Exile and Pride

Thinking back to the publication of Exile and Pride in 1999, Clare says that he hoped it would prompt nondisabled progressive activists to add disability to their political agendas; he also wanted disabled activists to push back against single-issue agendas and consider the intersections of disability and other political and social issues. This is still his goal in 2009, as the changes he wants to see have not happened yet. He provides examples of ADAPT and Critical Resistance, activist groups that advocate for disability rights and the abolition of the prison industrial complex, respectively. ADAPT, for instance, used a slogan stating that nursing homes are worse than prisons, pitting the two issues against each other instead of working to advance both causes and explore the ways prison reform and disability rights are entwined. 

Clare then discusses the importance of the work of feminist writers of color in the “multi-issue politics” in Exile and Pride. Many important women of color inform Clare’s writing by helping him understand the way patriarchy, white supremacy, and capitalism work together to define and reinforce the oppressive aspects of society. These women also helped Clare come to terms with the political nature of his cerebral palsy and the politics of disability. 

Clare then considers the impact of war and the way war is discussed in the context of disability, particularly the “eye for an eye” slogan that seems to treat blindness as an inherently negative thing (xxiv). He discusses the myriad ways that war kills and disables people and considers how politics and political identities inform who is killed and disabled. To understand this, Clare argues that people must explore a “multi-layered analysis of how white supremacy, capitalism, patriarchy, imperialism, and ableism work in concert” to impact people’s lives (xxv).

When asked what Exile and Pride is about, Clare answers “home.” Home to Clare means “place, body, identity, community” (xxv), ideas that are intrinsic to the development of Exile and Pride.

Clare reflects on his changed understanding of his gender identity since the 1999 publication of Exile and Pride. Clare now lives in the world as a man, though he identifies as genderqueer, neither man nor woman. However, though he now uses he/him pronouns, he does not want to turn his back on his long history as a woman and a lesbian. He wants to push back against the gender binary and the idea that gender must fall into rigid categories. He wants many gendered possibilities to not only be normal but “profoundly ordinary and familiar” (xxviii).

Clare divides the Prologue, centered on the metaphor of a mountain, into three categories. In “The Mountain,” Clare likens “overcoming” disability to climbing a mountain. Clare describes people with disabilities attempting to climb the mountain, struggling with wheelchairs and crutches. Meanwhile, able-bodied people attempt to push them back, burning bridges across canyons to keep them from reaching the summit while describing how beautiful the seemingly unreachable summit is. Some may reach the summit, while some may not. Either way, Clare argues all people with disabilities who climb the mountain must come face to face with their own bodies.

In “A Supercrip Story,” Clare reclaims the slur “crip,” an offensive term for people with disabilities, to refer to himself. Clare explains that the term “supercrip” is a problematic word used to refer to people with disabilities, especially athletes, who “overcome” their disabilities. This flattens the disabled experience and implicitly asserts nondisabled bodies and minds as superior. Clare gives examples of “supercrips”: a boy without hands having success at batting in Little League, a man who is blind hiking the entire Appalachian Trail, a girl with Down Syndrome learning to drive and getting a boyfriend, and a man with one leg running across all of Canada. He criticizes the “supercrip” stereotype because it places “overcoming” disability at the center of the narrative, ignoring the ways that society’s rampant ableism negatively impacts people with disabilities socially, politically, and legally. 

Clare has been a “supercrip”: He ran track in high school, though he often came last due to his cerebral palsy. He ran because he loved to run, but at the end of cross-country races, people would cry over him and call him an inspiration, viewing him as a “supercrip, tragic brave girl with CP, courageous cripple” and displaying condescending pity (3). Clare was again a “supercrip” when he attempted to hike Mount Adams with his friend Adrienne. Clare wanted to complete the hike, as he enjoys walking and hiking, and Adrienne assured him that he could do it. Clare enjoyed the first mile of the hike, but as the steepness increased, the hike began to require some climbing. Adrienne didn’t know if the hike would become steeper yet, so they studied some topography maps. They decided that it would take Clare too long to hike up and then scoot down, so after a cry, Clare followed Adrienne down. 

In the years since, Clare has given Mount Adams a lot of thought, refusing to turn to bitterness. Clare delineates between impairment and disability. He offers disability theorist Michael Oliver’s definitions of both terms: impairment is “lacking part of or all of a limb, or having a defective limb, organism or mechanism of the body” and disability is “the disadvantage or restriction of activity caused by a contemporary social organisation which takes no or little account of people who have physical [and/or cognitive/intellectual] impairments and thus excludes them from the mainstream of society” (6). Clare explains the various actions that he has difficulty with because of his cerebral palsy; he types and writes slowly, can find it challenging to take money out of his wallet, and his speech can be “slow and slurred” (7), as cerebral palsy affects his fine motor skills. Nevertheless, he struggles with the division of impairment and disability, as so much of his experience of living with cerebral palsy is shaped by ableism. He offers the example of a failure based on a “socially constructed limitation” (7), in which he was refused more time to take a test despite his slower handwriting, in contrast to a failure based on his physical limitation, in which he could not summit Mount Adams. 

In interrogating his experience on Mount Adams, Clare realizes he wanted to “overcome” his cerebral palsy and to use the story of the “supercrip” as a shield against the societal oppression that people with disabilities face. When discussing the experience on the mountain with others, Clare heard advice about gear but never that he did the right thing turning around. 

In “Home,” Clare explores the various aspects of his body, as he acknowledges that the mountain will never be his home and that his body is his true home. His body is disabled, as he was born with cerebral palsy. His body was violated, as his father and his friends sexually abused and tortured Clare as a child. His body is white, and he grew up in a predominantly white town in Port Orford, Oregon, not seeing true diversity until he moved to the city to attend college. His body is “queer,” as he finally found comfort within the “dyke” community, a term Clare also works to reclaim. His body is his home but is also influenced by other bodies. Clare thinks about the impact of his father on his life, as well as the impact of the white, working-class men he grew up around. He also acknowledges that his body is deeply affected by the beauty and loss of the Pacific Northwest. Language also impacts the body, as the words that have been thrown at Clare (“crip,” “queer,” “freak,” and “redneck”) toe the line between the pride of reclamation and the damage of their intended degradation as they “burrow” into him. Clare also acknowledges that bodies can be stolen, as violence against the LGBTQIA+ and disability communities is extremely prominent. However, stolen bodies can also be reclaimed and memorialized. 

Clare knows the mountain still grips him, as the desire to fulfill the “supercrip” stereotype still lives inside him. Still, he holds on to hope that after the revolution, people with disabilities will be able to live their lives without being relegated either to nursing homes or to the “supercrip” role. The mountain will become a volcanic crater, and the real mountains that Clare wants to climb will still exist, though he will know when some of them are too steep.