Christ crucified is the perfect metaphor for disability suffering—inner doubt and pain; merciless public contempt. One may say it’s a depiction all sorrow and that’s true but his public death is really a story of madness—it’s Nerval’s “Aurelia”—the winged angel who has fallen into a shabby Parisian courtyard.
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I think the thoughts of a depressed man. The disabled no matter their ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation are ten times more likely to die early from lack of access to health and wellness programs. “Lack of access” is too polite of course; we’re talking contempt. Structural ableism.
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In the disability communities we say “nothing about us without us” and for good reason—the disabled are often left out of critical discussions about our needs. If you’re black and disabled you’re left out of multiple conversations. It matters who we are. Lives are in the balance.
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It’s spring. I hear hammers in my neighborhood. I think, “someone’s building another cross.”
Planet of the Blind 