We are not alone -- Rahm Emanuel and the r-word

Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that last August, in a meeting with White House aides and liberal members of congress, President Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel uttered the words "Fucking retarded." Evidently, Emanuel was 'scolding' the liberals for planning attack ads against the efforts of more conservative democrats to block health care reform. Since the comment surfaced publicly, many individuals and groups have spoken out, holding Emanuel accountable for using the word retard as a slur and for using a word that people with intellectual disabilities have been lobbying to eliminate from our vernacular.

Within 24 hours of the Wall Street Journal article, Tim Shriver of the Special Olympics dispatched a letter to the President's Chief of Staff. The letter was circulated around disability list-serves. I was surprised by the letter and impressed. Shriver's letter lacked anger and vindictiveness, as it probably should. I've learned in my efforts to impact use of the word midget, and I imagine many others who are trying to shape language might agree, that no one wants to be told what words they can and can not use. No where in Shriver's letter did he demand that Emanuel stop using the r-word. He didn't scold Emanuel. He didn't demand an apology. In fact, Shriver assumed Emanuel might not have even used the word. Reports might have misrepresented what the Chief of Staff actually said. Rather than tell Emanuel what to say, Shriver shared information about the stigma connected to the r-word and invited Emanuel to join in the efforts to end use of the word.

Who knows how Emanuel will respond, but I think Shriver took the correct approach. In a campaign to change language, you need to create bridges. Shriver created a bridge by sharing how hurtful the r-word can be. He invited Emanuel to cross that bridge and join thousands of others who have pledged not to use the word.

The approach reminds me of my wife Katie, who is a strong advocate against the r-word. Not always, but most times, if we are out in public and somebody uses the r-word, she will say something. She won't accuse the person who used the word of prejudice or of ignorance. She won't tell them not use the word. She will simply say something like "I really don't like that word." In most cases, Katie's reaction has a strong affect, causing an emotion reaction that causes people to question use of the word.

Though I am sad about the news of Emanuel's use of the r-word, the incident has given me some new enthusiasm. First of all, it's given me ideas for how to improve my approach to raising awareness around and ending use of the m-word. But perhaps more important, I feel more empowered now, knowing that people of short stature are not alone. Language is a struggle that affects so many of us. Hopefully, as we move forward, we can find ways to support each other, and unite in our common efforts around language.

Humanizing language

A woman named Lya Graf has surfaced in the news a number of times over the past two years. She was the person of short stature photographed with JP Morgan during Banking Hearings in the Depression Era. The photograh has reappeared recently in the wake of more government finance hearings and investigations in 2009 and 2010. But little has been said about Graf other than she is the “midget” with JP Morgan in the famous photograph. Part of the problem with the word midget is that it slices away a person's humanity. The word affords little space for character, depth, emotion and feeling, leaving room only for a physical object. One way to combat against the word is to assert the history and character within the person to whom the word has been applied. I am grateful to people like Dan Kennedy and Betty Adelson, both authors of books about little people, who have done what The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times have recently failed to do and what I am guessing many media outlets from 1933 failed to do, empower the legacy of Lya Graf with a bit of humanity.

In a letter to the New York Times early in 2009, Adelson wrote,

In the course of doing research for these books, I read about the incident that was referred to briefly in the Times article: Few readers, and perhaps not many LPA members, are likely to be aware that the woman referred to as a midget was Lya Graf (her stage name), at that time a member of a Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey circus troupe. She had been "plopped" in tycoon J.P. Morgan's lap during a depression-era Senate hearing on banking by a press agent for the circus, in conjunction with a Scripps-Howard reporter. Much to the surprise of those present, Morgan, generally regarded as a stiff curmudgeon, smiled and interacted with Graf pleasantly--and the photograph later led to at least a temporary improvement in the public's impression of him.

However, its outcome for Graf was very different. Sensitive and shy, and hounded by the press during the following two years, she later returned to her native Germany--and perished at Auschwitz. She had been rounded up because of the triple stigma of her being half-Jewish, a person with a disability, and widely associated with J.P. Morgan, a despised American capitalist.

Adelson's letter helped influence the New York Times current policy to use the word dwarf to identify people of short stature. Kennedy includes a similar piece about Graf in his book, Little People, Learning to see the world through my daughter's eyes.

Hopefully, a similar effort will influence the Wall Street Journal, which used the m-word last week when reporting on a recent round of banking hearings, again referring to the photograph of JP Morgan and Graf.