Disability History
While looking for communities on LJ that were interested in disability history, I found none except two personal LJ's that hadn't even been updated. I did alternative searches for "sterilization," "eugenics," and "Carrie Buck," and all I came up with was neo-Nazi, nationalist proponents of eugenics and everything I am passionately against. There are many communities on here dedicated to people with disabilities, so it strikes me as odd that there aren't any that deal with our history. I spent most of my college career researching and writing about this subject, which has just recently been discussed, thanks to Paul K. Longmore and others. I think there should definitely be a community for this, but I don't know if anyone would join if I created it. I strongly believe that people should be educated about their history as a group. Furthermore, I think that the nondisabled should be informed of our history as well. I think that education is one of the most important ways in changing attitudes towards disabilities. Beyond that, it's important that we understand the mistakes that were made in the past so that we try to avoid them in the future. I don't want Nazis and eugenicists to be the only voices heard on here concerning disabilities and history. People are only being influenced in one way. There are plenty of people who, for lack of knowledge, will believe in whatever someone tells them. I know plenty of people who agree with the idea of eugenics but have/had no idea that it caused mass sterilizations and murders of people with disabilities in the not too distant past.
I didn't even realize there was such a thing as disability history until I began looking it up myself. I found a lot of information that isn't ever taught in schools or in college. I had planned on taking a year off and then going back to graduate school, which I still plan on doing. However, now I don't know what to go to graduate school for. I graduated with a BA in History and intended to get an MA in Museum Studies or Public History. I work in a museum/archive now and I don't want to teach, so I figured that would be better. Now that I think about it though, I don't know... I feel like I'd be missing my calling if I didn't do something with disability history, but what exactly would I do? I mean it's not a well-established field with many job opportunities. The only thing I could think of is maybe a position with an advocacy group or teaching history and disability history at a university somewhere. If I taught college, I'd need a Ph.D., which I hadn't planned on getting. And with that, I'd probably need two master's degrees: one in history and one in disability studies. No one I know has any idea about what to do with disability history. Maybe an advocacy group would be a good idea but I don't know anybody in that field that would know what they're talking about. This is all so confusing. I refuse to sacrifice myself to the nursing/IT professions just to get a job, and I also refuse to do something I'm not passionate about just because it pays well or has a definite track. But the way I'm going, I'm laible to be working at McDonald's in a year or something....
I didn't even realize there was such a thing as disability history until I began looking it up myself. I found a lot of information that isn't ever taught in schools or in college. I had planned on taking a year off and then going back to graduate school, which I still plan on doing. However, now I don't know what to go to graduate school for. I graduated with a BA in History and intended to get an MA in Museum Studies or Public History. I work in a museum/archive now and I don't want to teach, so I figured that would be better. Now that I think about it though, I don't know... I feel like I'd be missing my calling if I didn't do something with disability history, but what exactly would I do? I mean it's not a well-established field with many job opportunities. The only thing I could think of is maybe a position with an advocacy group or teaching history and disability history at a university somewhere. If I taught college, I'd need a Ph.D., which I hadn't planned on getting. And with that, I'd probably need two master's degrees: one in history and one in disability studies. No one I know has any idea about what to do with disability history. Maybe an advocacy group would be a good idea but I don't know anybody in that field that would know what they're talking about. This is all so confusing. I refuse to sacrifice myself to the nursing/IT professions just to get a job, and I also refuse to do something I'm not passionate about just because it pays well or has a definite track. But the way I'm going, I'm laible to be working at McDonald's in a year or something....