"Disability Visibility" edited by Alice Wong

The first step to understanding somebody else's perspective is KNOWING what that perspective is. The experiences of people with disability can vary, after all each person is different. Alice Wong brought together a very diverse group of individuals and shared their stories in the book "Disability Visibility".

I won't be able of doing justice to all these folks so instead of my usual summary of the book I will just recommend you read it.

The one item I will share is some information from one of the stories, which I was ignorant about, and marked me profoundly after reading. The particular story from Harriet Tubman Collective talks about the Movement for Black lives and the policy that followed, or more specifically the policy that didn't follow. To quote "released a ground-breaking policy platform outlining the Movement's idea of what is required to build a more just world for all Black people that did not once mention disability, ableism, audism...".

The story also shared some shocking stats which I am quoting below, all related to Black Disabled people:

• "People with disabilities are twice as likely to live in poverty because poverty operates as a cause and consequence of disability"
• "Children with disabilities enter the juvenile legal system at five to six times the rate of youth who do not have disabilities, with 65 percent of boys and 75 percent of girls in juvenile detention having at least one mental illness, and up to 85 percent of children in juvenile detention having at least one disability"
• "55 percent of male state prisoners and 73 percent of female state prisoners have a mental health condition, with just 1 in 3 state prisoners and 1 in 6 jail inmates receiving treatment for their illness since being admitted."

There is not much I can add to that except - please read the book.