Disabled people are appearing more in our media and on TV shows, and with us we’re bringing ableism into plain sight.
Recently I read a newspaper article critiquing the body shape of someone from the disabled community who is on Strictly Come Dancing. You wouldn’t get away with printing that prejudice against any other member of a minority community.
But ableism is everywhere and usually goes unchallenged. Why do we not collectively call it out in the same way we publicly – and rightly – unite against racism, sexism, homophobia and the like?
Ableism is discrimination in favour of non-disabled people and it’s made up of micro-aggressions, exclusion and targeted systematic abuse.
Ableism was when the ticket collector gleefully tried to throw me off the train saying I was using a scooter not an electric wheelchair, it was the time someone angrily shouted “Spaz” at me as I crossed the road and it’s every time I get hate messages on my social media when I’ve purposefully stood up on TV to challenge the concept of wheelchair users all being completely paralysed.
This casual ignorance happens every day, and it chips away. Like my friend who was in the wheelchair space on a train last week when a family folded up their buggy and lent it against her as if she was luggage. Or the daughter of other friends who has to go to a school 30miles away from home because kids in her local school beat her up because she has disabled parents. I even know someone who had all his windows smashed just because he is a double amputee.
Ableism is writing an article aimed at a disabled person participating in a TV show and naively/ignorantly/rudely questioning their ability to do something because of their disability.
Ableism is the type of behaviour that makes tears prick in your eyes, tightens your throat with emotion – and makes you feel isolated and pushed out.
Access always benefits everyone, not just the disabled person. But people see improving disability access as a costly add on. It’s not, it enables us to participate in society, to contribute like everyone else.
The Access To Work scheme, a publicly funded employment grant supporting disabled people in work, brings in £1.40 for every pound it spends. It costs more to put someone in a home than it does to help them live in a world in which they can participate. But it’s easier to shut us away – to hide us.
On the set of BBC1’s Ralph & Katie they made an easy-read call sheet with all the filming details on it and everyone wore name badges – things that helped everyone work together in a more cohesive way. That’s access.
On screen representation is important because the more we’re seen, the less unusual we are. Then we’re not viewed as an “imposition”, but as people, just like everybody else.
