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trueloveSo, instead of talking about how aggravated I am about the online ADA training I had to take today (it was utterly inaccessible to low-vision users, so far as I could tell; I couldn't even navigate the slides via keybaord), I am going to talk about something that set me steaming a few weeks ago.
There's a blogger out there by the name of Heather Armstrong, also known as dooce. She's internet famous. She's gotten a hell of a lot of shit over the years for one thing or another. She's controversial, in huge part because she's a woman and she's frank about her life, her parenting, her depression. I find her interesting and engaging as a writer, usually, if not always someone I would care to know myself.
She recently trained for and ran a marathon. She injured herself in the process, and this post is about her fairly immediate reaction to injury and to how people reacted to her injured, less mobile self.
I read that post and I saw red. Do you know why?
It wasn't the narrative of TAB is injured and discovers people are actually fucking assholes to injured people and isn't that shocking, because if I got angry at every instance of that narrative, I wouldn't have time to breathe.
No, it was this paragraph:
Really?
That's who you're worried you've failed to keep the door open for? The injured but otherwise able-bodied athlete?
Not, say, the people who live with disabilities every day, who walk with canes, crutches, walkers, who use wheelchairs, who use white canes, service animals. The people who live this every day and will never stop living it because their disability is permanent.
You don't care about having knocked around those people?
Just that poor injured high school volleyball player who will actually heal from her injures and isn't used to dealing the unending rain of shit, not used to it the way people who live with it find it becomes nearly background noise.
No, that volleyball player is the one that matters. Her experience is obviously far more traumatic.
Fuck you.
Fuck the systematic erasure of people with disabilities in our society. Fuck the able-bodied privilege that allows you to be shocked by the way injured and disabled people become invisible. Fuck everyone who has ever chosen to look away and ignore people with disabilities.
But mostly, fuck you.
There's a blogger out there by the name of Heather Armstrong, also known as dooce. She's internet famous. She's gotten a hell of a lot of shit over the years for one thing or another. She's controversial, in huge part because she's a woman and she's frank about her life, her parenting, her depression. I find her interesting and engaging as a writer, usually, if not always someone I would care to know myself.
She recently trained for and ran a marathon. She injured herself in the process, and this post is about her fairly immediate reaction to injury and to how people reacted to her injured, less mobile self.
I read that post and I saw red. Do you know why?
It wasn't the narrative of TAB is injured and discovers people are actually fucking assholes to injured people and isn't that shocking, because if I got angry at every instance of that narrative, I wouldn't have time to breathe.
No, it was this paragraph:
I needed this reminder to pay more attention. Maybe these people have business that is more pressing than some gangly woman on crutches. I just hope that I haven't been so blinded by the craziness of life that I've failed to keep that door open for a volleyball player who landed sideways on her ankle. Because in twenty years when she's walking through the airport on crutches she'll remember that door and how insensitive we can be to each other.
Really?
That's who you're worried you've failed to keep the door open for? The injured but otherwise able-bodied athlete?
Not, say, the people who live with disabilities every day, who walk with canes, crutches, walkers, who use wheelchairs, who use white canes, service animals. The people who live this every day and will never stop living it because their disability is permanent.
You don't care about having knocked around those people?
Just that poor injured high school volleyball player who will actually heal from her injures and isn't used to dealing the unending rain of shit, not used to it the way people who live with it find it becomes nearly background noise.
No, that volleyball player is the one that matters. Her experience is obviously far more traumatic.
Fuck you.
Fuck the systematic erasure of people with disabilities in our society. Fuck the able-bodied privilege that allows you to be shocked by the way injured and disabled people become invisible. Fuck everyone who has ever chosen to look away and ignore people with disabilities.
But mostly, fuck you.