Handicapped Memphis newspaper

The Commercial Appeal today ran a front-page article that uses the term handicap five times despite the Associated Press Stylebooks admonition "handicap … should be avoided in describing a disability."  Despite today's setback, the major Memphis area daily paper is on a trend to use the term "handicap" less and "people with disabilities" more often. In 1990, the year of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Commercial Appeal used the term "handicap" 60 times and "people with disabilities" 43 times. This year, until yesterday, the paper had used "handicap" 84 times and "people with disabilities" reached its peak of 143 uses. The main year for implementation of the ADA, 1992, was the peak of the use of the term "handicap" at 172 uses. VIEW full size graph VIEW text alternative "Ignorance concerning the disability rights movement and backlash against politically correct language has stalled our attempts to teach accurate terminology," said Deborah Cunningham the Executive Director of the Memphis Center for Independent Living. "Language has power, and people with disabilities are demanding control and authority over all aspects of our lives like never before in history." In the Commercial Appeal's article "handicap" is used once to refer to parking and twice to refer to placards. The headline of the item directly labels people as handicap. The word is repeated as the article continues on page A2 under the sole headline "Handicap." Handicap is used in the language of the law, located on parking signs and most destructively, people with disabilities often use it. This will frequently signal that the term is acceptable, but it is not.  Accurate terms need to replace incorrect and offensive language. In the example of today's Commercial Appeal article, "people with disabilities" should replace "handicap" and "accessible parking" should replace "handicap parking." The Memphis Center for Independent Living offers extended guidance on writing about disability on the web at: http://www.mcil.org/mcil/log/1104log.htm "The backlash to 'politically correct' language has prevented many people from using more accurate and appropriate language," said Tim Wheat of the Memphis Center for Independent Living. "Handicap is easy, recognizable, and broad. Rather than providing people with accurate descriptions, many writers take the simple path and stick to the catch-all term 'handicap,' ignoring the fact that it is insulting."