3:30am May 26, 2014

➸ And the most important DD community value I share.

fierceawakening:

youneedacat:

Is the one that says people are people first.

The reason that the most well-known DD advocacy organization is known as People First is not just a language thing. I mean, most people in the organization do use people-first language. But that’s not the…

I’m not sure if I misunderstood you or not, but I’m really sorry if i did!

I wasn’t sure if you disliked person-first language or not. I thought you might not like it, but I didn’t know.

I understood you to be saying that the most important thing is the CONCEPT of putting people first.

What I was trying to say is that I think the concept is much more important than one narrow execution that’s all about how people talk (that the disability community as a whole can’t even agree on anyway.)

Even if one way of talking was the right one, getting the talking right and missing the point would be a problem.

Yes that’s exactly how I think:

1. I don’t really use person-first language, except sometimes when it just pops out that way, or when I’m referring to a population of people who overwhelmingly prefers it (out of respect).

2. The concept of putting people first is the most important thing, and that’s what self-advocates were getting at when they called themselves People First. They did use person-first language quite often, but that was not the actual reason they called themselves People First.

3. Yes, absolutely, the concept is the most important thing, it’s way more important than flipping words around. (Although I will flip words around if someone finds it important on a personal level – if I can get my language centers to do it on that day, which is a huge if.)

And yes, the biggest point is that people are human first and foremost. Which is a huge idea when coming from a group of people who have been shut out of the definition of humanity for a long time. I think people who have not been so thoroughly shut out of the definition of humanity, or who have not experienced that shutting out on a very personal level, don’t always realize how much that drives a person to say “I’m human and that’s the most important thing that matters about me.”

“Those whose sameness to this reference point, this mythical man, has been stressed – whose struggle in his world has been blamed on choice, on moral lapse – may quite reasonably insist on their difference. "Disabled and Proud,” reads a tee-shirt. Those whose difference from him has been stressed – whose exclusion from his world has been considered justified – may quite reasonably assert their sameness. “I am not a puzzle. I am a person,” reads a button.“ -Cal Montgomery, "Critic of the Dawn”

But it’s more than sameness and difference, because being people first is not always about being the same. Many people who belong to People First are quite adamant that being different is good. It’s just that being different does not ever stop the fact that people are people, first and foremost.

Notes: