I want to support Kathy Mancusos consideration of the ways the language that we use to describe things can privilege some individuals and continue to produce a series of binaries. This is an important and appropriate post to the list and I hope that we can take her questions and concerns seriously. Her question and debate are related to disability activism and studies and have been incorporated into Internet/new media studies by such people as Gerard Goggin and Chrisopher Newell. A variety of academics have indicated how we often associate seeing and visual processes with knowledge and truth (see for instance Martin Jay, Downcast Eyes: The Denigration of Vision in Twentieth-Century French Thought. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994). To say something like I see what you mean indicates comprehension. Unfortunately, statements like are you blind? suggest that the person cannot recognize the obvious, is deficit, and stupid. Therefore, when we use the word blind to indicate that someone is less perceptive, unknowing, or clueless, we also denigrate individuals who are described as blind because of the ways their eyes function. In doing this, we establish a norm and indicate that the physically blind are deficit. This may be unintentional but it does have serious consequences for the ways bodies are understood and people are valued or devalued. I certainly have found my language to sometimes unintentionally dismiss and categorize people. I believe that it is worth thinking about the ways we say things and how this may have unintentional consequences and support powers and authorities that we would rather critique. All my best, Michele