Photoessay #2566 - Disability Liberation

Today I went to class at UW; a landscape archaeology class with a ton of theory reading.  But, I woke up this morning and realized that this concept of Place that transcended time and space that we were reading about; a lot of my writing has been about that.  I think that I can really use this.

But this post is not about that.

Look at my first phrase -- "Today I went to class at UW."  Seem pretty normal and routine, doesn't it?  Seems like anybody could do it.  Not everybody can.  Not even me sometimes.

Today I am exulting in disability liberation.  Instead of hating myself for my limitations, I'm just getting around them.  Thank You ADA.  My doctor was doing a visualization the other day.  She said, as part of it, "See that hill?  You can walk up to the top easily."  I nearly started crying.  Walking up to the top of the hill is never easy for me.

So instead of feeling marginalized by this, I can focus my attention on my class.  It's like being fat.  We do it to ourselves.  We can't wear shorts because we are fat.  We can't go swimming because we are fat, etc etc

I get some limited disability accommodations at UW.  I can park in disabled parking.  I can ride the disability bus.  Plus almost all of the buildings are accessible.  I started out as an access student wearing a knapsack like everybody else.  After a week or two, I was a wreck.  My doctor pointed out that I couldn't carry around things in a knapsack.  Other options?  My old lady roller bag as I put it.  I put everything in there and I can get around that way.  Lucky for me that at UW, I can get almost anywhere without going up up and down stairs.  If you drag around an old lady roller bag, you don't want to go up stairs because that negates the whole purpose.  Plus I'm also entitled to the disability bus.  So, when I looked at Denny Hall, instead of saying to myself "I don't think I can take this class because it's so uphill from the bus," I make arrangements for the disability bus to take me there and I walk back.  That and the disability access door and the ancient elevator, I'm happening.

I don't have to worry, I can do it.  I can get to the top of the hill easily.  This is really huge.

It's not always convenient or quick.  But it's doable, I can do it.

Now, last spring, I wrote about how I subverted the system and, though I thought it worked for me, it didn't work for the universe.  I had a class in Anderson Hall which is famously NOT accessible.  Big class, second floor, no elevator.  The disabilities people said "say the word and we will move that class."  Oh my goodness, I didn't want to mess up 150 people's schedule so I figured out another way.  I just asked people to carry my old lady roller bag up the stairs.  And they did, and I bumped my way down.  But the universe heard me.  The greater good was not achieved.  Because, at the end of the quarter, the Young Professor had invited an elderly Holocaust survivor to speak.  He was HORRIFIED when she could not get up the stairs and there was no elevator.  He did manage to get her up.  But see how I enabled the situation by not making a fuss at the beginning of the quarter?  That set up the situation for the elderly speaker at the end of the quarter.  If I had made the fuss and they moved the class, it would not have happened.

Sometime we need to think about the greater good.  Despite some able-bodied grumbling, access for everybody satisfies the greater good.

Graphic from the organization Arizona Bridge to Independent Living.  Used without permission.