Disability and Media

To start off, I would like to say… I love Netflix and mostly recently have been watching a series that I think you all should see.

It is called 3%, I do not want to give too much away but think Hunger Games + Portuguese and you got the right idea. In the show, 97% of the population lives in scums and poverty but if you get registered, at the age of 20 years old, you can go through a process called “The Process” (shocking right?) to see if you are the special 3% that gets to live in the island that has everything you can ever dream of, called The Offshore.

All the characters have their own special thing about them but the one that stood out to me was Fernando, would is played by an actor named Michel Gomes (Here is his Instagram, if you are curious).

Want to know why Fernando stood out to me…. I’ll tell you why…

Try to understand me

As someone with chronic pain, I feel like I’m always trying to get people to understand me and my life. And most of the time, even after I try explaining it all, they still don’t understand.

Video Games, Representation, and Disability: What is Empowerment?

As a person who is considered disabled in mainstream American society, video games have become a way for me to escape feelings of marginalization and feel powerful. More specifically, Western role-playing video games that allow the player to design what their character will look like, as well as the specific attributes they will have, are a very effective escape from the marginalization I often feel as a woman of color who is considered disabled. The player character also becomes very physically and politically powerful over the course of the game and has a significant amount of control over the world around them, contributing to my feelings of empowerment.

Is Our Campus Allergic to Accesibility?

I am an able-bodied person. I take advantage of this fact every day of my life as I walk around campus. At times I get winded or my legs hurt, but for the most part, I have no trouble walking to my classes, the dining hall, or common spaces on campus. As such, it is not immediately obvious to me and other able-bodied people around me how inaccessible this campus is. Every single one of my daily routes involves stairs. I hate them, but I can climb them. This is not the case for everyone on campus.

A Freak of (Un)Nature: On “Unnatural” and “Natural” Bodies

There is nothing I dread more than the confused, shocked, horrified look on people’s faces after I open my mouth and say something incomprehensible to their untrained ears. I feel like I am exposed for the freak of nature that I am. Despite my years and years of preparation in the form of weekly speech therapy sessions and high-tech cochlear implant, I still clumsily navigate the hearing world, where sound reigns supreme, constantly tripping over tasks that seem mundane to most people.

My body, and more specifically, my ears and voice, are seen as something out of the ordinary and freakish that must be covered up as efficiently as possible or put somewhere else where there are “people like me”.

Endless Pain

There’s a quote by John Green from one of his books that says, “That’s the thing about pain. It demands to be felt.” I have yet to find another quote that so accurately describes my life. No matter what I’m doing, my pain demands to be acknowledged and throughly felt.

The Relationship to Labor in Sex Work

When we speak about laboring bodies in class I am instantly aware that my relationship to labor is vastly different than that of my classmates. While I have worked in retail, food service, and other odd jobs, the majority of my work experience has been in sex work. I want to flesh out some of these differences, specifically in my experiences of being a stripper for the past four years.

Obvious or not obvious?

A few inabilities are a greater number of clear than others. Numerous are quickly obvious, particularly on the off chance that somebody depends on a wheelchair or stick. In any case, others — known as “imperceptible” inabilities — are most certainly not. Individuals who live with them face specific difficulties in the work environment and in their communities.

Judging Invisible Battles

 

I recently read a heart breaking story about a woman with Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome who was shamed for using a handicapped parking spot. The woman in the story was having a good day, meaning she was actually well enough to walk.

Happiness and Disability

Have you ever thought to yourself: “I’d rather be dead than disabled?” It’s not an unusual reflection. Disability, in everyday thought, is associated with failure, with dependency and with not being able to do things. We feel sorry for disabled people, because we imagine it must be miserable to be disabled.