Image Description: James Charles’ face centered in the photo, and he’s seen staring into the camera with a face full of makeup.
Recently last week, popular media influencer and makeup artist James Charles showed a side of himself that is less than ideal to the disabled community.
Charles made a tweet commenting on the inconvenience some slow walkers caused him. While he says he meant the tweet all in good fun, and as a joke based on an inconvenience that we ‘all’ face, it was taken differently by a good portion of the disabled community.
Why, you may ask? Because a majority of us have chronic illnesses or other mobility issues that make walking, and especially walking quickly, very difficult or even painful for us. In his tweet, Charles made the assumption that people around him are able-bodied and that they are entirely capable of walking quickly without pain. He also implies that those who cannot walk ‘normally’ or quickly are ‘annoying’ or ‘an inconvenience.’
While this in and of itself is extremely ableist and wrong, Charles’ reply to the backlash from the disabled community was even worse.
Once he saw the negative response he received from the disabled and chronically ill community, he lashed out in tweets and even quote-tweeted a disabled user named Alex Niño, saying her tweet was the ‘most annoying tweet of the century’ after Nino pointed out the ableism in his initial tweet. He then blocked her out of frustration at her name appearing in his mentions.
He furthermore continued to lash out saying that the people who were upset with him were twisting his words in order to create a scandal.
Three days later, Charles did post an apology on Twitter, however, it is inaccessible to part of the disabled community; much because he wrote his apology on the iPhone Notes app, screenshotted the apology, and attached that image to a tweet that only says ‘ableism’. His apology states that though his tweet meant no harm, he understood how it could be taken ‘out of context’ and he apologizes for that. He also apologizes for quote-tweeting Nino and referring to her attempt to educate him as annoying. He also states that he later unblocked her and private messaged her to apologize.
While the apology is appreciated, a lot of the disabled community does not feel it is genuine, and another part of the community cannot even read it, as it is inaccessible. Had the apology perhaps been genuine, and geared towards the community it was meant to be for, it may have been better accepted. The fact that there was an apology at all, is a small success for the disabled community and proves that our voices are not going unheard.
However, the Twitter feud that unfolded between Charles, an able-bodied person, and Nino, a disabled person, unfortunately perfectly represents the relationship that the two opposite communities hold. The disabled community is more often than not found at the brunt of jokes made by able-bodied people, and get silenced when they put these ableist behaviors in the light. It benefits the able-bodied system to pretend discrimination and microaggressions like these don’t exist, because who would make fun of a disabled person? (Sarcasm intended)
Charles’ apology was a step in some direction, because at least it showed a response to this type of behavior, and shown the many points in how ableism can present itself. As much as people think it’s ridiculous, the call-out culture of ableism needs to be documented, because it only gives us another stepping stone to achieving awareness for the social mold of disability.
