Lessons Learned at the White House

Today, I had the honor of watching two of my friends and several other emerging leaders in the disability rights movement speak at the White House Champions of Change event. My friends did awesome, they spoke so much truth about where our movement is and where it needs to go. They echoed so many of my own feelings, as did many of the other panelists. As I sat and listened to them, I was reminded of the importance of history.

I've talked about history a lot this week. I've talked about learning the history of our movement, of knowing how it started, and where we came from. I've talked about the names of people who changed everything, and I am even meeting some of them in person. I've talked about learning about my own place in this history, in this community. I've talked about it, and I will keep talking about it, because as at least one of the panelists said today, history is important.

So many disabled young people don't know that they have a history all their own. So many disabled young people don't know that disability can be seen as a culture. So many disabled young people don't know the stories, they don't know the heroes, they don't know the amazing legacy to which they belong. So many disabled young people have never thought to look at disability as an identity. Disability is overly medicalized, it is not seen as a culture, our history is all but ignored by classes, and history books. The stories told are sanitized. They are never the stories of the people who embraced their disabilities and fought for the movement, they are stories of overcoming disability. The stories we are told, are the stories of people who do things, despite their disabilities, not the stories of people whose passion and drive came from their disability. When disability history was taught to me, so many of the details were left out. Disability history was taught to me from the vantage point of overcoming, and inspiring.

What I learned about Helen Keller was nothing more than that Anne Sullivan taught her to be part of "normal" society, and wasn't that great that she could overcome disability to be just like everybody else. What I learned of FDR was that he made it in the world by hiding his disability. No one ever told me about Ed Roberts, or Justin Dart. No one ever even taught me about the passage of the ADA. I never really understood how it came to exist.

I didn't even begin learning the history of the movement until I was 15 years old, while doing a world history project on a disability rights leader in South Africa. I didn't learn about disability culture and disability pride until my junior year in college. For most of my life, disability was medicalized, not identity.

Hearing other young members of the community talk about the importance of knowing our history and knowing our culture was so awesome. I imagined how things would be different if disabled kids knew the history their whole lives. I think it's hard for some of us to come to grips with our disabled identity because for most of our lives were taught a disability is not, and cannot be an identity.

On the eve of the 23rd birthday of the ADA, I think about the importance of history. The importance of knowing culture. The importance of knowing you have a choice, and the community you can call your own. I think about what it would have meant to me to know this world existed way before I did. I thought about what it would have meant to me as a kid to know the awesome legacy of the disability movement. I would've been so much prouder, so much sooner. I would have been so much more willing to claim it, and call it my own.

I'm glad to know their starting to teach disability history in school, maybe the next generation of kids will know the stories long before I did. Happy birthday ADA, your story is history worth knowing.