Dear Accessibility Advocates:

Speaking from experience as a visible member of the class since birth:

- We wonder why people with differences or differabilities are treated as
inanimate objects, without civil rights and human needs.

- We wonder why equal access to services, including library services, education,
and other social services, does not include people who do things differently.

- We wonder why when we who do things differently or our advocates ask for equal
access/accessibility, those who can grant such access turn away and ignore us.

Look at what we call ourselves, the people for whom we advocate, the cause for
which we are advocating:

"the disabled, the ______-disabled, handicapped, limited, impaired, invalid,"
etc. And everyone else: the double-negative "the "non-disabled" (which
actually no one can be since no one is perfect.)

By DICTIONARY definition (i.e. not my definition), the term "disabled" means
"non-functioning, incapable, incapacitated, inoperable."

By DICTIONARY definition (not my definition), the prefix "dis" means "not, no."

So it should not be a surprise that our negatively-labeled cause results in an
equally negative image/perception of and reaction to our cause.

Why should anyone throw money, time, or effort at a cause or at things that do
not function, do not work, are as useless as an appropriately-named inanimate
disabled smoke detector that we discard in the trash heap.

I certainly would not invest or spend my money, time, or effort on something
that does not function, does not work, is inoperable. Would you?

This is not an issue of being politically correct.  This is an issue of
portraying our cause and the PEOPLE about whom we speak and for whom we
advocate in a positive manner. Positive Sells.  Positive Wins.  Every Time.
Ask Madison Avenue and every successful corporation and cause.

If we want positive results, we need to portray ourselves and our cause
positively.

I am not about to suggest terminology except that it be people first and
positive.

For my use, and for anyone else who would like to use the terminology, I coined
the term "people with differabilities" to accurately define what having a
differability is all about. "People with
vision/hearing/learning/cognitive/mobility differences" simply sounds much
better - and IS much more accurate than negative "the visually-impaired, the
mentally-retarded, etc."  For our differences are on a continuum and none of us
are perfect.

We all join the class sooner or later, through birth, accident, illness, war,
lifestyle choice, natural disaster, or just by aging. Accessibility is a
universal need and so a cause relevant to everyone.  Doing things differently
is a universal type of diversity and a type of diversity everyone shares.

Positive language works for every successful cause and effort.  Positive
language can work for us and make our accessibility cause successful too.

Thank you all for your advocacy.

Ellen Perlow
Chair, ALA ASCLA Century Scholarship Committee
The ALA ASCLA Century Scholarship Diversity Initiative
"Celebrating a New Century that Celebrates Diversity"
http://www.ala.org/ascla/centuryscholarship.html
Have YOU recruited/applied to be a Century Scholarship applicant today?
----------------------------------------------------
Manager of Information Services
School of Library and Information Studies
Texas Woman's University
P.O. Box 425438
Denton, TX 76204-5438
Tel.: 940-898-2622  Fax: 940-898-2611
Web: http://twu.edu/~s_perlow/
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