Discurso

Linda Flower's "Going Public - in a Disabling Discourse"

Flower describes that the power of the public sphere is its ability to give visibility to an issue. Oppress people by defining them, socialcategories such as sex, race, class or disability. In bringing to light certain problems to those various groups there are problems that arise. People are offended and hurt when too much emphasis isattributed to them. Flower mentions that even if a positive light is cast on those groups, we are still reminding the audience of their “disabilities”.
She talks about the learned disabled which arethe academic rhetors addressing the public in a double voice such as speaking about the stigma of speaking black English of poverty and the working class and yet but doing so in an academicallyrecognized work.
Flower describes how the media portrays dyslexia as a disability that can be overcome, and how many intelligent people were actually dyslexic. The concept of disabling discourse Flowerdescribes is when the media speaks about dyslexia, they are perpetuating all the negative common conceptions of dyslexia. They reinforce the negative side of this condition even if they are trying toportray it in a positive way. Even though this is what she is trying to convey, it is not a strong argument. Does this mean that we should not talk about anything negative? Dyslexia is a real condition,not just some minor ailment that is meant to be a simple disturbance. As with the other example it seems that Flower is trying to avoid speaking about real issues to not offend anybody. We cannotspeak about the disabled or those of lower economic class in fear of offending them.
The interesting part in the essay is when she describes how the medical practices describes people with ADHD, whichis highly interpretive as she mentions, and the non-medical term of “learning disability”. In informing people that the patient has these conditions, they are indeed attributing a long list of...