I have sometimes talked about my children. My oldest daughter, Marianne, is a really wonderful child who is very bright. She loves animals and she loves to run around and play soccer with her friends. In addition, she also has ADHD.
I am very careful about how I speak about my child. I wasn't always that way. I used to think that the ADHD defined her and when I was with other mothers practically the first thing I would say is, "My child is hyperactive." It took my a long time, after some gentle comments from other parents, before I realized that the ADHD was just another part of they many great qualities that my daughter has that makes her the wonderful, caring person she is today.
Imagine then how difficult it was for me, last year, to read a Memorandum of Decision that a judge wrote describing my daughter by stating "She is handicapped." "She's hyperactive." Yes, I had done that myself, but I had learned better. Instead of speaking of my child as handicapped, I had learned to say, "My daughter needs support with focusing in the classroom." Instead of saying she is hyperactive, I had learned to say, "Sometimes it is hard for her to sit still when she needs to." In other words, I didn't define my daughter solely according to her diagnosis. I had learned to speak of my daughter's many fine qualities, not just the one that could end up being challenging for her in her daily life. By doing so, I was using what is known as "people first language."
Recognizing that not everyone is aware of how important it is to use people first language, I drew up a Motion for Rectification and submitted it to the judge requesting that he change the language he used to describe my daughter and use people first language instead. He refused to do so.
Why is it important to use "People First Language"? People first language is a respectful way of talking about people who have disabilities. It is language which describes disability in a human way, using words that everyone can understand. It is language that makes the person more important than the disability, and discourages the use of terms to describe a disability that are disrespectful and demeaning.
Here are some examples below:
Hurtful Language: He is deaf.
Better: He is a person with deafness.
Hurtful Language: She is blind.
Better: She is a person with blindness.
Hurtful Language: He is a dwarf.
Better: He is a person of short stature.
Hurtful Language: He is an epileptic.
Better: He is a person with a seizure disorder.
Hurtful Language: She is crazy or a lunatic or a maniac. Better: She is a person with a mental health disability.
Hurtful Language: He suffers from or is afflicted with or is a victim of...
Better: He is a person with...
The problem with the kind of language we are criticizing here is that such language implies that the individual is primarily the disability he or she has and that it centrally defines them. In fact people are not their disabilities. I know that may be hard to believe, but truly they are not. You don't say, "I am cancer." So why do you say something like "I am blind." Both comments don't make sense.
People are not their diseases, and they are not their disabilities. People are a broad range of qualities both good and bad, and then one of those multiple qualities just happens to be a disability.
It's the person first.
The use of people first language is particularly important when the hurtful language is truly insulting or stigmatizing. You would think that, above all, a judge would not wish to be discourteous or disrespectful towards people who have disabilities, or to their relatives. Unfortunately, this is not true of the judge in my case who simply refused to use people first language even though he was informed and he was offered the opportunity to do so.
And it is not as though people in Connecticut are not aware of the importance of using appropriate language such as that which I have described when referring to people with disabilities. For example, in 2007 the State of Connecticut passed a respectful language bill (SB63) which required the use of respectful language when referring to persons with disabilities in Connecticut General Statutes. If you talk to any person who works in the area of disabiility, you will find that they are all well informed about the importance of using people first language. This is not a new concept.
So how is it that a judge of the Superior Court can simply refuse to use it? This is my question. I was shocked when the judge in my case first of all, didn't use it automatically as a matter of course, and second when he simply flouted my request that he use people first language when speaking of my daughter.
As a result, I sent a complaint to the Judicial Review Council last year asking them to insist that this judge use people first language. Ten months later, after submitting several letters requesting a determination in regard to my complaint, I finally received a response. My request was denied. Finding it hard to believe that my simple request to have a judge speak respectfully about my daughter could possibly be denied, I wrote again to the Judicial Review Council to reconsider. Again, I received a letter denying my request.
What bothered me was not just the denial, but also that the letter I received was a prewritten form that was probably sent to everyone whose complaints were denied. There was no indication that they had even read or considered my complaint seriously. For all I know they took five minutes to dump my complaint in file 13 and then sent me the form letter from a big stack of identical form letters of denial they sent out to everyone.
So much for judicial accountability!
What bothers me is that when judges have the right to call you names when you appear before them in Court, and you can't name yourself, this robs you of your identity and whittles away at your humanity. Furthermore, if judges in the State of Connecticut have the right to call citizens any insulting names they feel like using, we are all vulnerable and powerless.
And this leads to the next question: If judges have learned to have the decency to stop using the N word in regard to African-Americans, if judges have learned not to refer to people who are Jewish using the K word, and if they have stopped using the W word in regard to Italian-Americans, or the F word in regard to homosexuals why can't they have the maturity to eliminate similar terminology when talking about disability?
I would welcome readers thoughts on this issue. See below the very special video on using people first language, and also check out People First of Connecticut at: www.peoplefirstct.com
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