There is a sad truth known throughout communities of people with disabilities: exploitation. A plethora of videos make their way across various social media sites. These popular videos, known to some as “Inspiration Porn,” use the stories of people with disabilities and cut them into thirty-second clips with a caption along the lines of 'Wow! I need to be thankful for what I have!'
I sit in my wheelchair at the edge of the pool. My seat belt is undone, just in case. If my chair somehow ends up in the water, it’ll be easier to escape that way.
I. Tradition I always wanted the kind of holidays you see in Publix commercials, ones stuffed with family sitting around a mile-long table that’s covered with dishes all lovingly made. I imagined waking on Thanksgiving to frosted windows and a house already warm from the oven. Aunts and uncles and cousins would stagger in throughout the day, some early enough to watch the parade while the air slowly turned savory; some just in time…
Sometime during middle school a male relative told me that if I weren’t in a wheelchair, I’d be “tall, thin, and gorgeous.” He meant it as a compliment, and I took it as such. Even as my throat tightened and my palms tingled with discomfort, I thanked him. Because I knew could have been was the closest I’d ever come to beautiful so long as I used a wheelchair.
In some ways, camp was an exercise in playing pretend. If we rode horses, went swimming, shot some arrows, and never talked about our disabilities, then maybe we’d be almost normal, almost abled. There wasn’t a chance to wonder if we were just as whole as abled kids and our experiences just as valid. We accepted without hesitation that normal was the goal.
This woman is clearly not disabled, but I followed her around anyway just to make sure. Because I am very thorough at my job, and because that is why you pay me the big bucks.
It was confirmed that Wang resides at 123 ***** St., San Francisco, CA. She does not appear to drive. Wang was seen walking to several neighborhood locations, including a frou-frou “boutique market.”
Before I saw the man’s body shake, I saw his shopping cart shake. He’d pulled out the child’s seat and put three folded shirts there, all striped through three different colorways. The belly of the cart was empty, and so I looked at his arms. They held his hands awkwardly, palms pushed forward, like a child getting ready to push up his shoulders and say Idon’tknow. Then I saw the hands themselves, their fingers and…
Kelly Davio's previous Waiting Room columns for The Butter can be found here. Some weeks ago, I was late for a meeting and waiting at a crosswalk, impatient with the incredibly long red light. Just as the signal finally turned my way and I began my slow progresses from curb to street, a Typical Seattle Biker—white man, brown beard, tight shorts, pointy helmet—came rolling up the curb cut in front of me. He then did…
This is the story you’ve been told: you walked at nine months, ran at ten, and by eleven were doing somersaults upon somersaults until you collapsed red-faced from the motion, but most of all from the giggling.
Born in 1960 with spina bifida, a condition which paralysed him from the waist down, the medical establishment didn't expect much of for him. "First 'they' said I wouldn't live...then they said I shouldn't live. My parents disagreed," Davison writes in his 1988 graphic novel memoir, The Spiral Cage. And live he did, though he spent most of his first three years in
Wolverine is semiconscious on the operating table, strapped down, surrounded by scary medical machinery that hums and bleeps. X-rays hang on their light boxes, showing his abnormal physique. Doctors in white coats stand around him, debating, poking and prodding at their captive laboratory specimen. Soon, he knows he will be submerged in the adamantium feed tank, tubes plunged into every vein and orifice as the doctors hunt for all his body's secrets, and rebuild
To preserve the original tone and after discussing it with Lana, we have decided not to copy-edit this piece. - Ed.
In May 2009, I graduated with a B.A in English Language Literature. Immediately, I knew I wanted to teach abroad but it was a matter of where. After weeks of research, I decided on South Korea. It took a few months of obtaining paper work and looking for the perfect position, but finally…
I The harsh sterile lights of the hospital are so bright after our mad dash through the summer night. The nurse comes out and takes us to a room and says that the Doctor will be in shortly. I didn’t know then that that is a very bad sign. “Your grandmother has died of a heart attack,” the doctor says. II We wait in the waiting room. The surgeon comes out. There is no request…
I just fell, hard. I was halfway home from a friend’s house when I realized I had left my phone there; ten minutes later, I was jumping out of my car in front of their house. I started to jog inside when my foot slipped on something, and I was down for the count - palms and knees slammed into the ground, protecting the rest of my body.
