Disabled Talk

Uncommon Fathers: Reflections on Raising A Child with A Disability, Life Goes On by Frank Burle (via aow)

This sounds nice on the surface, but reads to me like just another bootstraps quote with some polish on top.  Yes, approaching abled and disabled as dichotomies is misleading and simplistic.  But that doesn’t mean that disability doesn’t exist, or disabled people.

If we pretend we’re all the same, the end result is discrimination because we aren’t all the same.  Many of us are disabled, no matter what language we use (“differently abled”).  Followers are free to share their own feedback, but imo it’s crucial for people to know we’re disabled and for them to know that we aren’t the same as someone who isn’t (or even people with other disabilities).  Believing that people are all the same won’t give us accessible buildings, employment, better representation or anything else that we need.

And it’s worth noting that disabled child or not, I don’t really care about abled people’s opinions on disability.