How are disabled people expected to look in order to be recognized as disabled? Do disabled people have to have visible indicators to let others know they are disabled? How do people react when they encounter someone who does not ‘look’ disabled? In the case of Jillayna Adamson, she found, that you are supposed to look unpleasant and awful. In Cockeyed, Ryan Knighton was continually not seen as a blind man unless he had his cane, or what he likes to call ‘a stick,’ (Knighton 64) and when people were notified they would say ‘you don’t look like a blind person.’
In Adamson’s Blog, ‘But you don’t look disabled…,’ she talks about an interaction with a man in a bar who did not take her for disabled. When she told him, this was his reaction: “You don’t look like someone who’s like… disabled” (‘But You Don’t Look Disabled… ‘). She also remarked that he looked “dumbfounded” (‘But You Don’t Look Disabled… ‘) and began to look her over, as if trying to find any indicator of a disabled person, like a cane or crutch, or a physically abnormal characteristic. To him, she replied: “Huh… What exactly does someone who is disabled look like?” (‘But You Don’t Look Disabled… ‘) and he reciprocated, “No, I just mean you’re beautiful. I wouldn’t have known” (‘But You Don’t Look Disabled… ‘).
This conversation is a true demonstration of how people perceive a disabled person. They have a list of criteria in their head of what a disabled person should look like, the same way we have criteria for males and females. They need to be ugly. Apparently to be disabled you need to look unpleasing. Second, there needs to be a physical indicator, a technology that is universally known to pinpoint a person’s disability, like the cane of the blind. If these are not present, then you are not identified as disabled by others.
Ryan Knighton is not seen as a blind person until he pulls out his cane and Jillayna Adamson is not seen as deaf unless you can see her hearing aids. The two of them know that these ‘helpers’ of theirs is what makes them disabled so they sometimes choose to hide it. Ryan Knighton likes the quick folding up of his cane, he thinks of it as “high-speed camouflage” (Knighton 66). And Jillayna used her hair to cover up her disability, her “high-speed camouflage” (Knighton 66). They both knew they did not, “look,” disabled, but what did make them look disabled was their ‘helpers’ and universal indicators. Knowing this they can selectively hide their disability from others.
It is those who can’t hide their disabilities, by simply hiding their ‘helpers,’ that people expect disabled people to look like. They expect the disabled to have a Stephen Hawking look to them. Jim Jefferies makes this apparent in his new comedy special. He talks about the bell curve of the human population in terms of looks. Ten being the most beautiful people in the world and ones being the ugliest people in the world. And by explaining them on a bell curve he acknowledges that ones (and tens) are rare to see. He goes on to say: ones “know they upset the rest of us. The only time you catch a one is they’re going to a doctor’s appointment or something. And it really is upsetting. You walk by, they’re normally being lifted out of a minivan with a special crane onto a special chair. And when you see a one, it does ruin your day, doesn’t it?” (Jim Jefferies: Freedumb). The audience laughed and connected to his point, showing, that is what people expect out of the disabled; to be ugly and have special indicators or ‘helpers.’
This is what we expect to see in a disable person and when we don’t see it we become confused much like the man Adamson was talking to at the bar. “No, I just mean you’re beautiful. I wouldn’t have known.” She was beautiful, so he wouldn’t know. She did not have her hearing aids on display, so he wouldn’t have known. Many of us would not know.
Work Cited
“‘But You Don’t Look Disabled… ‘”. The Huffington Post. N.p., 2014. Web. 16 Oct. 2016.
Knighton, Ryan. Cockeyed. New York: Public Affairs, 2006. Print.
Jim Jefferies: Freedumb. Nashville, USA: Irwin Entertainment, 2016. film.