It’s axiomatic among disability activists and scholars to employ the term “cripple” as a useful identifier. The term is edgy, ironic, and instantly reflects the most egregious elements of ableism. As Nancy Mairs said famously: “As a cripple I swagger.”
Lately I”ve been thinking that really, given the wholesale destruction of the safety net in the US, it’s probably time to move from being a cripple to embrace the obvious—I’m a beggar.
As Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security are ravaged, pillaged, set ablaze, there’s no better self declaration than “beggar” and if there isn’t any swagger to it, there’s at least a mirror held up in the faces of Republicans who, after all, want us disabled types back in the streets where they believe we belong.
Poet, Essayist, Blogger, Journalist, Memoirist, Disability Rights Advocate, Public Speaker, Professor, Syracuse University
