As Price highlights, those within the mentally disabled community sometimes view the word disabled with distrust, since it is seen by some as meaning a person cannot be “fixed”, which leads to the idea their individual rights being dependent on whether they agree to their psychiatrist’s course of treatment (301). Beyond the insight Price offers, there is the long-term history of how society has conceived disability. In his essay “Disability and the Justification of Inequality in American History”, Douglas C. Baynton points out, “When categories of citizenship were questioned, challenged, and disrupted, disability was called on to clarify and define who deserved, and who was deservedly excluded from citizenship” (17). This demonstrates that for Americans, setting aside someone as different and less than due to disability runs deep into its foundation, so much so that it excluded many of the disabled from becoming full citizens. While times have change, these types of stigmas do not fade quickly, adding to the distrust many feel when categorized as
As Price highlights, those within the mentally disabled community sometimes view the word disabled with distrust, since it is seen by some as meaning a person cannot be “fixed”, which leads to the idea their individual rights being dependent on whether they agree to their psychiatrist’s course of treatment (301). Beyond the insight Price offers, there is the long-term history of how society has conceived disability. In his essay “Disability and the Justification of Inequality in American History”, Douglas C. Baynton points out, “When categories of citizenship were questioned, challenged, and disrupted, disability was called on to clarify and define who deserved, and who was deservedly excluded from citizenship” (17). This demonstrates that for Americans, setting aside someone as different and less than due to disability runs deep into its foundation, so much so that it excluded many of the disabled from becoming full citizens. While times have change, these types of stigmas do not fade quickly, adding to the distrust many feel when categorized as