. To give meaning to homosexual and disabled, it has been written down as deviations from the norm. In this case the norm being heterosexuality and the able-bodied. Much like Audre Lorde often focuses on the intersectionality of her many characteristics, these four categories rely on their other, to exist; you cannot have one without the other.

There is much similarity in the LGBT movement as there is in the Disability movement. Both have roots in the constant normalizing of what makes them different. Both have terms used previous as harmful and derogatory, now at the face of their theories (queer and crip.) However, most importantly they define what it means for society to be normal. Society requires these definitions so that they can label and pursue and prosecute the “abnormalities” from a “perfect” society to stabilize institutions that were thought to be in jeopardy from this deviance. Queerness was defined in the 19^th century as an oddity. Eventually defining it as a homosexual, which is the defined as someone who deviates from the “norm” and has relations with a member of the same sex (discluding women at the time, because of course they cannot be trusted with the knowledge that they can have relations with other women.) The definition was morphed into many different terms like gross indecency, or sodomy, or my personal favorite “somdomite.” The point being that without defining what queerness is, you cannot have these institutions like the law governing it, which is what society wants.

Society wants to govern personal aspects of life, so that life runs more smoothly. In theory, the more people deviate away from that norm, the more chaos it causes. With disability, society defines it as someone with a body unable to function “normally.” This normal being that someone is not hindered by how society has created buildings, jobs, school systems, government, etc. To deal with this deviance, instead of working to make these institutions and places more accessible, society created ways of moving them out of these environments. For example, literal institutions were created to move them away from society itself.

McRuer says in his introduction “According to the flexible logic of neoliberalism, all varieties of queerness — and, for that matter disabilities — are essentially temporary, appearing only when, and as long as, they are necessary.” (29) He is calling attention to the idea that definitions are not all encompassing. Where it is considered a disability in one setting, it can be the norm in another because nothing is being hindered.

The “norm” is personal. My norm is different than my roommate’s norm, or my professor’s norm. My norm is different than someone with a disability. This does not make someone else lesser of a person. A queer woman with down syndrome is just as important as the next. The fault is with the way that people with disabilities are ostracized because they cannot conform to the way society wants, because their norm is just too different than the mass population’s norm.

Word Count: 516

I Pledge: Rebecca Hinson