Chamblee54

Writer and comedian Stella Young died Saturday evening in Melbourne, Victoria. The disability activist was 32. “Young was born in Stawell, country Victoria, with osteogenesis imperfecta, a genetic disorder that causes bones to break easily.” She spent most of her life in a wheelchair.
Ms. Young gave a TED talk, I’m not your inspiration, thank you very much. There was a chamblee54 response, Inspiration Porn. PG has a similar view about people who try to make your life better with their happytalk. Good intentions are sometimes not enough.
Somebody posted 17 things Stella Young wanted you to know. Here are a few.
I started calling myself a disabled woman, and a crip. A good 13 years after 17-year-old me started saying crip, it still horrifies people. I do it because it’s a word that makes me feel strong and powerful.
I dance as a political statement, because disabled bodies are inherently political, but I mostly dance for all the same reasons anyone else does: because it heals my spirit and fills me with joy.
These images … are what we call inspiration porn. And I use the term porn deliberately because they objectify one group of people for the benefit of another group of people.
That quote, ‘the only disability in life is a bad attitude’, the reason that’s bullshit is … No amount of smiling at a flight of stairs has ever made it turn into a ramp. No amount of standing in the middle of a bookshelf and radiating a positive attitude is going to turn all those books into braille.
While [Peter Singer] may see value in the life I’m living now, and may even treat me as an equal, he still believes that on the balance of things, parents and doctors should be given the choice to end lives like mine before they get tricky. For me, and for many other people with disabilities, it’s personal.
I’ve been an atheist for a long time – ever since I first heard that there was only a stairway to heaven.
Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.