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我在維多利亞一個小鄉鎮長大,成長過程十分平凡。我上學、與朋友玩耍、跟妹妹們吵架,一切都十分平凡。我15歲時,一名地方社區成員與我父母接洽,想提名我角逐社區成就獎。我父母說:「呃,這是件好事,但有個顯而易見的問題:她還不曾取得什麼成就。」(笑聲)
他們說的沒錯。我上學讀書,成績還不錯,畢業後在母親的髮型設計沙龍從事相當普通的工作。我花很多時間觀看《吸血鬼獵人巴菲》和《戀愛時代》。沒錯,我瞭解,感覺不太搭調。但他們說的沒錯,我根本不曾做過任何與眾不同的事,也不曾做過任何可被視為成就的事,如果不考慮殘疾這項因素的話。幾年後,我再次回墨爾本一所高中教書,當我在11年級一堂法律課上講了約20分鐘後,一位男孩舉手說:「嘿,女士,你打算什麼時候開始演講?」我說:「什麼演講?」當時我已花了二十多分鐘解釋毀謗罪。他說:「你知道,例如勵志演講之類的。當坐著輪椅的人來到學校,不是通常都會說點勵志故事嗎?(笑聲)多半是在大禮堂裡。」
就在那時,我意識到:在這個孩子眼中,殘障人士只是所謂的勵志工具。我們並非這種角色。對這個孩子來說-我是指,這不是他的錯,很多人都有這種想法。對許多人來說,殘障人士不是老師、不是醫生或美甲師,我們不是真實的人,我們的存在只是為了激勵他人。事實上,當我在這個講臺上坐著輪椅演講,你們多少也會期待我激勵你們一番,對嗎?(笑聲)我瞭解。
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以下為系統擷取之英文原文
I grew up in a very small country town in Victoria. I had a very normal, low-key kind of upbringing. I went to school, I hung out with my friends, I fought with my younger sisters. It was all very normal. And when I was 15, a member of my local community approached my parents and wanted to nominate me for a community achievement award. And my parents said, "Hm, that's really nice, but there's kind of one glaring problem with that. She hasn't actually achieved anything." (Laughter)
And they were right, you know. I went to school, I got good marks, I had a very low-key after school job in my mum's hairdressing salon, and I spent a lot of time watching "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Dawson's Creek." Yeah, I know. What a contradiction. But they were right, you know. I wasn't doing anything that was out of the ordinary at all. I wasn't doing anything that could be considered an achievement if you took disability out of the equation. Years later, I was on my second teaching round in a Melbourne high school, and I was about 20 minutes into a year 11 legal studies class when this boy put up his hand and said, "Hey miss, when are you going to start doing your speech?" And I said, "What speech?" You know, I'd been talking them about defamation law for a good 20 minutes. And he said, "You know, like, your motivational speaking. You know, when people in wheelchairs come to school, they usually say, like, inspirational stuff?" (Laughter) "It's usually in the big hall."
And that's when it dawned on me: This kid had only ever experienced disabled people as objects of inspiration. We are not, to this kid -- and it's not his fault, I mean, that's true for many of us. For lots of us, disabled people are not our teachers or our doctors or our manicurists. We're not real people. We are there to inspire. And in fact, I am sitting on this stage looking like I do in this wheelchair, and you are probably kind of expecting me to inspire you. Right? (Laughter) Yeah.
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好,女士先生們,恐怕我會讓你們大失所望。我來這裡不是為了激勵你們,我來這裡是想告訴你們,我們對殘疾存在錯誤的認知。沒錯,我們不斷被錯誤地灌輸殘疾是件壞事;「相當」糟的事。這是件壞事,伴隨著殘疾生活使你與眾不同。這並非壞事,也不會使你與眾不同。
過去幾年,這個錯誤認知藉由媒體傳播更加廣為流傳。你們或許見過像這樣的圖片:「人生唯一的殘疾就是消極的態度。」或這張:「你的藉口不成立。」或這張:「放棄之前先盡力嘗試!」這只是其中幾個例子,這樣的圖片還有很多,你們或許見過這個:一位失去雙臂的小女孩用嘴叼著筆畫畫;你們或許見過一個孩子藉由碳纖維義肢奔跑。這類圖片多不勝數,我們稱之為「勵志色情片」。(笑聲)我刻意使用「色情片」這個字眼,因為他們藉由將一群人物化,使另一群人獲得益處。因此在這個例子中,我們物化了殘障人士,以滿足非殘障人士的利益。這些圖片的目的是為了鼓舞你們、激勵你們,因此我們可以看著這些圖片,然後心想:「嗯,無論我的生活多糟,還有比我更糟的,我也可能是那個人。」
但如果你就是那個人呢?我記不清有多少次,陌生人向我走來,想告訴我他們認為我多麼勇敢或激勵人心,這是在我成為公眾人物之前的事。他們只是為了我早上能順利起床、沒忘了自己的名字而讚賞我。(笑聲)這就是所謂的物化。這些圖片物化了殘障人士,只為了非殘障人士的利益。它們的存在使你們能看著這些圖片,慶幸自己的情況還不算糟,把擔心拋在腦後。
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Well, ladies and gentlemen, I'm afraid I'm going to disappoint you dramatically. I am not here to inspire you. I am here to tell you that we have been lied to about disability. Yeah, we've been sold the lie that disability is a Bad Thing, capital B, capital T. It's a bad thing, and to live with a disability makes you exceptional. It's not a bad thing, and it doesn't make you exceptional.
And in the past few years, we've been able to propagate this lie even further via social media. You may have seen images like this one: "The only disability in life is a bad attitude." Or this one: "Your excuse is invalid." Indeed. Or this one: "Before you quit, try!" These are just a couple of examples, but there are a lot of these images out there. You know, you might have seen the one, the little girl with no hands drawing a picture with a pencil held in her mouth. You might have seen a child running on carbon fiber prosthetic legs. And these images, there are lots of them out there, they are what we call inspiration porn. (Laughter) And I use the term porn deliberately, because they objectify one group of people for the benefit of another group of people. So in this case, we're objectifying disabled people for the benefit of nondisabled people. The purpose of these images is to inspire you, to motivate you, so that we can look at them and think, "Well, however bad my life is, it could be worse. I could be that person."
But what if you are that person? I've lost count of the number of times that I've been approached by strangers wanting to tell me that they think I'm brave or inspirational, and this was long before my work had any kind of public profile. They were just kind of congratulating me for managing to get up in the morning and remember my own name. (Laughter) And it is objectifying. These images, those images objectify disabled people for the benefit of nondisabled people. They are there so that you can look at them and think that things aren't so bad for you, to put your worries into perspective.
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殘障人士的生活確實有困難之處。我們確實得克服一些困難,但我們需要克服的困難跟你們想像的不同。那些困難與我們身體的缺陷無關。我刻意使用「殘障人士」這個字眼,因為我贊同所謂的「殘障社會模式」,其中的含意是,相較於身體的缺陷和病症,我們居住的社會更突顯出我們的殘疾。
因此我生活在這樣的身體中已有很長一段時間,感覺還不錯。它能做到我需要它做的事,我學會如何將它的功能發揮到極限,就跟你們一樣。圖片裡的那些孩子也一樣。他們並沒有做任何與眾不同的事,他們只是將身體的功能發揮到極限。因此用這種方式物化他們、散播這類圖片真的公平嗎?當人們說:「你是激勵人心的榜樣。」他們把這句話當成一種讚美,我知道為何如此,因為我們一直以來被灌輸這種錯誤的認知:殘障使你與眾不同。事實上並非如此。
我知道你們在想什麼。我在台上不斷否定這種激勵作用,你們心想:「天啊,Stella,難道你不曾受到某些事物激勵嗎?」事實上確實有。我時時刻刻都從其他殘障人士身上學習,但我學到的不是我比他們幸運多少,我學到的是用烤肉夾撿東西是個不錯的主意。(笑聲)我學到的是用輪椅電池幫手機充電是個絕妙的點子,太天才了。我們從彼此身上學習堅強和毅力,並非用來對抗身體的缺陷與疾病的限制,而是對抗這個對我們投以異樣眼光、物化我們的世界。
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And life as a disabled person is actually somewhat difficult. We do overcome some things. But the things that we're overcoming are not the things that you think they are. They are not things to do with our bodies. I use the term "disabled people" quite deliberately, because I subscribe to what's called the social model of disability, which tells us that we are more disabled by the society that we live in than by our bodies and our diagnoses.
So I have lived in this body a long time. I'm quite fond of it. It does the things that I need it to do, and I've learned to use it to the best of its capacity just as you have, and that's the thing about those kids in those pictures as well. They're not doing anything out of the ordinary. They are just using their bodies to the best of their capacity. So is it really fair to objectify them in the way that we do, to share those images? People, when they say, "You're an inspiration," they mean it as a compliment. And I know why it happens. It's because of the lie, it's because we've been sold this lie that disability makes you exceptional. And it honestly doesn't.
And I know what you're thinking. You know, I'm up here bugging out inspiration, and you're thinking, "Jeez, Stella, aren't you inspired sometimes by some things?" And the thing is, I am. I learn from other disabled people all the time. I'm learning not that I am luckier than them, though. I am learning that it's a genius idea to use a pair of barbecue tongs to pick up things that you dropped. (Laughter) I'm learning that nifty trick where you can charge your mobile phone battery from your chair battery. Genius. We are learning from each others' strength and endurance, not against our bodies and our diagnoses, but against a world that exceptionalizes and objectifies us.
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我確實認為這種錯誤認知的傳播是對殘障人士最大的不公,這使我們的生活變得艱難。而那句格言:「人生唯一的殘疾就是消極的態度。」簡直是一派胡言,因為事實並非如此。鑒於殘障社會模式的概念,對著階梯露出再多笑容也不會讓它變成一道斜坡,永遠不會。(笑聲)(掌聲)對著電視螢幕露出笑容,字幕也不會為了聾啞人士而出現;無論在書店中站了多久、釋放出多少正面能量,也不會使書本變成點字書。根本不可能發生。
我真心期待能生活在一個世界裡,殘障不再被當成一種異常現象,而是正常現象。我期待生活在一個世界裡,一位在臥室觀看《吸血鬼獵人巴菲》的十五歲少女,不會只因為好好坐著,就被視為達成某種成就。我期待生活在一個世界裡,我們對殘障人士的期待不會那麼低,我們不會因為能順利起床、記得自己的名字就受到讚賞。我期待生活在一個世界裡,人們能以真正的成就衡量殘障人士。我期待生活在一個世界裡,一位墨爾本高中11年級的孩子不會因為新老師坐輪椅上課而感到吃驚。
殘障不會使你與眾不同,但對自己所知的事物進行反思則使你與眾不同。
謝謝。
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I really think that this lie that we've been sold about disability is the greatest injustice. It makes life hard for us. And that quote, "The only disability in life is a bad attitude," the reason that that's bullshit is because it's just not true, because of the social model of disability. No amount of smiling at a flight of stairs has ever made it turn into a ramp. Never. (Laughter) (Applause) Smiling at a television screen isn't going to make closed captions appear for people who are deaf. No amount of standing in the middle of a bookshop and radiating a positive attitude is going to turn all those books into braille. It's just not going to happen.
I really want to live in a world where disability is not the exception, but the norm. I want to live in a world where a 15-year-old girl sitting in her bedroom watching "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" isn't referred to as achieving anything because she's doing it sitting down. I want to live in a world where we don't have such low expectations of disabled people that we are congratulated for getting out of bed and remembering our own names in the morning. I want to live in a world where we value genuine achievement for disabled people, and I want to live in a world where a kid in year 11 in a Melbourne high school is not one bit surprised that his new teacher is a wheelchair user.
Disability doesn't make you exceptional, but questioning what you think you know about it does.
Thank you.