Friday, November 7, 2008

Can There be a Triple-Negative?

I heard Wednesday afternoon (our time) President Obama's victory speech via BBC Radio.  One line stood out to me as something so typical of America today:

"It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled - Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been a collection of Red States and Blue States: we are, and always will be, the United States of America."  

(**You can read the whole thing here if you missed it. Forgive me if there is bad commentary with it. I didn't read the article, just stole this one line from it.)

I thought it was such a funny was to say someone was able to walk (or whatever).  From now on it seems I am to be known as "not disabled".  If you know me, you probably know I am not real big on defining people by the thing that is different about them, especially if its "bad"; surely there is something more interesting about a guy than that he just has one eye (for example).  So since we don't want disabled people to feel like they are missing out on anything, now we are disabled and not disabled--a double negative that I guess means "able" but I am not totally sure.

So this led Caleb to wonder then if people who are currently labeled as disabled to want to then refer to themselves as "NOT not disabled".  Which leads me to the question above, can there be a triple-negative?  If so, what does it mean?

Now just so some of you don't think I am a cold-hearted meanie when it comes to calling people names, the other day I drove by a place that was called (no kidding), The Home for Spastic Children.  I thought of taking a picture but didn't.  I thought the name AND my photo would have been in poor taste.

4 comments:

Luchadors (Pic) said...

Seriously you didn't take a picture.

Craig and Angie said...

Well .... really .... I would've I guess. If I had had the camera with me ;-)

piano lady said...

I love how the people who don't want to be labeled or singled out often go to great lengths to come up with "appropriate" names. Why can't we all just be people?

Tiffany said...

If that place with the sign "The Home for Spastic Children" is close you HAVE to go and take a picture of it.

Holy cow ~ I'm STILL laughing at that one!

HAAAAAAAA!