By Woody Lassitor

We’ve tried to kill it, curb it, ban it from use, and still it sneaks up on us.  We may be driving down the road, listening to the radio, watching a news program with family from the comfort of our own living room, and there it sits, smugly pronouncing an unjustifiable inferiority: the word ‘cripple.’

I’ve tried to reason with it, be its friend, but every time I turn my back, I get stabbed.  There’s just no good way to go about controlling it. 

Not too long ago many of the nation’s popular newspapers carried the headline “New York Crippled by Blackout.”  On the radio, I’ve heard about this or that incident crippling the economy of some foreign nation, which, coincidentally, either shuns or kills its cripples.

Of course, the speakers and writers of the headlines and newscasts do not refer to me, but the word is used without a flinch, written without apology, and spoken without hesitation, even though it is well-known to be offensive and used as an insult in reference to people with disabilities.  If the same nonchalant attitude were practiced with the word ‘nigger,’ there would be uproar from the masses.  I suppose the double standard is to be expected since our collective voice has rarely rose above a whisper.  And even when it did we were saddled with the disappointing, half-toothless ADA, which I won’t even take the time to write out. 

Sure, it wasn’t too long ago ‘cripple’ had been the only word They had for Us, that and ‘gimp.’  I guess there have been other words meant to keep Us in our corporeal place, but why focus on the past when the naughty C-word abounds in the present. 

It’s not yesteryear, but today, when some nondisabled people refer to Us as ‘cripples,’ to our faces and in secret.  They defend the offense by saying, “No harm was meant,” or “There’s nothing wrong with that word!”   

Who in the hell gave them the right to make that decision?  Shouldn’t that choice be given to those insulted by the word?      

By definition, the word may apply to some people with disabilities, but the C-word has been traditionally, and is still currently, used as an insult.       

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I know about the “movement,” the attempt by my Disabled compadres to disarm the C-word by claiming ownership, making it our own, announcing who can and can’t use it.  Is that realistic?  How do you demand people to stop saying a word?  Doesn’t that give the word more power?

It’s not the language that needs to change, but the perceptions and attitudes of the general public toward bodily difference in need of amendment. 

Some bodily differences, like skin color for example, have already experienced a shift in attitude and perception, from the negative to the positive, to offer a more equal standing in society.  Even though ignorant people keep alive the racial insults of a bygone era, though in large part behind closed doors, America has begun to look and feel more like a melting pot and less like a tossed salad.      

As for insults, claiming ownership and all applicable rights of usage to an offensive, degrading word has been tried, and is still currently employed, by Americans of African descent. 

At the risk of tumbling into an impertinent tangent, I advise against using hyphenated labels, like African-American, because, as it appears no one has noticed, the hyphenated labels have been used to categorize only non-European descent.  I’ve not heard of, at least in the last century or so, a White person referred to as Irish-American, Russian-American, or German-British-French-American (as is often the case with American mutts).  The next thing you know, They will be calling people with physical and mental impairments ‘Disabled-Americans,’ which will be right before they throw Us into the concentration camps to relieve the country of its burden.  Okay, maybe I’ve gone too far, all the way back to Nazi Germany.     

Maybe, as my good ‘ol grand pappy used to say, I’m overanalyzing to the point of anality.  Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.  Yeah, right.

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Someone with an intelligence and education far greater than my back-alley experiences have bestowed preaches. The language people use influences the perceptions and attitudes of groups of people, as well as individuals.  In other words, language has value.  It does not exist in some void.  Even though words are mere representations for thoughts, ideologies, concepts, feelings, and such, they still have power.  The power constantly changes, sometimes slow, other times overnight, and that’s because the power, the meaning, is determined by the people who use the language.  And we all know how shiftless and capricious humans can be.

If you don’t agree words have power, think about the influence inherent in the document that begins “We the people….”    

Words can hurt, even incite anger, and potentially coerce people into doing much more damage than can be inflicted with sticks and stones. 

People use ‘cripple’ all the time, not necessarily in reference to a person, but to define or describe the helpless, debilitated state of affairs of an object, animal, or situation, which in turn has an undeniable ability to perpetuate the social disability of people labeled as ‘cripples.’ 

Even though most people have been made aware of the offensive nature of the meaning of ‘cripple,’ it seems as though the non-cripples insist on using it in other, seemingly innocent, contexts.  Don’t buy that crap for a second.  They know how harmful the word can be, They just don’t care. 

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If we can’t stifle the C-word, if we can’t rip it from the mouths of those who use it to injure, then maybe we can change our collective (and individual) attitude toward it.  It seems the best way to do that is to take pride in Crippledom, to claim the cripple in us all.

I’m a cripple; I’m a bonafide cripple.  Blind people can’t be cripples, the Deaf can’t be crippled (they don’t even claim to have a disability), hell, people with heart malfunctions aren’t even cripples…technically.

The definition of the word ‘cripple’ is defined by an impairment involving the arms or legs.  So whenever I hear some jackass Normal (a term used with tongue planted firmly in cheek, labeling the so-called able bastards) wrongfully refer to a person as a ‘cripple,’ I am quick to inform them of the semantic snafu.

I have been involved in a few drunken brawls because I had been called a cripple.  Yes, I know it was immature, foolish, and dangerous behavior, but what can I say?  Although I am a cripple, I am who I am, and after a few drinks, that person, at one time, could go from sedated to extremely angry in 3.6 seconds. 

As a has-been carouser, who was quite the asshole himself as a youngster, I have always found that, once engaged in fisticuffs with a Normal, it does not take long for a Normal (or two) to jump in and defend the cripple by beating down their own kind.  However, I would not recommend depending on such charity when considering a hostile engagement with the enemy, unless you know you can take the ignorant jerk.

I have been a cripple for most of my life, though I had been born a Normal, and I will probably be a cripple until I die.  But do I want other people to call me a cripple?  Not unless they are family or friend, creating humor from one of life’s little ironies.  Such a remark would be okay, because the word would not be used as an insult.  When strangers use the word, I’m not as forgiving, but I’m working on it.

If you’re a cripple, don’t be ashamed of it.  It’s a part of who you are, but only a small part.  It seems that a lot of folks tend to place too much value on our outsides when it is our insides that really count. 

I like a good-looking outside, don’t get me wrong, but I could care less if that outside is white, black, yellow, or brown, slightly skinny, slightly plump, missing an arm, or pushing a chair.  I’d have sex with a cripple just as soon as I’d sleep with a Normal, and that’s nothing new: I didn’t differentiate when I was sexually-active as a Normal.  I do have limits and lines, but they mainly are in regards to what is legal (in whichever state I happen to find myself).

It’s time for us to strip this word naked, spin it around, slap it on the ass a couple of times, and initiate it into common use.  Otherwise, it’ll haunt and pin us in a collection book like butterflies for as long as They can use it against Us.