Writing in the Baltimore Sun, Peter V. Berns calls for the passage of “Rosa’s Law,” a bipartisan bill that would replace the terms “mental retardation” and “mentally retarded” with “intellectual disability ” and “individual with an intellectual disability” in federal health, education and labor policy statutes.

Berns says the bill is very important for Americans with intellectual disabilities, who have endured a long history of oppression, mistreatment, and abuse, including imprisonment in institutions, forced sterilizations, and exclusion from schools, the workplace and society at large. An excerpt:

Sadly, the same general enlightenment that now mostly spares racial and ethnic minorities from the cruelty of pejorative words has not yet been attained as it relates to people with intellectual disabilities. It is no longer socially acceptable to mock people of African-American, Latino or Asian descent, for example. But the words “retard” and “retarded” are still widely used and accepted as an insult in our homes and schoolyards and on our movie and TV screens.

Maybe people are simply unaware that intellectual disabilities result from genetics, prenatal alcohol exposure, poor nutrition, injury, illness and other unknown causes. Or could the public at large be so callous that they don’t care that people with intellectual disabilities are hurt and shamed by demeaning references?

… We must stand up for our citizens with intellectual disabilities. Senator [Barbara] Mikulski’s bill is a necessary step to help stop the use of degrading terminology. By introducing the word “disability” into the parlance, perhaps the global society will begin to understand the legitimacy of the condition and treat those living with it in a just and humane manner.

Peter V. Berns is executive director of The Arc of the United States.

See also:

Put a little thought into the power of words to hurt – Column by Anna Griffin in The [Portland] Oregonian

From AP/Boston Herald, AP/[Waltham, MA] Daily News Tribune:

Two Massachusetts legislators have filed bills seeking to redress historic abuses that took place in the state’s Fernald School, which opened in 1848 and is slated to close next year.

The institution, which is the nation’s oldest publicly funded facility for people with developmental disabilities, was the site of Cold War experiments including some by MIT and Quaker Oats Co. in which children were fed radioactive oatmeal. Other children were erroneously institutionalized as “morons” even though tests showed them to be normal.

Rep. Thomas Sannicandro (D-Ashland) has filed a bill seeking a state apology for alleged civil rights violations, and Rep. Thomas Stanley (D-Waltham) has filed a bill seeking a formal investigation of the misclassifications of patients.

“Everybody there was abused, and we should be all-encompassing as a commonwealth and say we made a mistake,” said Sannicandro, whose own son has Down syndrome.

See also:

The State Boys Rebellion, book by Michael D’Antonio

The voice of a lost generation; Freddie Boyce survived neglect at Fernald, radiation experiments, and told the story — Boston Globe

From the Contra Costa [CA] Times:

Mary Crosby, the director of an elementary education program at a California’s Dominican University, has been honored for creating a curriculum to train teachers to teach children with disabilities in inclusive classrooms.

The Marin Community Foundation recognized Crosby’s 36 years at Dominican with an achievement award and $10,000.

Crosby said that when she came to Dominican in 1972, few elementary students with physical or mental disabilities were permitted to attend classes with their peers; some school districts would not accept students with disabilities at all.

(Contra Costa Times photo)

Writing in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Luaine Lee compares reality television to a P.T. Barnum sideshow of “freaks and geeks.” An excerpt:

Of course, when Barnum turned tiny Charles Sherwood Stratton into Tom Thumb, the most famous little person in the world, he had no idea that 21st-century America would follow his lead with The Little Couple and Little People, Big World.

… Barnum never had it so good.

(The Roloffs from “Little People, Big World,” TLC photo)

Editor Carl R Weinberg introduces the Magazine of History’s disability history issue with the observation that the concept of disability offers a “new way to look at history.”

Weinberg says many adults today grew up with a minimal consciousness of the rights and perspectives of people with disabilities. He urges teachers to incorporate an awareness of disability into a wide range of historical topics.

Even with our expanded awareness of disability rights today, it is still a revelation and not an easy one to grapple with that at least some activists for disability rights find offense in the common expression of denigration, “That’s so lame.” But the very difficulty we may have in considering “lame” offensive also conveys an important historical lesson: social change is difficult, painful, and contentious. (more…)

Paul Lombardo, author of “Three Generations, No Imbeciles,” has spent almost three decades uncovering the full story of the 1927 Buck v. Bell Supreme Court decision, writes USA Today.

In 20th-century America, more than 30 states passed legislation supporting forced sterilization as part of a program of eugenics, the “science” of human improvement through controlled breeding. Official tallies say more than 65,000 Americans were sterilized against their will.

Buck. v. Bell upheld the right of the Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feeble-minded to sterilize a “defective” woman named Carrie Buck. The decision has never been overturned.

Lombardo has no plans to abandon his fight to publicize the terrible history of eugenics. With genetics playing an increasingly important role in science, Lombardo and other bioethicists fear the lessons of the eugenics debacle matter more than ever.

University of Maryland historian Steven Selden worries about how we will handle the ethical questions of possible genetic “improvements” to humanity. “We’re going to revisit all the ethical conundrums that were inherent in the eugenics movement as we move forward.”

Related posts here, here and here.

(USA Today photo)

From the Associated Press, [Raleigh] News & Observer:

North Carolina unveiled a roadside marker yesterday documenting the state’s decades-long eugenics program, which was  intended to keep thousands of people considered mentally disabled or otherwise genetically inferior from having children.

“This does represent one of the ugly chapters in North Carolina’s history,” said the Rev. William Barber, president of the state chapter of the NAACP. “We have to deal with our past in order to have a better present and a stronger future.”

Elaine Riddick, 55, (above) was among 7,600 people involuntarily sterilized by the state between 1933 and 1973. “The sign means a lot,” she said after a drape was pulled down to reveal the aluminum monument, “because it shows that someone recognizes the wrong.”

The text of the historic marker is here.

Earlier posts start here.

UPDATE:

See also: ‘Sigificant, bizarre, shameful’ — [Raleigh] News & Observer