Disability justice is centered on the inclusion of those most impacted by systems of oppression and their intersectionality among other marginalized groups they identify. As with many other movements, the beginnings of disability rights was centric on white, heterosexual, males that had a disability to the exclusion of other people. “Disability justice recognizes the intersecting legacies of white supremacy, colonial capitalism, gendered oppression and ableism in understanding how people’s’ bodies and minds are labelled ‘deviant’, ‘unproductive’, ‘disposable’ and/or ‘invalid’” (https://www.letserasethestigma.com/disability-justice). It is important to incorporate disability justice into accessibility laws in order to combat the erroneous equation of legal opportunities to actual access to equal opportunities. This requires societal awareness that challenges discrimination, implicit bias, and marginalization of those society deems as “other”. For too long, intersectional disabled people have been subjugated to other marginalized groups while their disability was simply a nomenclature within that group (Bryan, pg 465).
The 1960’s ushered in a series of social justice movements across the U.S. Diversity across all groups contributed to this monumental task yet many of these movements ultimately became centered around white males. The uprising brought awareness of the marginalization of segments of society to the average American and enabled the pathway to a legal equality for some of these segments. For the disabled community this meant that they would be recognized as having the right to access, education and more, but it would be focused on their physical limitations as compared to a society and infrastructure that is centered around abled bodied people. The medical model of disability is an important part of the equation to equality that gives discriminated people a legal outlet to enforce laws but it frames disability as a function that they need to be fixed. The medical model has imitations by the way it shapes the conversation of impairment around the concept of disability as barriers because of the impairment (Barnard Center, 2017). An alternative approach is to flip the conversation and highlight the disability within society while amplifying the abilities of those with impairments.
It is important to move the responsibility of overcoming barriers from the individual with impairments to society and ultimately dismantle the “attitudes and physical barriers imposed on them by society that prevents them from achieving their potential” (Shape Arts, 2017). The way that society treats ablism is similar to how we do gender, as a social construct. Our current social construct is to marginalize people with impairment and subsequently minimize or erase their stories. The social model of disability will amplify their voices and their abilities.
Sources
Barnard Center for Research on Women, My Body Doesn’t, Oppress Me, Society Does, May 9, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7r0MiGWQY2g
https://www.letserasethestigma.com/disability-justice
Shape Arts, Social Model of Disability, November 28, 2017 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24KE__OCKMw)
