“Well of course we want the
“”“valuable”“”
people to come into our country first”, like okay first of all, fuck you for implying disabled people have zero worth to society, and second of all, this pandemic has shown just how many offices and workplaces can implement accessible work from home policies, but actively choose not to and have done so for at least the last two decades. Same with schooling. Some of us can and are able to work with the right accessibility measures. So why are those measures met with resistance at every damn turn?
And I’m not saying remote access is easy. There are challenges to it. Most of them centralized around poverty and the fact that things like access to the Internet should be a human right at this point (yes, really.) but aren’t. And while those are not the only challenges, what this pandemic has shown to us, is that on a mass scale, yes, businesses and schools can do it. They can let people work and learn from home, regardless of their physical capability to be in their meatspace building. And yet for decades have chosen not to, because making the slightest concession toward disabled access to work and learning is not a priority to them. It’s just not. Ever wonder why applications for office work ask if you can lift 20lbs? They’re checking to make sure you’re physically abled.
It doesn’t matter if we’re qualified or able to do the actual job description, they just don’t want disabled folks doing it, because once they start making concessions for us, they’ll have to start making concessions for you, and they really don’t want that. They don’t want people to have comfortable lives. They want them beholden. They want them commuting and tired and trapped with no means of upward social mobility. They want you feeding into a system that doesn’t give two shits about your well being or whether you’ll be able to make rent this month. And it’s all by design. It’s all intentional.
And here’s the real kicker for all of you who still don’t care: disability is the one minority group in the entire world that anyone can become a part of at any given moment. There is no guarantee against disability or infirmity. You can run, exercise and eat right your whole life, and still get injured or ill and find yourself in the predicament of no longer being able to do the things you used to do. It is not a question of character or morality, it just is. Some of you are learning that the hard way with Covid. And if you can’t see the problem with how society treats disabled and chronically ill people, even knowing you yourself might become either of those things one day, then you’re either ignorant, not paying attention, or a damn fool.
Everyone has value. We all have worth. And fuck you for implying otherwise.