It’s easy to be proud when reading about the struggle in secret, unread history books
It’s easy to be proud when friends rock disability pride tees so much that’s it’s become the standard of fashion for your group
It’s easy to be proud when contemplating revolution (in bethany’s words, viva la gimp!) and you have the honor of knowing a leader who makes it her duty to love like no one has loved before
But damn, I can tell you it’s not always that easy to be proud
Like when one weekend, you’re meeting a friend at the mall and southern ableism again makes its grand appearance
You didn’t ask for its presence but still it comes—this time, in the form of gawking women with big hats and glasses
Wondering where your nurse is and who was irresponsible enough to leave two disabled girls unattended…
To them, the imaginary “nurse” is a big, powerful-yet-subservient black woman who is happy to play the role of Scarlett O’Hara’s ”mammy,”or a modern version of the house slave. (Didn’t you know that’s why the Supreme Court ruled it’s okay to pay PCAs less than min. wage?)
To them, a PCA is not supposed to help us achieve a silly thing like independence, but rather to maintain the quiet traditions of looking over the “invalid”… whatever the hell that means.
It’s not so easy to be proud when as a typical college student, your friend is looking for work and the Bath and Body Works clerk laughs a little while handing her the application.
It’s not so easy to be proud when the second time, you go to Express and the clerk behind the counter has to be encouraged by a more-experienced associate to give her the application.
It’s not so easy to nod your head in support when you already know that your friend, who will wait two hours for the paratransit to take her to the mall next week (that’s public transportation for ya), will be told that the position has already been taken… even though the “Now Hiring” sign is still humiliatingly stickered on the window.
But these moments, these times when people make it so damn hard to be proud, is when we must practice pride the most.
This is when pride evolves from an appreciation of culture and identity to a new form of strength and resilience.
This is when pride evolves into an establishment of our personhood, here in this mall!
So maybe when you wonder why I choose not to play the happy crip waiting for your head-patting, kind word of affirmation
or a free tye dye tshirt at the dogwood festival
or a donut from a random man on the street
I am putting pride into practice.
(credit for inspiration to Zach who wrote a Breakfast of Consideration and to the annoying people at the mall yesterday.)
For more of my poetry, please click here.
11 Comments
September 16, 2007 at 9:57 pm
girl! this is powerful. i needed to read this today (along with your previous post with the poem about the sun).
September 17, 2007 at 12:11 am
Tell it!
September 17, 2007 at 7:18 am
Very powerful stuff. Thank you.
September 17, 2007 at 7:55 am
One of my friends often says… preceded by a long sigh, “one more time for the cause from the visible gimp”. What she meant by that was, that we may not feel like it, as people with visible disabilities and activists we’re always “on” and every opportunity, no matter how annoying, is a chance to educate the public.
This is a great post. Thanks for sharing.
September 17, 2007 at 9:38 am
I found you via Pinky Bear and I love your blog. It is powerful stuff that deserves a lot of attention. Congrats on a beautiful job and keep up the great work.
September 17, 2007 at 11:20 pm
Mmm, if I can always count on someone to speak their mind, I know it will be you. YOU are so much stronger than people know… you are beautiful.
Amazing poem, love, amazing.
September 19, 2007 at 4:42 am
[...] Crip Chick writes powerfully of pride and the difficulty of maintaining it in the face of [...]
September 20, 2007 at 7:07 am
Smile. This makes me smile. I am very impressed.
September 20, 2007 at 11:49 am
My mother was disabled and always called ahead to ask if they were hiring, but when she got there, was told otherwise… and always made a big scene.
Yeah, it embarrassed me, but I found it terribly exciting, too… I learned early to raise hell!
(Also, I learned very early how people lie to protect the status quo.)
Great piece, love ya.
September 20, 2007 at 4:21 pm
I can’t tell you how much I enjoy your blog. We need more voices like this in our community. Thanks for writing.
September 22, 2007 at 3:04 am
I love how you brought up the historical role of people of color as “caretakers” for PWDs. This is something that is rarely discussed and you summed it up so eloquently. You’re right, I think it was and still is especially true in the south. And as you said, the position is still perpetuated as menial work especially as evidenced by pay rates. Its ridiculous.
I haven’t read many blogs but I certainly love yours.