Ordinary people: why the disabled aren't so different.

I don't know about you, but I hate talking to anyone at 6:30 in the morning. Unfortunately, this became my fate on a recent flight. Before I could fold up my white cane, my seatmate began interrogating me.

"I had no idea they let you people out,' she began, as if speaking to a child. "Don't you all live in nursing homes?" I told her that, like most blind people, I live in my own home.

I was on an assignment to write a piece about Walden Pond. Before I could listen to Thoreau on the "Talking Book" tape, my inquisitor demanded, "How can you cook?" I told her how I cooked. This wasn't good enough for her. "I don't see how you people manage. How do you wash your underwear?"

That was the straw that broke the camel's back.

She'll never believe a disabled person can lead an ordinary life, I told myself. But if I tell her a tall tale, she'll swallow it.

"I'm great with underwear," I informed her. "I'm the world's first blind entomologist. I track bugs from New Zealand to Egypt. I have to work twice as hard as my sighted peers. But I can hear insect sounds inaudible to sighted entomologists"

My seatmate exclaimed, "It's amazing what you people can do!"

A few weeks ago, I was in a New York City taxi. The driver, like most cabbies, asked me how long I'd been blind and what I did. I told him I've been legally blind since birth and that I'm a writer. "What a boring story!" he sneered. "My sister-in-law got blind through a hunting accident. Take your stick to the streets and beg," he also suggested helpfully. "Then you'd make a mint."

Meanwhile, the Central Intelligence Agency once asked my friend Hugh, who has polio, to be a spy. "You're in a wheelchair. Nobody would ever suspect," they told him.

Such is the matrix of sentiment, stereotype, ignorance, and curiosity that comprises society's attitudes toward we who are disabled. People see us as beggars, helpless victims, or superheroes. As David Hevey of the disability program unit of the British Broad casting Company says, the non disabled "think either that we can do nothing or that we can perform the most superhuman feats."

One in five Americans--49 million--has some type of disability. One in ten voters this election is disabled. The Americans with Disabilities Act was the most sweeping civil rights law since the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Yet most Americans know so little about those of us with disabilities that you'd think we were from Mars.

October is National Disability Awareness Month. What better time to reflect on disability--one of the least understood components of America's past and present?

Why is there so much misperception surrounding people with disabilities? Mention disability to most people and they'll start to squirm. More than half of all Americans (58 percent) feel embarrassed around disabled people, according to a Lou Harris poll. The survey also found that nearly half of the general public (47 percent) are actually fearful of the disabled.

It's too facile to suggest that the media alone have created societal attitudes toward the disabled. Yet stereotypes of disabled people pervade the media: from the embittered blind veteran in Scent of a Woman to Tiny Tim in A Christmas Carol. Hollywood has depicted disabled people in stereotypical images since the days of silent films. Martin E. Norden, author of The Cinema of Isolation: A History of Physical Disability in the Movies (Rutgers University Press), writes: "The movie industry has perpetuated . . . stereotypes . . . so durable and pervasive that they have become mainstream society's perception of disabled people."

Media images may not be the only cause of prejudice or discrimination against people like me, but they play a significant part in the creation of attitudes toward the disabled.

Take Dumb and Dumber. I had the misfortune of being asked to review this imbecilic flick. (Like most legally blind people, I have some vision; I'm able to see movies if I sit very close to the screen.) Its "plot" involves a blind child and a dead bird, and it's implied that the kid, because he's blind, is so dumb that he can't tell whether the parakeet is dead or alive.

Going into Dumb and Dumber, I ran into a bunch of junior high kids who had just seen the movie. They saw me and laughed. "Bet she's stupid," a girl snorted. "Why do you think I'm dumb?" I asked. She snapped, "In the movie, the blind kid's dumb." "The movies show how we are?" I persisted. "Yeah, dummy," the kids called out.

Those rude kids were on to something. The media do shape our attitudes.

George Covington, who is legally blind, was a special assistant to quintessentially politically incorrect Dan Quayle. Yet Covington speaks for many disabled people on both the left and right when he says, "We're seen as 'inspiration,' and inspiration sells like hotcakes. My disability isn't a burden; having to be so damned inspirational is."

I was reminded again of the impact of media images this summer when I saw Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame. This version of Victor Hugo's literary classic was monster lite. Quasimodo was a more lovable, less monstrous creature than in previous versions of this story. But this made the movie no less demeaning to we who are disabled. Quasimodo is still portrayed as an ugly, half formed creature who bounces between being a wimp and a superhero.

The term hunchback is as offensive to disabled people as any racial epithet. Disney officials insist that this term is not demeaning when used within the context of the full title of the film. They say they have instructed those involved in marketing The Hunchback of Notre Dame merchandise not to use the term hunchback. But in the hectic context of a busy store, most sales clerks understandably can't comply with Disney's instructions. I visited my local Disney Company store after the film opened. "Mommy, Mommy, buy me the hunch back!" pleaded a little girl. The clerk said, "We're out of the stuffed Quasimodo. The kids love to touch his hump."

Disabled people asked Disney to consult with them during the early stages of the film's production. Disney refused. "Our proposed film tracks the story of a person who at first feels deformed but learns that he has a great value as a human being,' Disney officials said. "Our firm does not suggest, state, or imply that people with disabilities should be socially ostracized."

But this wasn't the case when I saw The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Small children cried out in fright when they saw Quasi's heroics. A boy said to his dad, "I don't want to see that hunchback." Older children laughed when Quasimodo whined about his inability to make Esmeralda, the Gypsy girl, love him. A boy told his friend, "Quasi's a dumb wimp."

What does this movie say about those of us with disabilities? It says our only friends are stone gargoyles; that we are never ordinary people but only monsters or superheroes; that no matter how heroic we are, we will never have a loving romantic relationship.

People like me fear that this film and Disney's accompanying marketing blitz will increase the ridicule and prejudice encountered by both disabled children and adults. San Francisco State University professor Paul Longmore, who has a spinal curvature, says, "I have had children recoil from me because they have seen movies that taught them to fear or pity anyone who looked like me. Unfortunately, Disney's Hunch back may increase these negative attitudes."

Fortunately, some recent documentaries have offered moving, irreverent stories of people with disabilities. Two in particular--Twitch and Shout and When Billy Broke His Head . . . and Other Tales of Wonder--are refreshing departures from "inspirational" stories.

In the spring of 1997, the cable TV channel Cinemax will broadcast Breathing Lessons, a portrait of poet and journalist Mark O'Brien. O'Brien of Berkeley, California, has had polio since childhood and lives in an iron lung. However, he's no "courageous cripple." He writes prose and poetry on topics ranging from love to assisted suicide. He plays with society's feelings of repulsion and attraction toward the disabled by posting a sign on his iron lung, which reads: "This porthole may be opened should you feel the need to: (a) touch, (b) tickle, (c) feel up, (d) all of the above the person residing within."

One day filmmakers may produce not only documentaries but dramas and comedies reflecting the lives of people like me. Until then we'll remain monsters, victims, or superheroes to most Americans.

Another element in understanding America's perceptions of disability can be found in the treatment of historical figures who were disabled. Little is known about the role that people with disabilities have played in our history. Take World War II, for instance. During that war, while able bodied men fought overseas, disabled people on the homefront worked in defense plants and in offices.

Throughout history, disabled people have largely been unemployed. (Today, even with the ADA, two thirds of the disabled are still unemployed.) In the 1930s, Longmore notes, members of New York City's League of the Physically Handicapped staged sit ins to protest the exclusion of disabled people from New Deal jobs programs.

Yet the war used the talents of unprecedented numbers of disabled people, points out Frank Bowe, author of Handicapping America (Harper and Row, 1978). He says, "At home there was a massive mobilization to produce weapons needed by the armed forces. Employers were forced to hire disabled people at all levels and in all job categories" Blind people worked in factories. Hundreds of deaf people came to Akron, Ohio, to work for the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company and Goodyear Tire Company, both of which had been con versed to defense plants. Akron became known as the "cross roads of the deaf."

Mentally retarded people left the institutions where they lived to enlist in the armed forces. Linda Moore, professor of history at Eastern New Mexico University, says, "The military didn't care if you could read or write. They needed people who could obey orders, cope with military life, and shoot guns" Ironically, the regimentation of military life offered freedom to people with mental retardation who lived in the restrictive environment of institutions. Moore notes, "They had few rights. In most states, they couldn't get married; they didn't have a right to an education or a job. But they had a right to fight."

But it was back to business as usual after VJ Day. Like African Americans and women, most disabled workers lost their jobs when the GIs returned home.

Not surprisingly, given America's ignorance of disability, little mention was made of the contribution disabled people made to the war in the commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of World War II.

As May Cutis, a deaf woman who worked in a defense plant, said in an interview S0 years after V-E Day, "I was the deaf Rosie the Riveter. It's just not in the history books."

Until recently, history books didn't mention that Franklin Delano Roosevelt--the president who led America through the Depression and World War II--was paralyzed for the rest of his life after contracting polio. Historians made it seem as if FDR had recovered from polio--that the disease had just left him with a limp. (This was, of course, what Roosevelt made Americans believe during his lifetime.) Most people had no idea that FDR used a wheelchair--that he was unable to "walk" or "stand" without assistance. As Hugh Gregory Gallagher, author of FDR's Splendid Deception, writes: "Crippled or not, the nation wanted him as its leader. So an agreement was struck: the people would pretend that their leader was not crippled, and their leader would do all he could not to let them see that he was."

With the exception of two occasions, FDR maintained this deception throughout his public life. But he twice decided that people should know about his disability. Once, Roosevelt had himself propelled in his wheelchair through a ward of wounded soldiers so they could see that rehabilitation was possible. And once, while addressing Congress upon returning from the Yalta conference, FDR referred to his disability. He told the assembled lawmakers:

I hope you will pardon me for the unusual posture of

sitting down during the presentation of what I wish to

say, but I know you will realize it makes it a lot easier

for me in not having to carry about ten pounds of steel

around the bottom of my legs and also because of the

fact I have just completed a fourteen thousand mile trip.

FDR didn't want a memorial to be built to honor him. But like the wishes of many leaders, this desire of Roosevelt has not been heeded. The Roosevelt memorial is scheduled to open next year. The commission planning the memorial doesn't want to show FDR in his wheelchair. It says FDR wouldn't wish to be depicted as disabled because he wanted to appear able' bodied during his lifetime.

The National Organization on Disability wants at least one statue at the memorial to depict FDR in a wheelchair. Members of FDR's family have called for their relative to be shown as he really was: a great leader who had a disability. Even George Bush and conservative columnist George Will (hardly poster children for identity politics) have taken this stance.

According to U.S. News and World Report, NOD is offering a compromise to (at least temporarily) resolve this dispute. In 194S, FDR gave a wheelchair to Ibn Saud, an arthritic Saudi king. NOD is proposing that Saudi Arabia donate the wheel chair so it can be placed in the memorial. But though the proposal is being considered, the dispute remains unresolved.

(Ironically, the memorial commission originally planned to depict Eleanor Roosevelt as wearing her famous fox fur coat. But fearing protests from animal rights groups, they nixed this idea.)

Helen Keller (1880-1968) is the most famous disabled person in American history. Born in rural Alabama, she became blind and deaf at 18 months of age. Keller became world renowned as an advocate for people with disabilities. She worked as a fundraiser and lobbyist for the American Foundation for the Blind for more than 40 years.

The Miracle Worker, Hollywood's rendering of how Annie Sullivan, visually impaired herself, taught Keller language, has become a "passion play" for those seeking inspiration. Yet few know that Keller was no one dimensional stick pin of inspiration.

History texts don't show Keller as she was: a vibrant, opinionated, three-dimensional figure--so lively that the Federal Bureau of Investigation actually kept a file on her.

A 1904 Radcliffe College graduate influenced by the intellectual climate of America's first progressive era, Keller was an early feminist and supporter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In 1916, she wrote to the NAACP president: "It should bring a blush of shame to the face of every true American to know that 10 million of his countrymen are denied the equal pro section of the laws." She even sent a $100 donation with her letter--big bucks for that time!

Keller was a socialist as well as an opponent of child labor and capital punish meet. She believed that poverty was the root of injustice and suffering. And at a time when unions were viewed with little respect, she declared that the labor movement was "essential for democracy"

Like many of us who are disabled, Keller didn't like being pigeonholed into the crip ghetto. She complained, "It is difficult for me to get a hearing on any subJect not connected with myself and my own experience (of being deaf blind). When I write seriously about the broader aspects of human life, people are apt to laugh and tell me that I know nothing about the practical world."

Why is so little known about Keller's political and social views? The answer lies in her decision to work for the American Foundation for the Blind. Upon starting her employment at the AFB, Keller downplayed her political views. She wanted to help blind people and she needed a paycheck. Joseph P. Lash writes in Helen and teacher (Delta/Seymour Lawrence): "She soft pedaled her politics presumably at the request of the Foundation. There is no document to that effect, but . . . there was a cogent case against Helen, the Foundation's chief fund raiser, proclaiming views that were likely to give offense to many potential donors."

An AFB exhibit now making its way across the country--"Inspiration and Innovation: Helen Keller and the American Foundation for the Blind"--gives no hint of Keller's political views. Its highlights include a volume of Keller's Braille Bible and copies of her acclaimed autobiography, The Story of My Life. Keller's political views aren't on display, however. When asked why this is the case, Liz Greco, AFB communications vice president, said, "We have nothing to hide. Helen Keller worked for us for 44 years advocating human rights for the blind and visually impaired and for all people with disabilities. That's what we chose to show." (The exhibit can be seen in Chicago from November 1 to December 2 and in New York in January 1997.)

Despite keeping a low profile about her political views, Keller never deviated from her beliefs. In the 1930s, she wrote to Eleanor Roosevelt about Out of the Dark, a 1913 collection of Keller's socialist essays: "Some of the things I said at the time are now out of date, but the spirit of revolt . . . remains."

Will America move beyond mythmaking in its perceptions of disabled people in its past and present? One hopes so, but changing attitudes takes time. Fear, pity, and ignorance are difficult handicaps to overcome.

RELATED ARTICLE: Quotable Keller . . .

"My work for the blind . . . has never occupied a center in my personality. . . . My sympathies are with all who struggle for justice."

Asked during Prohibition if she could feel moonshine: "No but I can smell it."

In response to being asked who are the three greatest men of our times: "Lenin, Edison, and Charlie Chaplin."

On President Warren Harding: "I have a fellow feeling for him; he seems as blind as I am."

In reply to being asked if America has been true to its ideals: "I'm afraid to answer that: the Ku Klux Klan might give me a ducking."

When asked if the voice of the people is heard at the polls: "No. I think money talks so loud that the voice of the people is drowned."

When asked what is the slowest thing in the world: "Congress."

When asked if women are men's intellectual equals: "I think God made woman foolish so that she might be a suitable companion to man."

"I regard philanthropy as a tragic apology for wrong conditions."

And commenting on how disabled World War II vets should be treated, Keller said they do "not want to be treated as heroes. They want to be able to live naturally and to be treated as human beings."

--from Helen and Teacher (available for $23.95 from the American Foundation for the Blind, 11 Penn Plaza, Suite 300, New York, NY 10001; 800232 3044)