Emma, my good, fellow disabled friend brought up a number of interesting questions regarding subcultures and disabilities today: Do you think there is a disability culture and what do you think makes it unique? How do you feel about that/your disability? If you were offered a cure to your disability would you take it? Do you think there are different cultures for different disabilities (e.g. a C.P. culture, an M.E. culture, a C.F. culture, a Spina Bifida culture?)

Upon reading her inquiry, sent to our email group for Live C.P., my immediate response was: Of course there is a disability subculture.

The word culture has several different meanings, but the one that fits here is:

cul�ture

1a) The integrated pattern of human behavior that includes thought, speech, action and artifacts and depends upon the human capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations.

1b) The customary beliefs, social forms and material traits of a racial, religious or social group.

Society is based upon culture, and, as life becomes more individualistic, culture is broken down into more specified and numerous subcultures. Take *Rosa Perez, for example. She is an Hispanic American. Her main culture is that of the United States, but as her grandparents came from Peru, she also has the added ethnic and national culture of that country as a second main culture for her culture base. Becoming more specific, her next culture, or subculture if you will, will be religious, that is if her family is religious or semi-religious. Let's say she is LDS or Mormon. She then belongs to, or is a part of, the culture of this church. Becoming still more specific, let's move on to her likes--another subculture. Let's say Rosa loves to dance and loves drama. She would then be a part of the theater and dance subculture. Breaking this down even further into a micro-culture, let's say she loves the stage and the way ballet tells a story with graceful, elegant moves. She would be a participant in the ballet micro-culture.

So, with all these breakdowns and divisions into sub-and-micro-cultures, why shouldn't, or wouldn't, there be a disability subculture? A culture is how we perceive life, how we react to it, how we feel about it and how we express ourselves materially (with artifacts) regarding it. Those with disabilities, such as myself, are affected by whatever disability we have, whether it be developmental, C.P., C.F., M.S. or was caused by an accident of some kind. They color our perceptions, dictate to some degree our reactions, shape our emotions and determine how we can or will express ourselves. (As I'm doing now.) Disabilities are, indeed, a culture all their own.

And, briefly answering Emma's questions out of order, I do believe this subculture can be broken down or divided into micro-cultures of each individual disability. No disability is alike. Each has its own symptoms and ways to "normalize" the person's life as much as possible (i.e. a wheelchair to help those who cannot walk get around). Some even have degrees of severity or mildness, like Cerebral Palsy (C.P.).

What makes this subculture unique? Why, the very fact we have very noticeable limitations, which force us to do some things differently or need certain apparatuses to function as normally as possible. For example, I cannot walk, therefore I cannot go up stairs. I have to take an elevator to get to any floor below or above the main one of a building. And when I lived in Poky, I had to use a shower chair to take a shower.

How do I feel about this/my disability? The answers to this can be found here, in an older essay.

If I were offered a cure, would I take it? No. *shakes head and smiles slowly* Don't be so shocked. My reasons are explained in the same aforelinked previous essay. Please read them and then see if you can understand better.

Emma said the core question, of whether or not there is a disability subculture, has received much debate--or a pretty good amount at any rate. In my mind, there is no question about it. If you truly understand the definition for the word culture, then you will see and know that, yes there is a disability subculture.

*Is not a real person. Any similarities to a real person and activities named are purely coincidental.

moon phase