A Message of Disability Unity
Hey, are you disabled? If so, we need to talk.
Steven Verdile is a disabled comedy writer and founder of The Squeaky Wheel, the first-ever satire publication focused on disability. He spoke with Cripple Media about something that isn’t so funny.
American disabled people are facing an upcoming avalanche of challenges that 2025 has in store for them. Healthcare cuts, rising costs of living, unemployment, cultural division… It’s not a particularly fun thing to be talking about (I would much rather be making wheelchair memes than writing this), but I don’t want to feign ignorance towards the critical stakes at play here. I’m scared, and I’m guessing you are too.
I’ve spoken with A LOT of disabled people over the last five years, certainly in the hundreds if not thousands. The disability community is the community where I feel most at home, a community that transcends geographical borders and has always welcomed me with open arms. As powerful and sacred as the disability community is, it is constantly under attack, from inside and out. Whether it’s federal plans to cut Medicaid, the mass incarceration of people with disabilities, a lack of job opportunities for disabled people, a mass disabling pandemic, or the social isolation that comes along with being disabled, the challenges that the disability community will have to face in 2025 are enormous.
Oh, and on top of all of that, we’ve got AI robots and killer drones now. Welcome to the future! At least if a cyberpunk dystopia is upon us, disabled people (especially those of us who use mobility devices) are kind of like cyborgs already so we’ll fit right in.
Who is Disabled?
To be disabled in 2025 means that, at some level, the basic needs of your body or brain are not being met by society. I need a wheelchair to be able to move, but sometimes the places I need to go can’t accommodate a wheelchair. Many people don’t even have access to a wheelchair to begin with.
In some instances, the wheelchair is treated as baggage, and yeeted off an airport luggage ramp so violently that it is rendered completely nonfunctional. If public spaces and public transportation were accessible, and if I could fly in an airplane with confidence that my wheelchair wouldn’t be smashed to bits, I could have the same opportunities as my peers. Society’s failure to adequately meet my access needs is what disables me, not the DNA that gave me a body that is floppy with weak muscles.
Academics call this classification of disability the “social model.” I call it “human bodies are all unique and we should be prepared for their various eccentricities.” Either way, this type of framing directly ties what it means to be disabled to the quality of the public resources and accommodations available. As the government squeezes their wallet tighter on expenses including healthcare, accessible education, and affordable housing, the pool of people who call themselves disabled will grow.
Disability & Unity
As the largest minority group, the disability community is too big to ignore. We are everywhere, and at some point in their lives nearly everyone, through illness, injury, or old age, will become, as famously chanted by the disabled characters in the 1932 film Freaks, “one of us… one of us!” The key to victory is uniting together to create a world that is more accessible for everyone.
The disability community is also incredibly diverse. If you browse disability Instagram, a frightening place where I spend my nights and weekends, you’ll see dozens of disability subcultures – sporty amputees and paras, artsy neurodivergents, busy business people who post photographs of conferences and suit pants. If you exit Instagram, you’ll realize that it barely touches the surface of America’s disabled population. Deaf people have their own language, universities, and communities. People with dwarfism have annual conferences with thousands of attendees. Over 55 million Americans experience mental health conditions including depression and anxiety. There is a very thin and ever-changing line between who is and isn’t “disabled.”
More often than not disabled people live in poverty, and spend more time in hospitals and waiting rooms than they do writing think-pieces like this one. Disabled people exist within every race, age, and gender. Because of this beautiful breadth of diverse backgrounds and lifestyles, it’s easy to get caught up in petty fights within the community about which access needs are conflicting and about who should be the priority. But as a group, we are more powerful together, and only benefit from inclusivity and a unified front.
Disability & Intersectionality
This strength in unity is not just about bringing disability subcultures together, but also about recognizing the power of intersectionality. Black and brown people with disabilities are significantly more likely to experience police brutality, incarceration, and homelessness than any other group. More than half of all black people with disabilities will be arrested before age 28. Attacks on the civil rights of women and queer people will also disproportionately affect disabled people. Not to mention how things like rent hikes and shitty insurance reform will be even worse for these marginalized groups within the disability community. We recently saw a brutal increase in the scale of devastation of the Gaza genocide, an event which led to the disabling of hundreds of thousands of people, and tens of thousands of lives being lost.
Strength in unity means fighting for the most vulnerable among us.
A History of Fighting for Disability Justice
If we look back to our disabled history and the 504 sit-ins, we can see the power of unity unfold. Led by Judy Heumann in 1977, hundreds of disabled people refused to comply with long-delayed regulations regarding Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Prior to the Americans with Disabilities Act (1990), this was arguably the only meaningful piece of disability policy in the U.S, and a pivotal step towards the disability rights movement.
That April, disabled activists occupied federal buildings across the country, and in San Francisco, one sit-in lasted 25 days. During those 25 days, the Black Panther Party provided hot meals each day to the occupants. The Gay Men’s Butterfly Brigade donated walkie-talkies and helped assist with discrete communications. Volunteers from local businesses donated time and money and materials. With such passionate support from the Black Panthers, Glide Memorial Church, the Butterfly Brigade, the United Farm Workers, and many others, the San Francisco occupation was able to continue until the regulations were successfully signed on April 28, 1977.
I don’t know about you, but I start losing my patience after about 2 hours at the Medicaid office. If I’m going to sit in a boring old government building for TWENTY FIVE DAYS, I would need all the hot meals and friendly support that I can get. In that moment, communities came together, and despite whatever manipulative AI-generated ragebait you’ve seen on Facebook this week, I think we can do it again.
What Do We Do Now
There is no easy path towards a better future, but there are clear steps towards empowering each other. If we have any chance at all, it will rely on a united disability justice movement larger than we’ve ever seen before.
- Consider your community. As a start, I urge everyone to consider the people in their lives – your family, friends, and colleagues – and identify how they’re affected by the same systemic oppressions that you are. We are more alike than we are different, and most of us want the same things: a home, an education, a fulfilling role in society, and maybe some special treats every now and then. We are all susceptible to misinformation, and we all are imperfect in our actions.
- Consider yourself. Consider your actions, your resources and what unique role you play in your community. How can you bring that spirit of generosity and unity to your job, or church, or unofficial workplace Slack chat? Have you considered joining a local disability advocacy organization? Making small but meaningful changes within your daily decisions can lead to large-scale movements.
- Consider your neighbors. If the disabled community wants other oppressed groups to fight for us, we need to fight for them. Incarceration, deportation and genocide are being used to silence people who are already among the most oppressed. For those of us who have voices or platforms, we owe it to them to speak out in their defense, and fight for their freedoms.
If we can get past the distractions and infighting and apathy, and develop a true bond with one another, the sheer size of the disabled population will be too vast to ignore. The reason why those in power place so much effort into dividing us is because we outnumber them. Our unity is our greatest strength, especially for those of us without muscles.
