Erasure of Individuality

Ellen L. Barton's "Textual Practices of Erasure" is one of the most fascinating texts that I have encountered in this class thus far.  The concept of erasure, which means to cancel something out, and its connection to agency is an important one to make.  So what role does erasure play in agency?  In this post, I will seek to answer this question as well as the implications of erasure on individuality.  Barton is on to something and it reaches far beyond people with disabilities.

After reading this text, I started to think about the negative effects of erasure on a larger scale.  For example, anything that is written could have the risk of erasure. While it is obvious that not every text has this characteristic, the potentiality of it is mind-boggling.  United Way's campaigns were not trying to employ erasure but it was an unforeseen consequence of their advertising strategies.  This was not a hidden agenda of United Way for they were only trying to help people with disabilities through the act of fundraising.

There is a section in Barton's article which sums up one of the main results of United Way campaigns.  In the section 'The United Way as American Business', Barton says, "It is at the same time an effective means of erasing the need for more complex reflection about the experience of disability on the part of the readers of the ads-the textual practices of erasure allow, even encourage, the erasure of reflection about pernicious stereotypes of disability..." (Barton 188).  By erasing reflections of individual experiences, individuality is lost.  Because that is what stereotypes do, they take away a person's individuality.

So what happens when a person loses their individuality?  The person loses everything.  By taking away someone's individuality,  their freedom is stripped from them and they must live a stereotypical life.  Take the person with a disability for example.  The person already has an uphill battle coping with a disability.  With erasure of reflections, the disabled are put into one large label that reads "I am disabled, I cannot help myself."  This does not mean to stop supporting them through fundraising but realize that each person has a name and each name has a face.  Each and every one of those faces has their own personal stories and experiences that make them different from other individuals struggling with disabilities.  Any stereotype is in danger of erasing those stories and experiences.  Personal experiences make up our identity.  Take away the experiences and his individuality is erased.

I want to stress the fact that disabled people are not the only people that are in danger of erasure.  As I said before, stereotypes will always the consequence of erasure of reflection.  Erasure of reflection dumbs down the reader's thinking causing them to refrain from challenging any stereotypes.  A reader takes the text and assumes it to be right without posing thought-provoking questions.  Individuality is a privilege that every human being values, which is why writers have to be more careful to not encourage stereotypes even if they are unintended.

So what role does erasure play in agency?  The answer to this question can be traced back to the previous points of stereotypes and individuality.  Erasure plays an enormous role in agency so much in fact that the two are directly related.  The creation of stereotypes through erasure of reflection diminishes a person's agency.  Stereotypes group people together but not in a powerful way.  How can an individual have agency if their identity is de-constructed?  Going back to Barton's article, United Way's agency inadvertently took away the agency of the disabled.

I stress the importance of the writer/creator's ability to avoid causing or encouraging stereotypes through any means.  The agency of putting the pen to the page has been underestimated and not in a good way.  But there is good news to come from all of this.  We, as text creators, have the ability to use our agency in a positive manner breaks down stereotypes and urges the reader to think critically about what they are reading.  Never should a person accept a man's opinion as truth.  Give individuality back instead of taking it away.

In conclusion, I would like to make clear that I do not disagree with United Way's fundraising campaigns.  I just believe that they were not careful to touch all of their bases.  Ellen L. Barton mirrors many of the thoughts I had on this issue.  Her article opened my conversation up to a larger scale of erasures of reflection.  As a writer with individuality and agency, be mindful of your composing process and the possible results that could come forth.

Works Cited

Barton, Ellen L. "Textual Practices of Erasure: Representations of Disability and the Founding of the        United Way." Embodied Rhetorics: Disability in Language and Culture. Ed. James C. Wilson and Cynthia Lewiecki-Wilson. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 2001. 169-199.