大象传媒

"Dammit, Disability Bitch. Your most recent column is getting to me, dammit. I have long been distantly amused by your Tanni-Grey-Thompson-hate thing; I smiled at your hate-inspirational-super-crips thing; but this... this.. This is beyond the pale," said the urbanely-citified wheelchair dancer, stuffing an odd combination of the latest organic, funky-junky-raw California new age fungus into her New York mouth. She sits up; her leg is twisted over her head and knotted around her sides, and her head pokes out the middle. "Get down off your moral high horse, girl -- yes, I know you are on the sofa; it's a metaphor -- and splash around in the mud with the rest of the group of wrestlers."

OK. So, I couldn't really do that with my legs. Nor do I mudwrestle. But seriously though, I do want to talk about your exercise phobia. Sport when explicitly framed as a way of overcoming the drama and trauma of disability is a bad thing. No one wants to be exercised in that environment. "Team spirit, what? Come on all you team-cripples. Get up and be a superhero." At the same time, I abhor exploits of superphysical endeavour that are explicitly portrayed as an inspiration to the rest of us and to the rest of the world. Inspiring us to get our lazy asses off our seats? Showing the world that our defunct bodies can still do useless stuff -- this chap just . It's his 5th go; he kept failing. And now, he's off to Kilimanjaro? Way to go, sorta, dude, not. There are limits. So far, then, my dear Disability Bitch, I am on the same page (if not the same sofa) as you -- move over and pass the nachos. We must part ways soon, however.

Removes tongue from cheek. Looks at it. Yet another amazing feat from the wheelchair dancer, ladies and gentlemen.

Crip brains and crippled brawn are not mutually exclusive -- nor are health and crippledom (not in every case, though arguably in some). Are facilitated sports and enforced exercise really the same thing? (Yes, I am a pedant.) And yes, we are cripples. The cry of jolly hockey sticks won't rally us -- bent canes won't work either. Exercise may or may not improve aspects of our disability. It certainly won't cure us. But exercise and sports are a viable and meaningful aspect of the disability community. Even if you hate it, the fact that there are crippled jocks represents yet another strand of participation in so-called normal life. It's not the exercise or the sport. It's what the non-disableds -- I might indeed say non-disabled writerly types -- make of it. We wouldn't have to read about Mr. Mountain Climbing Blind Hand Gliding Running Super Human if the writerly types weren't exercising their penmanship.

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