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SURVIVOR continued

Sometimes, we were saved for a purpose: to provide entertainment, perhaps, or to serve as an omen, or token, of The Other. We have been ridiculed, tortured, locked in chains, locked out of sight of day. We survived – perhaps because we had no other choice. But, nonetheless, we survived.

No other word could unite us quite as clearly as the word "survivor."

It finds common bonds among so many different people, in so many different physical conditions. For it does not deal with the state of our bodies at all but with a political reality: survivorship.

"Survivor" unites us politically and socially. We are not alike in our physical conditions – as we know too well when looking for coalition. But we are alike in experiencing oppression – an oppression focused on the status of our bodies, which is a signal to our oppressors. We are different because of our bodies; but for that reason we are also alike. And we are all oppressed the same way, for the same reason: our bodies are different; therefore, we are not normal. This one fact unites us. Our status throughout our oppression is survivors.

Attempts have been made before to unite us with a word that recognizes the social reality of our status. That's how "handicapped" was born. It attempted to unite us by stating that we were all "handicapped" (or put at a disadvantage) by society. But it soon acquired a negative ring: it has made us sound like so many social service cases. And the fact that it's an adjective – "handicapped" – didn’t help things, either. "Handicapped" what? That was always a problem. The solution was always to call us "THE handicapped" – something that grates on our ears and means, really, nothing all.

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