Table of Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments ix
About the Author xi
Introduction: Power and Epiphany-Reflections on the Personal and Cultural Value of Disabilities 1
The Value of Disability 4
Part I My Own Journey 7
1 Disability and Revelation: Lessons Learned and Flying Squirrels 9
2 Learning to Love, Loving to Learn: Mike and the Clown Faces 15
3 Inclusion, Exclusion, and Other Matters of the Heart: The Story of Nan 21
4 Disabling Prejudice: Aunt Celie and the Marble Cake 29
5 Lessons in Patois: Learning to Be a Jamaican 37
6 A Father's Proud Moment: The Day My Daughter Became a Gifted Samaritan 45
7 Recapturing the Spirit of Caring: Uncle, Brownie, and Sausage Biscuits 49
Part I Questions to Ponder 55
Part II Disability, Science, and Pseudoscience 57
8 Eugenics, Old and New: Mensa and the Human Genome Project 59
The Tragedy of Involuntary Sterilization 59
Eugenics: A Continuing Legacy 60
The Human Genome Project and Mental Retardation 64
Mental Retardation, "Felt Necessities," and Ethics 65
9 Eugenics Revisited: Buck Versus Bell and The Bell Curve 69
10 Old Texts, Disabilities, and the Persistent Argument: For Whom the Bell Curves 73
11 Different Voices of Advocacy: Helen Keller and Burton Blatt 79
Helen Keller: A Magnificent Exception 80
Helen Keller and the Parameters of Advocacy 81
Burton Blatt's Advocacy: The Golden Rule and Beyond 83
Legacies and Challenges 83
12 A Place or No Place for Disabilities: Disney's Tarzan, Edgar Rice Burroughs's Eugenics, and Visions of Utopian Perfection 85
Tarzan and the Triumph of Heredity 86
Burroughs on Genetic Predetermination 88
Burroughs on Breeding for Utopia 91
Utopia and Disabilities 91
13 The Polio Vaccine Research and Children With Disabilities: Sacrifices for the Miracle 93
Personal Reflections on Polio 94
The Salk Vaccine and "Institutionalized" Research 94
Feeding Live Polio Virus to Children With Disabilities 95
Research and Disabilities: Other Cases 98
Claiming a Place of Value for People With Disabilities: The Continuing Struggle 99
Part III Questions to Ponder 101
Part III Disability in Historical and Literary Perspectives 103
14 Disability and the Need for a Romantic Science: Darwin's Last Child 105
15 Words of Understanding, Concepts of Inclusiveness: The Wisdom of Margaret Mead 111
16 The Question of Differential Advocacy: Laura Bridgman 117
Constructing the Disability of Mental Retardation 117
Disability and Invisibility 118
Laura Bridgman: The First Miracle 119
17 Disabilities and the Challenges of Equality: Looking Backward, Looking Forward 125
Looking Backward 126
Looking Forward 127
18 Diversity and Disability: Individuality and Mental Retardation 131
A Memory From Ignacy Goldberg 131
Jack London's "Told in the Drooling Ward" 132
The Typology of Mental Retardation 135
Mental Retardation: Redefining or Disaggregating? 135
Part III Questions to Ponder 137
Epilogue: Finding a Voice-The Story of Bill 139
Index 143
