To be crippled means to be institutionalized, infantilized, unemployed, outcast, feared, marginalized, fetishized, desexualized, stared at, excluded, silenced, aborted, sterilized, medicalized, stuck, discounted, teased, voiceless, disrespected, raped, isolated, undereducated, made into a metaphor or an example. To be crippled means to be referred to as retard, cute, helpless, lame, bound, stupid, drunk, idiot, a burden on society, in/valid. To be crippled means to be discounted as a commodity or regarded as mere commodity.
Jennifer Bartlett is the author of Derivative of the Moving Image, (a) lullaby without any music, Autobiography/Anti-Autobiography, and Hindrances of a Householder. She also co-edited Beauty is a Verb: The New Poetry of Disability with Sheila Black and Michael Northen. Her latest book is Sustaining Air: The Life of Larry Eigner.
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