I haven’t had time, with the beginning of a very frantic semester, to write a new blog in a while. While this isn’t really an original essay, I think readers will take away something from the video below where I and others are interviewed by the Michigan Disability Rights Coalition about the meaning of Disability Pride (turn on captioning by clicking the arrow button on the bottom right of the viewer). The video is followed up by a paste of an email dialogue between myself and a friend who identifies as person with a disability and just began law school at MSU. I think it gets at the heart of why pride is so central to our movement.
Hence, if the disability pride movement is successful, people will begin to look at disabilities the same way they look at different clothing styles and music genres — different, sure, but interesting, valid, and maybe even attractive. Some hotties have sexy foreign accents (–we all know diversity is attractive!); some hotties have sexy titanium wheels (–why is that not the same thing?)
Disability pride, therefore, is much more than an insular community of disabled people validating each other’s worth… It’s about inviting others to see us how we see ourselves, and about replacing fears and assumptions with the dialogue and genuine interaction that are essential for true acceptance. If non-disabled people can gain more than a voyeuristic TV snapshot of people with disabilities, they will realize that people are people and that there’s really nothing to be awkward about or retract from. But, this can only happen through integration, thus it is essential for the “disabled community” to resist the exclusivity that is often cultivated by marginalized groups. If we keep ourselves isolated from the larger community or keep non-disabled people on our own sidelines, we are contributing to the very social divide that we are trying to overcome. Disability pride is about Not having to be like everyone else and about boldly projecting, “I’m here, and you’ll realize I’m extremely capable (and probably also think I’m cool) if you take a few minutes to get to know me.”
When the public looks upon my disability as they would a new hair style or indie band, and when people of all abilities are involved in each other’s lives on every level–not only professional and academic but also social and romantic–that’s disability pride, and that’s when everyone will be the most fulfilled.
On the flipside, as you pointed out, I can see the value of comradery and support to help one another build this confidence, especially for those who may feel ashamed. For me, though, it’s hard to comprehend the shame that may exist because I have never perceived disabilities as anything but cool. Maybe I need to cool my gung-ho inclusiveness a tad so I can take more time to appreciate people’s emotional vulnerabilities.
Thanks for the kudos about my chair and look. I want to make sure I do my part to help the world see that differences can indeed be hot, even physical differences that impose challenges on my life. Of course, the unlucky guy who ends up dating me will have his work cut out for him — I need to complain about my pain in order to deal with it, I need backrubs, I can be a party pooper / homebody since I am so often feeling miserable. But, for me, those issues are all part of my personal life, not my public life — yes, I do suffer a lot, but that’s not for others to use against me in assessing if I am cool enough to be included in their social sphere.
What do you think of all of this? I am enjoying exchanging perspectives with you. We have some very different perspectives since you’ve always had your dis while mine is acquired, and our dis’s are different in nature. Though, I should let you know, power chairs are hot, too, not just manual ones 
It’s mostly about the image the individual projects, and the pride in their assets — nice eyes, nice wheels, same deal…
However, as it is now, our culture does not celebrate our difference. We do not live in a world in which it is seen as a neutral trait like eye color. We are constantly being normalized by doctors and teachers to fit into the various boxes of the ideal. Most folks’ conception of what it is to be disabled is fed to them by Jerry Lewis and the like. This message that we are “less than” is many times internalized by people with disabilities themselves, and they come to believe it in various ways. Disability pride is meant to create a space in which someone can reject this notion of “less than.” It is an unapologetic move attempting to shift the culture and make it OK to be who you are in a very public way.
I suppose, in principle, it’s possible for someone not connected to the crip community (crip being the used here as the cultural/political identity like “queer” is sometimes also used) to look in the mirror and think they are sexy. Hell, before I was connected to the crip community, I thought it all the time. The point of disability pride isn’t necessarily to validate that judgment, but rather, to make that judgment a public, highly political act of defiance. That is, through individual, private pride in ourselves, we may be able to, for a time, exist in a psychological space of contentment. However, this does not do any work toward changing our culture so that it accepts that judgment as legitimate. By taking pride in your community publicly, a very similar act can be an attempt to shift the public at large toward this broadening of the definition of diversity.
I think an analogy can be made here toward the gay/queer movement. One might say in private “I’m happy with me and my sexual preferences” but it is not until one does this publicly with the words “I’m proud of my way of life that is shared by this community who loves in a similar way to how I love” that the real work of culture shift is done.
So, I guess disability pride serves 2 functions. 1) It creates a group identity that a person can latch on to so they do not exist in isolation, legitimating the judgment that you should love who and how you are. and 2) It puts this group identity on display for public consumption, in the form of a demand for acceptance and culture shift. One person in front of a mirror cannot shatter paradigms. When that one person gets together with others, this kind of change can start to occur.
I don’t think who ever ends up with you will be “unlucky” in any fashion! What it means to love someone is to care about them enough to take joy in supporting them in their journey through life as a partner that sometimes is leaned upon and other times does the leaning. Interdependence, I think is a much more honest and beautiful way of understanding freedom than independence (and I think this is one truth the disability perspective can offer the world, btw).
Of course I am enjoying this! And one point on which we do agree is that attractiveness has everything to do with how one moves about in the world with joy and power. I study disability theory for a living and so sometimes it makes me “see” things or be sensitive to scenarios that are not acknowledged by others, but I like to say that I live in a way that is defiant rather than bitter. Looking forward to talking more!
I think he is talking about the “both” here. To create change, we need to be hooked in to a larger movement that is not made up of any one leader. Yet, at the same, we have to LIVE the revolution of one in our own individual lives. That is, LIVE in a way that rejects the stigmas. I think we are closer ideologically here than you may have presumed.
