Media Forum
17. Emphasis on Disabilities
[Audience Member] I want to get back to the issue of why it's not a matter of political correctness – people-first language – and why it's important.
What the theoretical underpinnings for it are, so we can be reminded of that.
I mean, I get why an editor is going to want to do a shorter headline.
But what I do think is when we… when we take those short cuts, we lose an opportunity to educate the broader public for people who just look at the headline, and that is that whenever we emphasize it's a disability, a disabled person instead of a person with a disability, what you're doing is you're saying they're the Other.
Not meaning to be bad. I get it.
But it's… it's a lost opportunity, because when we have these people be the Other, then they're over there, and us normal people are over here.
And that's what I think is the danger of it.
So I want to keep that in mind and just… and realize that it's always an opportunity to make people be people first and be… and have a chance to realize for the public that we're all in this together.