"Hopelessly Deformed Face"

As I was reading the news this morning, I came across an article on Fox News that was entitled, "Once-Disfigured Girl Attends Prom After 18 Surgeries." The headline obviously caught my attention (as it was supposed to do), but I don't know that it was for the reasons the author wanted. I am very intrigued by language and all of its nuances. For those of you who know me, you know two things: that my mother was my English grammar teacher and that I don't always use the English language in the most eloquent manner. That said, I am always interested in the words that people choose to explain their thoughts and ideas. In this case the words "disfigured" and "hopelessly deformed face" are used in to describe a young girl who was born with a "tumorous birth mark that distorted the shape of her face." The story (I think) is supposed to be a feel good story about her triumph over adversity and how she is now able to attend prom without anyone even knowing she ever had a problem. My first question is this...why the sensational language to describe this young woman? Now before all of you chastise and tell me that this is what the media does, I do recognize that and I understand that they do it to sell more papers or advertising space, but is it necessary? By using these terms do we reduce this young woman to some type of anomaly who is by the very structure of her being horribly different from everyone else? I would argue that if we are to respect other people and offer worth to all people, then we must change our language. This could be a wonderful story of the wonders of modern medicine and how this woman has beaten the odds, but I am only struck by the insensitivity of the language.

My second question/observation to this article is somewhat similar in nature. If you have read the article, does anything in particular strike you about it? Maybe what is being said or what is not being said? Or much more importantly (in my opinion) who is being heard and who is not being heard? We read about the details of the surgery, we read about the costs of the surgery, we read comments from the surgeon (of course!) and we definitely are inundated with the thoughts of the author (just as you are being inundated by the thoughts of this author!). Who is missing? Whose voice is silent in this article? The young woman! She is the center piece and yet she is noticeably silent. There are no quotes from her! Why not? Why not learn about how these 18 surgeries have impacted her life? The surgeon was only there for a short period of time; she has had to live through each and every one of the surgeries. Who better to talk about this story than Cody Hall?!

For me, the take home message is this. We still live in a society where people have a difficult time realizing that people with disabilities have the ability to think, talk, reason, laugh, cry, feel excited, feel hurt. There seems to be an underlying, subconscious mentality that people with disabilities can't feel or experience the same things that those without disabilities do. I am not saying that that was the intent or the mindset of this author; however, I would challenge each and every one of us not to "other" people with disabilities. Let's not exclude people from conversations or activities simply because they "don't look or sound like I do." Sounds similar to the lessons we should remember from the Civil Rights Movement.