How to Represent a Disability
- 1). Read websites like those of the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund and the National Center on Disability and Journalism (NCDJ). According to these and many other disability rights advocates, the most rampant stereotypes include misconceptions like the "supercripple" who heroically overcomes his disability through sheer force of will and the "pathetic, burdensome vegetable" who is presumed better off dead. Many common stereotypes present disability at worst as a character flaw and at best as a strictly individual medical problem. By contrast, the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities understands disability as "the result of the interaction between a person and his or her environment," an insight that can foster the creation of more inclusive social environments with and for people with disabilities. The NCDJ, for example, offers reporters many tips on how to create such environments in the everyday practice of their craft, such as not jumping in to help disabled interviewees, but first asking whether and precisely what help they need. This guideline can promote representations of disabled people, portraying the individuals as capable of articulating and defining their own needs and interpersonal boundaries.
- 2). Honestly evaluate your own attitudes toward people with disabilities. Access University of Victoria's [British Columbia, Canada] "Top Ten Stereotypes of Disabled People" and Mission Empower's quizzes on disability awareness, famous people with disabilities and job accommodation scenarios can assist you with this task.
- 3). Learn as much as possible about the details of the specific disability you seek to represent. Not all disabilities result in wheelchair use, and some are in fact invisible. U.N. Enable defines the term "persons with disabilities" as encompassing people with a wide variety of "long-term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairments." Because no complete list of human disabilities exists online, search online for informational resources and support organizations regarding the specific disability. The Rare Diseases Database may be helpful if you cannot easily find this information.
- 4). Recognize that people with disabilities or even with the same disability are as diverse and unique as members of any other group or as any other human beings. As the late poet and disability rights advocate Laura Hershey wrote: "To get anywhere near a truthful representation of our lives, we need nuance, texture, color, smell. We need open-ended questions, unexpected answers, unlikely combinations. We need prickly, messy, mundane details, rendered in words as fresh as rainfall."
