UNBROKEN

Dear America:

It’s been nearly a quarter century since the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed. Many of you may think folks with disabilities are equal now. That perhaps we should just shut up already and move on.

I understand that reaction. People with disabilities haven’t told their story. We’ve let others – usually clueless, often cruel -- tell it for us.

A common but inaccurate story is told by the business owner who resents the ADA. He thinks he’s done everything for those gimps, even put in a ramp. Why can’t they just be grateful, even if the ramp is dangerously steep? The local news airs a story of the struggling business owner allegedly on the verge of bankruptcy, because those darn gimps insist his ramp isn’t up to snuff. 

But the story fails to explain that the ADA is not a burdensome building code but a civil rights law. It fails to point out that its requirements are usually less expensive to meet than already existing structural, electrical and plumbing codes. The story doesn’t say ramps are involved so people with disabilities can get into the building like everyone else. The story doesn’t clarify that refusing to remove physical barriers is the same as denying basic civil rights by posting a sign saying “Whites Only” or “Men Only” or “Christians Only.”

There are other stories told about people with disabilities rather than stories told by them. Like when the media made Christopher Reeve the de facto spokesperson for every disabled person on the planet.

I have no ill feelings toward Reeve. But Reeve expressed a very different mindset than the majority of folks with disabilities. He lived many years without a disability. After his injury, he was focused on curing disability rather than making a meaningful life with it.

Fueled by the national media, Reeve’s message aligned with the medieval way of thinking: a disabled person is a broken person. And the only way to deal with someone who’s broken is to fix him. There are normal people and there are disabled people. The normal are whole and valuable, and the disabled are broken and worthless.

The media’s focus on Reeve and his obsession with a cure took away the focus on everyday folks living with disabilities. The message was that every red cent should be used to find a cure. Why direct resources to fund affordable, accessible housing so 30-year olds in nursing homes can have full lives in the community with in-home attendant care? The lives of the broken hold no value until they are fixed.

Only a fraction of news stories focus on the modest investments in the built environment and simple reapportionment of government funding that would truly improve the quality of life for millions of disabled folks. The majority of media coverage reinforces vile stereotypes of the pathetic, pitiable and broken.

If news outlets repeated reprehensible stereotypes of African Americans, Jewish Americans and Hispanic Americans, the public would be justifiably outraged. But pigeonholing Disabled Americans as pathetic is still acceptable.

So I implore disabled men and women to tell their stories. To assert their civil rights to employment and transportation and goods and services. To claim the right to a life, just like anyone else.

Tell your story now, or someone else will tell it for you.