Language is a key element of the Social Model of Disability, with words or phrases often carrying the weight of cultural assumptions, and reflecting and influencing how disabled people are perceived. Liz Crow and Alun Davies share their thoughts.
Liz Crow discusses the use of the word ‘crip’
“It was a way of recognising each other, and it was a way of naming the shared experience”
Liz Crow
“Early on in the movement, we very clearly reclaimed the word ‘crip’ from cripple; it just happened organically. I think at the time it was a really very small movement, then obviously it has grown exponentially. We’d find ourselves in situations together, and the word would be there. It would just be an easy usage from one crip to another – it was a way of recognising each other, and it was a way of naming the shared experience. You might have a group of people with incredibly different impairments, but what we got was where we sat in society, the barriers we were facing, and the fact that we were coming together as a political force to challenge them. It embodied that whole thing that we were in. For us, it was really, really celebratory.
“For a non-disabled person to refer to us as ‘cripple’ or to pick up the word ‘crip’ felt really wrong. It was very much about reclaiming and subverting a word that had historically been used against a community, had been used to suppress and oppress a community, and suddenly we’re using it as a tool of liberation. And I still love the word used among Disabled people. The way my life is at the moment, I don’t hear it enough between Disabled people. And yet, just thinking about it now, it does fill me with joy, because it was a really joyous word in the way that it connected us and it expressed who we were.”
Alun Davies explains how a change in language represented a key ideological shift in disability rights activism
“I still object deeply to the term ‘people with disabilities’ being used, because what I recognise now is that term is the epitome of a medical charity model approach”
Alun Davies
Alun Davies recalls that in the late 1980s, there was “an ideological difference in terms of interpretation of the Social Model of disability, and the distinguishing factor was the language used”. He says: “The mainstream movement organising the British Council of Disabled People and Coalitions used ‘Disabled people’, whereas the BDRG and the Liberation Network used ‘people with disabilities’.” The Social Model is effectively based on how views towards disability and the social structure developed.
“I still object deeply to the term ‘people with disabilities’ being used, because what I recognise now is that term is the epitome of a medical charity model approach, which puts the person first and the disability second. So I will challenge the term whenever it’s used. For me personally and for the movement down here, ‘disabled people’ is the term, that’s what it is, that’s what it always will be, and that’s what it always should be. So if any professionals use ‘people with disabilities’, I will challenge that. Not actively in my role in work now, but in my personal life, [if] anybody who uses ‘people with disabilities’ in my presence, [I will say], very politely and very friendly ‘Come on, it’s Disabled people’.
“Now, I would use ‘people with a visual impairment’, but that for me is still within the ideology. That’s not about putting the person first, that’s simply a descriptor. I have a visual impairment, no more, no less. That’s not putting the good bit first or the bad bit second. It’s simply saying, ‘I’m a person with a visual impairment’. I wouldn’t call myself a ‘visually impaired person’, because that’s saying that my impairment is dictating who I am, whereas for me, ‘person with a visual impairment’ is a neutral, balanced term.”
Is language still part of his activism? “Not in a way that identity politics has developed now. The development of social media and Disabled people’s issues has meant that identity issues and language issues have become much more important. I don’t think I identify with those, because I think [they] have gone to an extreme. So for me, language was always important and I always challenged oppressive language, but it was always within a political and ideological construct.”
“Personally, language is very important to me. So I make firm choices about my language. I really struggle with using the term ‘blind copy’. I can’t yet find an alternative language to that. There are terms I personally will not use: ‘he hasn’t got a leg to stand on’, ‘that’s a no-brainer’ – I won’t use that phrase, partly because my daughter didn’t have a brain and partly because it’s negative. So I will personally be very, very careful on my language, but I will not impose that on others, except for the use of the term ‘people with disabilities’, or the use of the term ‘handicapped’. I’ll challenge those, but all those other things, I won’t raise with individuals, but personally I try and ensure that the language I use reflects the ideology and belief I have.”