‘We’re too addicted to speed and ease at the expense of disability justice,’ expert warns

EVANSTON, Ill. — As the world marks the International Day of Persons with Disabilities today, a disability justice advocate warns that our culture is simply too addicted to notions of speed and ease to make any kind of radical change.

Sarah Brown is the director of the Women’s Center at Northwestern University. The center’s theme of focus this year is “Disability Justice & Feminist Practice,” which engages the campus community to think about accessibility coming out of the pandemic. Brown can be reached by contacting Lila Reynolds at lila.reynolds@northwestern.edu.

Quote from Professor Brown
“For me disability justice is about honesty. The ableist vision we have built the world to serve is pernicious, but it is also quite simply a lie about who we are. Many, if not most of us, operate in ways that assume the person we meet for lunch, the audience we present to, the students we teach are either in a clear category of disability or fully and equally able to access what we want to do or have to offer. We act like that even though we all know it isn’t true, even though it may not be true for us.

“My fear is we are too addicted to speed and ease at the expense of disability justice. At the end of the day, the primary thing disability justice cannot abide is capitalism. If we think for a moment about the millions of Americans diagnosed with premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), we might have to admit that bodies have cycles more fundamental and necessary than the demands of the fiscal quarter. If we accept that we cannot be in favor of a neurodivergent world in one moment and hyper critical around arbitrary notions of etiquette the next, then we would need to rethink how we evaluate one another. If we reflect on chronic pain without cure, we would start to question just how elective recurring bodywork is. And so on. A world built for us all costs and takes time, but it is an investment in the truth. We cannot hope to engineer some way to turn a profit out of greater accessibility. We would have to take it on because we care for one another, or even if we don’t, because we recognize that each of us is more able in some ways than others and never all the time.”