Going

Mobile
Stephen Vyskocil
6/4/15
Mrs. Caddoo presented on Mobilizing an Envisioned Community and the
title of her book is Envisioning Freedom: Cinema and the Building of Modern Black
Life. Her focus was on the early depiction of African Americans in film. Motion
picture was one of the first concepts to mobilize ideas in a community. Today
anyone can make their own movies on their phone and share it with the world. More
recently some mobile phone users have caught racial prejudice against African
Americans on video, leading to race riots.
In fact, Hollywood used to depict African Americans as oppressors in cinema.
African Americans werent allowed in Caucasian theaters, or they had to take
separate stairways, balconies, etc. This part of cinema has almost been erased from
time, but its not unlike another minority group we learned about in class. People
with disabilities have had to cope with prejudice every day. Just finding
handicapped parking or a handicapped seat in a theater for anyone with a disability
can be difficult at best. How are these two groups interrelated? Mr. Goodley, from
one of our class readings, surmises that, The rise of new social movements, such as
feminist, queer, working-class, and black civil rights movements in the 1960s,
enhanced the radicalization of disabled people.1 And people with disabilities are by
far the largest minority of the group, despite that most people with disabilities are
not born with their condition. Can we help what class, gender, race and ethnicity we

1 Goodley, Dan. Disability Studies: An Interdisciplinary Introduction. Los Angeles,
Calif: SAGE, 2011. 3.

are born into? Mr. Goodley argues that a social movement, . . . recognizes the
humanity of people before disability or impairment labels.2 Of equal importance is
that we see someone for his or her personhood, not his or her external qualities. We
are all different and unique in our own way, which is exactly what we have in
common.
I dont mean to lambaste celebrating differences. While it was difficult to
stage early protests for African Americans (films used to depict lynching,) African
Americans organized to stop these films from showing at a time when it was
dangerous to organize in this way. They unified as a collective group. Its kismet that
a minority fought for the same rights that they were being denied on the silver
screen, which ironically portrayed many of the inequalities in real life. Mrs. Caddoo
spoke of alternate African American theaters opening out of churches, schools and
lodges in response to Caucasian oppression. These theaters raised funds to build
more churches, schools and lodges. Mr. Grue, a person with disabilities himself, has
written that, The establishment of disability studies has also been a way of opening
new fields of inquiry, of producing new knowledge about human experience and
altering, refining or subverting old truths.3 Scholars have provided jobs for
minorities, just as African American theaters provided jobs for fellow projectionists,
concessions, and ticket salesman (and now we have the BET channel.) Much of what
African Americans were trying to change was how their community was portrayed
in the early picture shows. As a group, they were disenfranchised by the stereotypes

2 Goodley, Dan. Disability Studies: An Interdisciplinary Introduction. Los Angeles,
Calif: SAGE, 2011. 9.
3 Grue, Jan. Discourse Analysis and Disability: Some Topics and Issues. In Discourse
& Society, 533. Sage, 2011.

and boilerplates used in the scripts. Today much of the people without disabilities
use models that look frowningly upon those with disabilities. There is the medical
model, which vilifies people with disabilities in an attempt to normalize them. Mr.
Grue objects, [The medical model] reduces every aspect of disability to bodily
impairment, prescribes only medical treatment and normalization as appropriate
interventions, and denies agency to disabled people while reserving power for
medical professionals, while marching along his warpath to say, In fact, it may be
an open question whether the medical model is even a model. 4 Other models such
as the social, gap, and even minority model present their own set of problems.
There exist powerful dichotomies in the way these models are enacted, and whats
widely used may be overused, or not used in the correct manner. Just like a common
opinion can be a misconception, or an agreed upon fact might be faux pas. Whats
important is the difference, not the problem. Its important to get the message right.
Film today still excludes African Americans from theaters in the movies
themselves, like with the whitewashed cast in a movie like Exodus. People with
disabilities are also misconstrued in examples such as, Million Dollar Baby, My
Left Foot, and most notably Rain Man. In none of these latter films is a person
with a disability playing their role in the movie. Mrs. Caddoo exudes, the 1st African
American protest in the 20th century revolved round the message in a movie.
Moreover, she elicits censorship began because an African American boxer beat a
Caucasian fighter, which led to Caucasians murdering African Americans in the
streets. Thats the wrong end of a protest. Mrs. Caddoo additionally mentioned

4 Grue, Jan. Discourse Analysis and Disability: Some Topics and Issues. In Discourse
& Society, 540. Sage, 2011.

African Americans illegally destroyed cinema screens by throwing eggs, essentially

diluting the message of their protest.
And racism still resonates today in the media, this time with African
American boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. referring to his underdog, Philippian
opponent Manny Pacquiao just before a big fight as, Yellow. Then, Mr. Mayweather
Jr. called Mr. Pacquiao Yellow, for a second time after what was the most televised
fight of all time; in this instance he insinuated his opponent was a coward. No one
said anything about that. Mr. Pacquiao had a hurt shoulder; he was disabled during
the fight; thats sadly what Mr. Mayweather Jr. was referring to.
Prominent people are not exempt from misconstruction, as even President
Roosevelt faced skepticism. In FDRs Body Politics The Rhetoric of Disability we are
persuaded through pathos the meaning of the titlein that, President Roosevelt
chose a life of politics vs. his disability. Where as politicians such as veteran
Duckworth embrace their disabilities in the media today. People use their minority
status to mobilize their message, in which case wounded warrior Mrs. Duckworth
had been immobilized. Her ethos becomes her logos, just as many veterans
crossover into politics, President Roosevelt having been leader of the cavalry Rough
Riders while in the Navy.
I gained a lot from a difficult grading scale in this classJust to be clear, this
class is one of the best I have ever participated in. It truly helped me. And the CIP
programming was awe-inspiring, in that Mrs. Caddoo, an Asian American, was able
to mobilize her message about the African American community, especially by
making her speech available to all via the Internet. Throughout this initiative I have,

although, become aware of certain drawbacks minorities face in disability studies

today. Professors (none at DePaul University of course,) look down upon scholars
with disabilities, and because of a leniency with standardized test times there is put
an asterisk next to a scholars name.5 While Professor Bryant-Richards and DePaul
University may be ahead of the curve, pun intended, I worry not about myself as a
student with anxiety, but of the minority of students with learning disabilities, like
my family and friends who are not on my pedestal. As a business management
major, going forward I will embrace people with disabilities.

Works Cited

Goodley, Dan. Disability Studies: An Interdisciplinary Introduction. Los Angeles, Calif:

SAGE, 2011. 3, 9.
Grue, Jan. Discourse Analysis and Disability: Some Topics and Issues. In Discourse
& Society, 533, 540. SAGE, 2011.
Houck, Davis W., and Amos Kiewe. FDRs Body Politics the Rhetoric of Disability.
College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 2003.
Thomas, Stephen. College Students and Disability Law. The Journal of Special
Education 33, no. 4 (2000): 251.

5 Thomas, Stephen. College Students and Disability Law. The Journal of Special
Education 33, no. 4 (2000): 251.