The wheelchair-using cartoon character, Leeder O. Men,
is definitely not "bound" by his wheelchair!
Cartoon by John and Claire Lytle, www.dizabled.com.
By BA Haller
© Media dis&dat blog
If you've read this blog a few times, you know how much I despise the term "wheelchair-bound" -- it's inaccurate, stereotyping, patronizing, etc. I wrote about it in detail a few weeks after I first started the blog.
It's now almost six months since I began Media dis&dat, so I thought I would update everyone on the use of the term. I wish I could report it's gone away, but my Google alert finds at least one use of it each day in news stories or blogs (usually it's about three to 10 a day), and I have been writing the blog for about 170 days. And this is just what Google alerts find; I know it appears in news media stories that aren't searched by Google alerts.
Another reason to update you on this term is the sad passing of Harriet McBryde Johnson, who had a congenital neuromuscular disorder and saw her wheelchair as a form of liberation. She too couldn't abide the phrase "wheelchair-bound," and you can hear Harriet discuss the topic in an interview she gave at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
"I love wheelchairs, and can you imagine how confined or bound I would be if I didn't have one. I would have to be toted in people's arms all the time or dragged around in a sedan chair," Harriet said, explaining she never understood some newly disabled people's resistance to wheelchairs. "If they would just go with it, it would be an easy way for them to get from place to place and continue living their lives."
