Living With a Disability

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/14/opinion/living-with-a-disability.html

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To the Editor:

Re “Giving a Name, and Dignity, to a Disability” (news analysis, Sunday Review, May 8):

Thank you for Dan Barry’s important and eye-opening article about intellectual disability. As someone with a lifelong physical disability — or is it a “mobility impairment”? — I can’t help thinking that the history you portray is applicable to many of us with disabling conditions.

From horror to pity and everything in between, the shifting attitudes toward otherness are pervasive. To me, though, the underlying intent matters more than the words used.

Of course, some of us have reclaimed the word “cripple” as a semi-rebellious term of pride, much like “queer” for the L.G.B.T.Q. community. I wonder if the R-word (“retarded”), or any of the others you cite, will ever achieve that kind of ironic cachet.

BEN MATTLIN

Los Angeles

The writer is the author of “Miracle Boy Grows Up: How the Disability Rights Revolution Saved My Sanity.”