An unhappy Disability Pride Month
An unhappy Disability Pride Month
To nondisabled people only
Hello,
First of all, let me wish my disabled readers a happy Disability Pride Month!
Secondly, a very unhappy Disability Pride to the rest of you.
We’re three days in and, just like in years past, I have yet to see a single nondisabled person or brand mention DPM.
I wrote about this last year but it bears repeating because it’s so depressing. There are tweets and Instagram posts about, I don’t know, international hugging day and absolutely zilch about a month with huge importance to a very large, very marginalised community. Frankly, it pisses me off.
Of course, I understand people not saying anything personally about a month that isn’t about or for them. But that’s not what I’m talking about. Where are the collabs with disabled creators, writers and activists? Where are the commissions for disabled journalists? Where are the events? Where are the nondisabled people encouraging their friends and followers to seek out disabled voices? Where is the solidarity?
This year I don’t have a single piece of DPM-related work. I’m sick of it. I’m sick of the silence from people who call themselves allies but won’t perform a single piece of allyship by clicking ‘share’. The bar is so low and yet we continually fail to clear it.
But I am also full of love and gratitude and pride in the disabled people who continually shout their disability pride into what feels like a gaping void. Asserting pride in our identities is still, absurdly, one of the most radical acts of anti-ableism we can do, and seeing more and more people do so each year fills my heart to bursting.
We’re doing the work. It’s time for everyone else to step up.
See you next week,
Lucy
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