Feeling Good

By Andrea Scarpino

 

We’ve all seen them, the feel-good stories showcasing people with disabilities and their non-disabled benefactors. The high school football team who ‘lets’ a player with autism score a touchdown. The cheerleaders who welcome to their squad a girl with Down syndrome. The family who makes a point of adopting kids with physical disabilities. O the kindnesses of strangers. O how generous the people who open their hearts to those different from themselves. 

 

This is the time of year for these stories, of course: we all want to believe we’re a pretty good species, despite the contrary evidence. See how we help one another. See how resilient we are. 

 

But should we really be patting one another on the back for acting with basic human decency? Is it really worthy of the news when we treat one another with kindness? 

 

Or are these stories serving an important societal purpose: maintaining the hierarchy between ‘able’ and ‘disabled’? Solidifying socially-constructed difference. Supporting the supposed normalcy of the disability-free body. Encouraging the gratitude of people with disabilities for any non-malicious treatment. Because what these stories teach me is that people with disabilities are so foreign, so other, so much work that we should feel grateful that anyone without a disability pays us any attention. 

 

Clearly, the media thinks the currently non-disabled do us great favors in offering their friendship; the non-disabled deserve great praise for treating us with basic human decency. Otherwise, why would the family that adopts children with disabilities deserve columns of writing when adoption is a common and usually non-newsworthy occurrence? And why isn’t anyone writing congratulatory stories about the men who don’t abuse their female partners? 

 

I believe that disability is a social construct, that health and illness are social constructs, that everyone will experience disability if she lives long enough. And I believe that my body—physically disabled by birth and chronically disabled by a hormone-related constellation of pain issues—is just as worthy of kindness as any other body. I believe that I deserve friendship and non-malicious treatment just by virtue of being a person in the world—not because my body is so different from yours that you are doing me a favor in showing me kindness.

 

Because we all deserve kindness, don’t we? Whether or not we are currently disabled. Whether or not our bodies demonstrate difference. Whether or not a journalist is nearby, pen in hand.