I have spent my time on this blog dreaming of a vision for the disability movement and disability education. My biggest flaw in this is that I have little personal experience with people who have disabilities. I recently came a little closer to understanding this missing piece of my experience. I learned the other side of the vision: the reality of what may never change about people with disabilities in our society.
My Aunt’s dog Sparky, with whom I spent a good bit of time as a child, recently developed a bone cancer requiring his front leg to be amputated. This canine experience with disability is admittedly a simplified version of the human one, but it helped me understand some bigger themes. Upon seeing Sparky the first time without his four legs, I was deeply sad for him. I could not look on him hopping around to retrieve a ball and feel glad, even though he managed quite well on his three legs. Despite all I have said about treating the disabled as equals, I was sad and felt pity for Sparky. I found myself thinking how courageous he is to still be chasing his ball!
I don’t think that any amount of education or societal change will eliminate this reaction towards a dog or a person. Whenever a loved one undergoes a dramatic change like loosing part of their body, we feel for our friend's pain, shudder the thought of that happening to us, and project those scared feelings though pity onto our friend.
This experience brought my own activism (if you could call it that) into focus. We cannot change the fact that we feel sad when our loved ones are hurt or forced into uncomfortable challenges. We can change our expectations of how the world will receive the disabled and provide them with the emotional and civic support (through infrastructure) that they need to reclaim full lives with their disability. That is the goal of our activism. I'm glad I'm not alone!
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2 comments:
I'm not sure what to think. In my case, my own disability is no loss or injury or anything - I was born like this.
I suppose if I, for example, became blind, I'd miss being able to see. My life wouldn't be over, and I'd find joy in non-visual things, but I would miss being able to see. Besides that, there'd be so much to adjust to. I'd probably find it easier to gradually lose my sight than suddenly, because there'd be less to adjust to.
But my disability, being congenital, is no loss nor is it anything to adjust to. It's just the way I am, the way I've always been, and for some inexplicable reason society seems to think there's something wrong with me.
hey frogger!
i've noticed that activism in general sometimes has to have these hard lines, that if we're talking about disability it has to be from a radically proud perspective because we're denied that by nondisabled people. still, within our communities and among friends, if we do not recognize that disability is complicated and messy and sometimes painful then we are denying disability and just forcing it in another model.
the part you mentioned is a process. people have to go through that, not because it can be a loss but mostly because it is a huge life change. we have to recognize that in our activism.
curious to hear your thoughts!
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