Twentieth Anniversary of Handicapped
By Tim Wheat
Tim Wheat, photo by Tom Olin
Twenty years ago today the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act, was signed by President Bush in the Rose Garden. I have read and heard speeches about this anniversary; most people marking the day as a great step forward in civil rights, but cautiously adding that there is still a long way to go. I have a unique goal for this anniversary.
My hope for the 20 year celebration is not to hear the word “handicap” applied to our community today.
The ADA, now 20 years old, does not include the word “handicap” in any of the nearly 22,000 words of the act. There was an effort in the disability community to advance the term “people with disabilities” as the characterization of choice. Similarly, the term “handicapped” was demoted, but it is not clear if it is truly derogatory or simply a label that is not preferred. Conversely, the Fair Housing Amendments Act is packed with the word handicapped. It was passed two years before the ADA does not use the word “disability” even once in its almost 12 thousand words.
Ironically the Americans with Disabilities Amendments Act, which was passed by Congress in 2008 to rectify some of the courts understanding of the original concept of disability, uses the words “handicap” and “handicapped” each one time.
Hatred and disrespect are obvious when someone uses a derogatory term for a racial or ethnic group; however, the word “handicapped” does not seem to carry the same venom when aimed at our community. Likewise, people with disabilities often don’t react with malice when they are called handicapped. Many people with disabilities, agencies that work with people with disabilities and the disability community as a whole do not have a consistent reaction to “handicapped” as a demeaning term.
Text graphic ...we can expect to be called handicapped for years to come.
Most of the time people do not use the word in anger and so they project a passive reception for the listener. On the other hand, if a person means to humiliate a person with a disability; calling them handicapped does not seem to have much bite.
Slurs and racial insults are not purged from the language, but they don’t have the pseudo-government approval that the word “handicapped” does. By pseudo-government approval I mostly point to the Fair Housing Amendments Act that uses the term extensively. It gives lawyers, journalists and our community the tacit approval to use “handicapped” to describe us. Although the ADA does not use the term, it also does not prohibit its use and the proliferation of “Handicapped Parking” signs implicitly creates that approval. For the upcoming national election, the state of Colorado has approved “Handicapped Access” for voter instructions. The state and federal accessible parking regulations do not use the word handicapped, however a significant number of businesses will purchase signs that will say: “Handicapped Parking.”
I know some people will think I have ruined my enjoyment of the 20th Anniversary by paying homage to political correctness rather than the civil rights at the root of the celebration. Of course it would be nice if no one used the word, but I feel that after twenty years our inability to define ourselves says more about the impact of the Americans with Disabilities Act that the employment rate, poverty and housing. Until the disability community provides clear direction and leadership we can expect to be called handicapped for years to come.
Handicapped parking sign