What does it mean to be a sustainable cripple? The terms are inconsistent, unstable. Medicine aims to cure disease. What is a sustainable illness or disability? Why should this taxonomic assignment matter?
I have several friends who can’t speak. They are wise, discerning, capacious in thought. On the coarse street they might appear to be greatly disadvantaged. They are not. Their wisdom )both individually and collectively) is even now only partially understood. If we assume the medicalized notion that they’re fit only for cure or for study, we fail to take into account their remarkable talents and individualities. A sustainable cripple is one of us, a talented “other” and while the value of a cure is well established, the value of suspended judgment in the face of difference is very poorly recognized.
The sustainable cripple leads whenever the subject is difference.
The SC understands that if a limb can feel revulsion there’s still a false move in store.
SC knows imagining tomorrow requires recollections of defeat.
Architectures: inclusive, no segregation, no separate classrooms or hospitals.
Governments re-designed to prohibit segregation.
The abolishment of panopticons.
Teaching with the motto: “presume competence”.
Neurodiversity understood as human potential.
Economies built for diversity—no more pyramids.
Demand religious leaders stop using disability as metaphor.
Disability as metaphor is usually hate speech or superstition.
Sustainable planets do not require hate speech or superstition.
My Thoughts early morning. One year ago on a cold day. Syracuse.
Planet of the Blind 