The Stares Never Bothered Me Anyway
I really, really loved what this woman had to say on accepting herself as a person living with a disability.
Why do I love it? She’s being honest and very real in a way that we don’t often see in our culture.
Our culture puts a lot of pressure on people to be inspirational, overcome their challenges, and be relentlessly positive about their lives in unrealistic ways.
Don’t think you put pressure on people with disabilities?
Watch Stella Young’s TED Talk, I’m not your inspiration, thank you, for a closer look at how abled people put expectations on persons living with disabilities.
This girl’s rewrite of Disney’s iconic hit song Let It Go says it all.
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Inclusion System extends our profound respect and immeasurable gratitude to all the ancestors and keepers of the land on whose traditional territories our work takes place. We acknowledge that we are on Treaty 1 territory, the traditional gathering place of the Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota and Dene people and the traditional homeland of the Métis people. This land is sacred, historical, and significant.
Every time we acknowledge this truth, we have an invitation and an opportunity to reflect on the wrongs of the past, what we do in the present, and what we can do to continually honour the people whose lands and water we benefit from today.
This statement only acts as a first step in honouring the land we reside on and its peoples, and must be paired with education, understanding and informed action.
I want to meet this terrific young lady…listening to her version of this song made me smile…Stella is a true star in my eyes I will follow her and cheer loudly for her at every opportunity GO STELLA…
Jenny Desjardins
Thanks for this post Meite. Another great example of the “us and them” groupings that people have stuck in their heads. What should be inspiring instead is that we as a whole are a species smart enough to make physical disadvantages a non-issue. Every one of us has disadvantages of all kinds that we overcome and don’t think it’s a reason for inspiration porn. Heck, if you consider the possible ranges of human vision, legally disabled to perfect normal human vision, a cat would call us all disabled.
Makes me think about the visible vs invisible disability divide too.
Thanks Chris! I’m going to scoop your human to cat vision analogy for future blog use. Did you check out the Autostraddle article I linked?
I had overlooked it the first time through. I promise to pay more attention next time because that hit the nail on the head! It took until my recent vision issues happened that I realized my long standing fear of taking injectiable medications in public for conditions I’ve had for a very long time was not how it should be. It took nearly 20 years to heal not from the trauma of getting those conditions (I’d basically grown up with them, they were as natural to me as breathing), but from how I’d adjusted my perspective to match people’s reactions to injectable medications in school and social situations.
I can’t find anything else written by her because her full name isn’t listed with the article but she’s great.
“they were as natural to me as breathing.” That describes my experience with dyslexia perfectly. It’s incredibly difficult to communicate one’s own experience as normal. People are taught so strongly to stigmatize or get caught in the ‘drama’ instead of seeing the everyday naturalness for the person.
Great links Meite. I really liked the Let it go song
Thanks Darryl 🙂
The song is great but the TED talk is brilliant!
Stella Young provides a real knock upside the head … inspiration porn… hmmm !
I think that this video is a great tool for orientation /in service work -provides us with a reminder about the unintended consequences of our good intentions
Hi Mike,
I follow Stella on twitter. She’s an amazing advocate. She sets the tone in a way where everyone ‘gets it.’ Love that lady! Glad you liked her 😀