NYTimes article on Curtis Mayfield and Ron Amundson's Complaint

In response to
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/20/arts/music/recalling-curtis-mayfield-souls
-genius-of-gentleness.html



I sent the following (which there's no chance in hell will be published):



"Curtis Mayfield became quadriplegic in 1990. He died in 1999. Your article
reports on this fact by saying that he "lingered for nine years ... before
succumbing."



This is a crude distortion of the facts regarding disability. I became
paraplegic in 1990, and I am still "lingering ... before succumbing." I hope
to linger for many more years. But this verbiage is a crude distortion of my
life, and of Mayfield's.



Physical impairment is not a roadway along the path to death. The fact that
Mr. Mayfield was quadriplegic for nine years does not mean that his death
took nine years to complete. He was a fully alive person while he was
quadriplegic, as am I and all other people who are living with impairments.
It is an insult to state that we are merely "lingering" until death."



Ron Amundson, Dept. of Philosophy

University of Hawaii at Hilo

Hilo, HI  96720