5 Reasons Why Disability Activism Is Still Hard

By Andrew Pulrang: For Complete Post, Click Here…

Disability activism can be exciting, empowering, and enormously fulfilling — especially for people with disabilities themselves. It can also be exhausting and frustrating. And to outside observers, newcomers, and longtime activists, disability activism can seem futile, maybe even fatally flawed.

In 2017, disability activists were instrumental in fighting off efforts to abolish the Affordable Care Act and severely limit Medicaid. In 2020, most of the Presidential candidates felt it politically necessary to offer some kind of detailed disability policy plans. A few of them were notably comprehensive and ambitious.

But despite these encouraging signs of greater political influence over the last few years, the disability community still seems politically underdeveloped and underpowered. It’s worth thinking about exactly why. Here are five likely factors:

1. Disabled people are discouraged from being part of the “Disability Community”

2. Disabled people have vastly different needs and goals

3. Ableism and other prejudices within the disability community elevate some disabled people while marginalizing others

4. Like the rest of society, disabled people are divided and polarized

5. Congress and state legislatures are divided and distracted