Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Staring at the Disabled

It is culturally understood that staring for an extended period of time at people you don’t know, or people who are disabled is unacceptable. A mother nudges her son when his gaze lingers too long on the amputee war veteran. We are taught as children not to stare, not to look for too long, and to “leave it alone” when asking why the man only had one leg. Staring is an act extremely difficult to avoid when you are a curious child, and even upon growing up into a curious adolescent and adult. We know that it is wrong, but we continue to do it anyway…

Being the curious species that we are, we are constantly looking around, absorbing our environment and analyzing the people and things surrounding us. We generally know what is surrounding us, so our gaze tends to wander, not sticking for too long. It is when there is something unexpected, or stands out that we stare.

As a society, we are rarely exposed to disabled people. As Rosemarie Garland-Thomson explained, we hide those who are disabled. If someone is missing an eye, they wear an eye patch, if they are mentally disabled they are often placed in homes, or institutions, or other places that are away from “mainstream” society. Which is why we expect to see our definition of normal when we go through our everyday life. So when somebody walks into our visual gaze who is missing an arm, we stare.

I think as non-disabled people, we go through life generally surrounded by others who are non-disabled. And when a person has a disability they are fascinating. They look differently, so our gaze lingers to adjust in our mind what is “missing” or different about this person. But I know when I stare at least; I am looking for a story. I am not immediately taken aback by their appearance, but taken in by what happened to them to make them stray from the normative appearance in life. How has it been for them to go through life with people like me staring at them all the time? My intentions are not malicious, I have no motive to inflict embarrassment; however, what gives me the audacity to want a reason for how they look? A person on the other end of the spectrum, the victim of my wandering gaze, has no knowledge of the internal dialogue I am having. But what my point is, is everyone has a story, whether they are physically disabled or not. It is unfair to, intentionally or not, obsess over the outward inflictions this person has to deal with every day.

We don’t go around to every person asking what their story is, and what happened to them…if they emotionally scared in any way? It is unfair to even internally question the lives and have such a strong desire for stories of people who have to live with their stories on their body. Washington had said “gaze not on the marks or blemishes of others and ask not how they came” (Garland-Thomson 66)

What we need to do is create a culture where people with visible disabilities are treated like everyone else, in the fact that they are normalized and don’t inflict a strong desire for understanding. We need to accept the outward as the inward; as private. We must “work to broaden collective expectations of who can and should be seen in the public sphere and help create a richer and more diverse human community” (Garland-Thomson 9).

But how do we stop staring when it has been such an intrinsic thing, for so long?

1 comment:

  1. I don't think the goal is to stop staring. It seems to me staring is an integral step in normalizing visible disabilities into our culture so that we no longer expect people to explain themselves. Maybe the answer to your questing lies in the manner in which we stare at people is significant so that we can learn to change our expectations. The act of not staring would mean we never actually look at the person because we are uncomfortable and this would only have isolating effects and continue to marginalize bodies of 'others'.

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