Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Post # 12

When reading about the disable, I think about how this form of oppression revolves around a seemingly impossible pace of a society that runs on abelism. “[M]ost industrialized societies give non-disabled people (in different degrees and kinds, depending on class, race, gender, and other factors) a lot of help in the form of education, training, social support… and other services” (Wendell 479). With this thought in mind, I could have been mentally disabled if I were raised in a different community: a community that didn’t have proper educational or community opportunities. I want to focus on this because it’s where I feel I have a rare privilege that most people of color cannot easily attain. That I feel I struggled to attain. Yet at the same time, I can acknowledge that there people that have more difficult struggles and many times those struggles over take them.  
            I think about the documentary Waiting for Superman. It deals with parents of color fighting, and raffling, to get their children into a charter school. It also shows how resilient certain communities are to academic growth. I haven’t seen the movie, just interviews with the director. Nevertheless it allows me to have an appreciation for the school communities that I’ve been in. It allows me to feel out of place. Sometimes in a good way, sometimes in a bad way. The idea of being black and educated, even today, sounds like an oxymoron. I like to consider myself more a survivor as opposed to educated. However, after taking this course I know that’s probably more an excuse, my privilege acting up again: )
            Another oxymoron that was mentioned was the disabled dancers in Gimp. Not to undermine a disabled person’s set backs, I say this more meant to complement. Seeing people, who have underdeveloped or lost limbs, finding freedom in their own limitations, evokes an inspiration for me to find my own limitations and free myself to move. It’s a crazy paradoxical idea to wrap the mind around, but very true to a lot of situations I’ve been in.  

2 comments:

  1. I really like how you connected this to "Waiting for Superman". I haven't seen the document but my best friend went to see it and it really changed her views. I like how you used the word "freedom" for the movie "Gimp" because it really does describe how they feel. When they get to dance they are free from any sort of "disability" that our society views.

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  2. Thanks for letting me know about this documentary film. I have added it to my queue. I think Gimp is empowering to many different types of people for the way it frees the body from hegemonic social constraint. In that sense, it uses dance metaphorically to evoke a spirit of both individual and collective liberation that cajoles people to examine their lives in fresh and unique ways.

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