On any given day, I have to choose which disability injustice I want to write about:
Is it the blind person forced to allow someone else to vote for them?
Is it the airline that broke or lost yet another wheelchair?
Is it the insurance company using bogus AI to turn down healthcare?
Is it the EEOC complaint filed because an employer illegally treated an employee?
Is it the disabled child in school being bullied and discriminated against, impairing their ability to continue education and find work?
Is it the couple who have been together for decades who can’t marry because of antiquated SSDI rules?I literally see evidence of each of these disgraceful forms of discrimination multiple times a week. It makes me dreadfully sad, both to experience some of these things myself, but also to watch my disabled brothers and sisters go through the same.
People with disabilities can yell about the injustice of these situations until we are blue in the face. It is absolutely overwhelming to look at all of this and say, “Where is my place in a world that doesn’t give a <bleep> about my presence?”
Here is how I cope.
I imagine that disability discrimination is a sweater. We all need to keep picking at the threads until one day the whole dang sweater is a pile of yarn on the floor. Some days I wield a machete and hack at the sweater for all I’m worth. Other days I can barely muster the energy to raise my hand to pick at the loose thread with a fingernail. Some days all I can do is stare at the sweater and curse.
But I don’t give up. Because giving up means the ableist people of the world have won.
Alt: Never give up on disability advocacy. Doing so allows ableist voices to win and perpetuate an inequal society.