Ah I remember now

I was thinking last night about this culture problem. The notion of disability-as-identity still troubles me. I was speaking to a guy recently who seemed to suggest that his cerebral palsy went to the core of his being; that is, he had positioned himself as ‘other’. He spoke of ‘inner self’ etc. I would hope that those of you who have read my recent witterings know how problematic a notion this is to me: I know enough about Abnormal Psychology to realise that ‘normal’ is subjective’. I mean, how do you define normal? Even when we reduce the subject to mathematical averages, any cut off point between normal and abnormal is arbitrary. It follows, then, that everyone is normal.

This has implications for inclusion. If everyone is normal, then we all have an equal right to go to the same schools. By widening the definition of normal, we must also expand the ability of schools to accommodate normal kids.

As I keep saying, segregated education fosters difference. Yet we can also reverse that: you foster difference by segregation. The notion that disabled people should render themselves as ‘other’ in order to ‘develop their culture’ or whatever, should, by rights, logically lead to a pro-segregation stance. It is as if we say ‘we are different, therefore we should be treated differently’. The notion that we are different gives rise to the notion that we should be treated differently. This is exactly what happens in the case of religious schools: they foster culture but also difference, and needless to say I am against those too. Thus I find this disability-as-identity bollox ultimately uninclusive. Hell, look at Palestine, look at northern Ireland.

That’s why I define myself as normal. Okay, I use a lightwriter and wheelchair, but they are just tools, and after all tool use is part of what defines us all as human. The fact that I have cp is no more a part off my identity than the fact that I have brown hair.