Communities

The thread that I followed was the concept of community and who had access to the larger community or the ability to dictate their community. Within Native American communities the distinction of disability was far different than what it is today. People who were ostracized or seen as less than were ones who did not give back to community members in some way, with the example of a man with a disability of some sort that would be strong enough to deliver water as someone who would not be ostracized because of his disability. As our history progresses and with colonism in the Americas concepts of what makes a good community member shifts. It is not that someone is expected to provide for others in some way but more that they are viewed as fit. Many of the decisions made about things such as who should allowed on ships were largely based on the visual representation of that person. As centuries continue and institutions form the concept of who should be seen and not seen seems to arise with many institutions used to pull curtains around people wih disabilities as they represented what people we did not want in our society. This strongly links to disability activism today that focuses on the need for visability. I find this connection between visability and community powerful as well as its influence of captialism.