The Problem with Awareness
Can we talk about awareness for a second? Can we talk about how disability awareness weeks don't make any sense? Awareness weeks usually belong to problems. Awareness weeks are usually for problems we want to work together as a society to fix or eradicate. Awareness weeks are for things like alcoholism, domestic violence, and sexual assault. Let's think about what we're saying when we throw disability into that category.
What exactly is the point of disability awareness, anyway? I'm pretty sure people are already aware of me. They make that awareness pretty obvious when they stare at me as I roll down the street. Sometimes they are so aware of me they walk into walls. Sometimes people who come up to me on the street feel the need to tell me that they're aware of just how awful and hard my life must be. I promise you, I don't need any more awareness, it's not helping.
The problem with awareness weeks is not the general idea of awareness, it's the framing of the concept. Awareness weeks become, "everything about us without us." Awareness weeks force the medicalized ideas about disability on the larger society. Awareness calls for a cure far more often than it calls for understanding. Awareness weeks tell the story of disability in all the wrong ways. Awareness weeks remind me that the world sees me as a problem, or a poster child for charity.
Where other groups have history weeks and pride weeks, the disability community gets awareness. History weeks spread awareness by teaching people the history of communities that may be forgotten in mainstream history books. Pride weeks spread awareness by teaching people that being a member of that community is nothing to be ashamed of. History weeks and pride weeks belong to the communities that they are about. They serve as opportunities for those communities to tell their stories, their way.
Awareness weeks are about other people telling our stories. Awareness weeks don't care about our history. Awareness weeks don't care about our pride. Awareness weeks don't even care about what it is really like to be disabled. Awareness weeks don’t think about how we wish people would talk about us or think about us. Never once have I been asked, "what do you wish people were aware of when it comes to disability?" Awareness weeks frame disability in a way that mainstream society is comfortable with, and the issue is that mainstream society so often misunderstands the problem.
Awareness weeks frame disability as the problem. I've never been to an awareness week event that talks about societal barriers or the social model. I've never been to an awareness week event that talks about disability history. I've never been to an awareness week event that talks about disability pride. I've never been to an awareness week event that even has disabled people telling their stories, their way.
It's time to reframe awareness. It's time to stop talking about disabled people without even having disabled people in the room. It's time to stop talking about disability as the problem. It's time to end the cure rhetoric. It's time to talk about history, pride, and acceptance. It's time to let these things bring awareness to the existence of the disability community. It's time to remember that it should always be, "nothing about us without us." It's time to listen, and really hear disabled people when they tell their stories. It's time to let us frame the problems, and let us be part of finding the solutions. It's time to stop merely being aware of us, because simple awareness without a real desire to understand our perspectives does nothing.
Awareness of medicalized ideas of disability is not the answer, that kind of awareness just reinforces the status quo. It's time to be aware of disability history, and disability pride. It's time to let disabled people tell their own stories and create their own narratives. It's time to understand that superficial awareness does nothing but create more stereotypes and stigma. It's time to stop cutting disabled people out of the equation. Instead of talking about "awareness" and "fixing" the "problem" of disability, let's start really talking about the disability experience. Let's start getting awareness from the inside of the community, through pride, history and acceptance instead of from the outside of the community.