Julie Carl
BG Independent News
“Disability is everywhere if you know how to look for it,” said Rosemary Garland Thompson, PhD, bioethicist, educator and humanist, thought leader in disability justice and culture. I’m here.
Finding obstacles is an opportunity to explore and redefine what it means to be human and to craft new stories, she said in a recent public lecture at Bowling Green State University.
“The human diversity that we think of as disability is part of the human condition and occurs in every life and every family. side,” she said.
Disability is part of our culture, history, politics and aesthetics.
In culture, disability exists in literature, performance, art, and design, and is defined as “a product of cultural rules about what the body should be or do, rather than a characteristic of the body”. gave many examples. Early literature, such as Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, is written with a disability. At the beginning of the book, an infant Oedipus is found on a mountaintop, bound and with swollen legs. By the end of the book, Oedipus’ disorder is blindness after gouging out his eyes in despair.
An important contemporary American literature in which disability stands out is Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, in which Captain Ahab has a nailed leg. In William Faulkner’s “Sound and the Fury,” the main character, Benji Compson, has cognitive impairment.
In performance culture, disability is represented in a variety of genres, including the music of three African-American piano players and singers (Tom Wiggins, Ray Charles, and Stevie Wonder). Award-winning actor Peter Dinklage for his role as Tyrion Lannister in ‘Game of Thrones’ is a petite figure.
Artists Frida Kahlo and Riva Lehrer painted disability in portraits and self-portraits. Claude Monet’s work evolved artistically as his eyesight deteriorated. “His later works, such as ‘Water Lilies,’ are ambiguous because they are what he actually saw,” Garland-Thomson said.
Inclusive design is about restructuring and restructuring the world to accommodate disability and create access within the built environment.
From designing ramps to building access to individual technologies such as wheelchairs and prosthetics, inclusive design has transformed shared spaces and the composition of those who live in them.
“Wheelchairs and walkers used to be medical devices designed to be used or pushed by sick people. This change is evident in large airports, where utility vehicles are now used by able-bodied people.
Many of the design changes that have occurred are due to the passage of the Persons with Disabilities Act, which began as part of the Civil Rights Act of the 1960s. Until the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990, individuals with disabilities were treated equally and guaranteed employment opportunities and access to public facilities.
The ramp and access route are very different from the original ramp, where the architect strapped or bolted the ramp to the front of the building, “destroying the aesthetic and economic value of the building.” Today, ramps and flyovers are at the very heart of design, allowing access anywhere “if you know how to look for it,” Garland-Thomson said.
“Often accesses such as ramps, door pushes, and tactile clocks don’t call attention to themselves, but they enable people to participate. You create inclusion by changing who you share it with,” she added.
Prior to the enactment of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, persons with disabilities were not allowed access to public schools or public transportation. “You couldn’t have gone to school together.
The built environment prevented many people with disabilities from entering public spaces, so someone in a wheelchair.
Garland-Thomson encouraged individuals, institutions, and communities to understand the history, culture, justice, and available technologies and accommodations of people with disabilities.
“You can put disability inclusion into practice where you live and where you work. Markets and schools. Working together to promote disability inclusion changes attitudes, increases access and strengthens communities.” You can build and cultivate leadership,” she said.
A world that includes disabilities is a better world for all because more people can share and live together in caring communities.
