The Queen Had to Die Before She Could Ride - Part 2

I was in my sophomore year of college at the University of Central Florida, where at the time, I was studying journalism and Women's Studies. (Of course I went to college in Orlando! Where else would a Queen go but where all the Disney royalty hang out?) As a student of journalism, I learned the importance of using the correct words in the correct order. My Women's Studies courses taught me the value of appreciating cultural diversity and understanding the subtleties of group and power dynamics.

One day, I was talking on the phone with Allison, whom I'd met all those years earlier at summer camp. She'd recently been to a conference, and encouraged me to apply. So in June 1999, I went to Washington, D.C. as a delegate to the National Leadership Conference for Youth with Disabilities. Taking what I was learning in college a step further, the conference seminars taught me about the history of civil rights for people with disabilities, and how to take responsibility for how others perceive me as a person with a disability. Over those four days in June, I sat in awe, inspired, as I listened in the audience to keynote speakers who were the very individuals who had helped to craft and pass the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, among other landmark pieces of legislation for people with disabilities. We marched on Capitol Hill in support of the rights of people with disabilities to live in our own homes rather than in nursing homes. Marching alongside me was Rochelle, a fellow delegate and D.C. native who would later play a big part in how this Queen received her actual crown.

Before I could become royalty in more than just the astrological sense, I still had some lessons to learn. One of the biggest lessons I learned at the National Leadership Conference for Youth with Disabilities is how the words used to describe us have the power to impact our self esteem, as well as the way able-bodied people perceive us. I was introduced to the concept of People First Language. Simply put, it means speaking in a manner that puts the person first rather than talking about their disability. However, one might be surprised how frequently this doesn’t happen, and why it’s important to make it a part of our everyday language practices.

Consider some of the common terms that are used to describe people with physical disabilities, such as “handicapped” or “confined to a wheelchair”. We hear these terms used quite often today, but they actually refer to a much darker time in our culture's history, and usually bring about negative connotations in the minds of people who hear them. One of the origins of the word “handicapped” is of a person with a disability “begging with his cap in his hand.” (Snow, 2011) Many people who use wheelchairs for mobility, including myself, think that our wheelchairs do anything but confine us. For example, cartoonist John Callahan references this idea in the title of his autobiography, Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot. Callahan, himself a wheelchair user, is referring to the fact that without our wheelchairs, we would be confined to wherever else we happened to be, even if that were the ground or the floor (Callahan & Kelly, 2018, title page). The phrase ‘Ride or Die’ truly does have two meanings for me—my friends are some of the most loyal, generous and compassionate people a person could ask for in life. That’s the definition most people have for the phrase. On another level, though, I firmly believe I would die without my wheelchair, which allows me to move through my world and make the connections that I do.

Now that I’d figured out what to say, and the order and importance of my message, it was time for this Queen to pick myself up off the floor, greet the next of her Ride or Die Court and take the show on the road…

PART 3 COMING SOON…

References

Callahan, J., & Kelly, D. (2018). Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot. New York, NY: HarperCollins.

Snow, K. (2011). Disability Is Natural - Books And Media, Presentations And Public Speaking, Effective Leadership Skills. Retrieved from http://www.disabilityisnatural.com