a general rant

[ysobel]

If you find yourself about to use the phrase "confined to a wheelchair", stop and fucking think for a moment.

It is perhaps arguably true for specific situations of temporary use. For someone that has an external imposition (i.e. doctor's orders) to use a wheelchair rather than walking, especially if that someone is normally quite physically active? I can see it. I don't like the phrase much, but I won't fight it. Much.

But as a general term?

No. Just... no.

Wheelchairs are freedom. Wheelchairs are a mobility tool. Wheelchairs allow people like me to get out of the house (and out of bed). My disability limits me, but my wheelchair does exactly the opposite.

And if you are an organization that professes to be inclusive of people with different physical and mental abilities, this advice goes infinitely more for you.

Growl.

Comments

[synecdochic]

Sometimes when I'm particularly spoiling for a fight, I go through Wikipedia and change all instances I can find of "wheelchair-bound" to "wheelchair-using" or "wheelchair user" or the like.

Then about two weeks later I go back and re-change all the ones that got reverted :P

[0jack]

ILU. <3 You are awesome. I may have to take that one up sometimes, too.

[melissima]

Awesome(1000)

[amadi]

Did I tell you about the time a dude threatened to suspend my account for that?

[synecdochic]

I am so not surprised. oh, wikipedia.

[jadelennox]

Usually I manage not to be angry at people who are Wrong on the Internet, but this s tory makes me want to punch someone.

[amadi]

And in threatening me, he fulfilled his objective: to chill my participation on the site, because I haven't the energy for protracted fights with someone who wouldn't accept any of the examples I offered of actual wheelchair users saying just what ysobel said here as encyclopedically reliable, blah blah.

[pauamma]

Do I want to know who it was? *growl*

[amadi]

I've managed to block out his name, he got rather aggro at me on my own account talk page and I just backed off. I don't even log in any more. I don't want to see it.

[pauamma]

*nod* Your call. Still, I'm tempted to mention this to a WMF employee who hangs out in some of the same IRC channels I do, if that's OK with you.

[amadi]

Sure. It seemed a ridiculously petty thing for someone to get into a reversion match over, but if you look at some of the places where the edit's been made, the very simple change of "wheelchair bound" to "used a wheelchair" has turned into an edit war. The entry for the movie "Born on the 4th of July" is one I can think of off of the top of my head.

I think it's kind of appalling that changing the phrase requires some encyclopedic reference to prove that it's legit, but reverting it back does not simply because people using disablist language got there first.