Build a Ramp Up to the Fucking Podium
Look, I’m all about including disabled folk when talking about who you want to protect from discrimination. I’m glad people who are members of marginalized groups are taking time to mention members of another marginalized group.
Now that that’s out of the way, able‐bodied people need to take it a step further: give us the fucking microphone.
It’s not just enough to talk about how you want to protect disabled women as you march on DC. You need to use your platform and privilege to give those disabled women a chance to speak for themselves. Instead of saying stupid shit like this (emphasis mine):
quote: The Disability March organizers invite people living with disabilities to submit their names, photos and a statement on why they want to “march.” The images and text will be uploaded to the website in time for the Women’s March on Jan. 21, creating a virtual archive of people showing solidarity with the main event in Washington, D.C. end quote
Yeah, fuck you and your stupid quotation marks. Don’t create a way for us to be included at an event for equality and then sarcastically wrap quotes around the thing you made to include us. Are we marching or not? Either you see our way of expressing ourselves as equal to your own or you’re just pandering to us in order to get credit with your other able‐bodied friends.
I for one am sick of seeing shit like this. When we march against tyranny and injustice, the word “marching” is put in quotation marks.Our athletes are constantly lauded for the disability they’ve “overcome” instead being judged on their genuine athletic ability. Whenever we accomplish something of greatness, instead of saying they’re impressed, they’ll say they’re “inspired”. Well, guess what?
I’m not your fucking mascot.
If you genuinely care about us having a voice in the #resistance, quit yelling about how important we are from the stage and start building a ramp up to the fucking podium.