Title & author
Disability Visibility edited by Alice Wong
Synopsis
Disability Visibility combats erasure, a compilation of essays by individuals with a range of disabilities (visible and invisible) that seeks to do exactly what the title suggests: make these identities visible and make readers acknowledge and advocate for that visibility. The collection adds almost 40 new stories to the canon, giving a platform that includes disability activists, designers, and writers who are trans, queer, Black, Indigenous, Asian, and more. It is, at its core, an intersectional read to a powerful degree.
Who should read this book
Everyone
What we’re thinking about
Internalized ableism and how it permeates society
Trigger warning(s)
Physical violence, sexual violence, slurs, abortion, sexism, mental health, racism, transphobia, fatphobia, ableism
The publishing industry has a problem when it comes to diverse representation, both within its own employee makeup, and in the books being produced. According to a 2019 study from the Cooperative Children’s Book Center, just 3.4% of children’s books have a main character with a disability. Not only is this erasure, but also the enablement and perpetuation of ableism. And when we do come across mainstream titles featuring individuals with disabilities, they are often problematic, stereotypical depictions by non-disabled authors (take Me Before You, for example). Disability Visibility (Vintage, 2020) combats such erasure, a compilation of essays by individuals with a range of disabilities (visible and invisible) that seeks to do exactly what the title suggests: make these identities visible and make readers acknowledge and advocate for that visibility. The collection adds almost 40 new stories to the canon, giving a platform that includes disability activists, designers, and writers who are trans, queer, Black, Indigenous, Asian, and more. It is, at its core, an intersectional read to a powerful degree.
The essays in Disability Visibility touch on a spectrum of disabilities, both visible and invisible, making clear that there is not just one fight or one solution for disability rights. Too often, accessibility is considered a guideline, a box checked off by companies to ensure their building has a ramp, and their website has alt text. But accessibility, these essays demonstrate, is about critical consciousness and listening. In “The Erasure of Indigenous People in Chronic Illness,” Jen Deerinwater details how in “erasing [her] Indigeneity,” medical records “ensure that [she] never recieve[s] the medical care [she] deserve[s]” (Wong, 48). Deerinwater goes on to describe the underfunding of the Indian Health Service (IHS) by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In 2016, Congress allotted $1,297 per person to IHS. In comparison, they allotted $6,973 to incarcerated individuals. Here, accessibility includes acknowledgment of identity and existence. Jeremy Woody describes “The Isolation of Being Deaf in Prison,” how staff, doctors, nurses, counselors, correction officers, and guards not only didn’t know American Sign Language, but weaponized his deafness against him. Disability justice includes being given equal protection and rights.
And the essays in this collection neither exist to teach, nor to please. Rather, they are examples of existence, resistance, and action. From the opening essay, a repost of Harriet McBryde Johnson’s conversation with Peter Singer, readers’ thoughts and expectations are challenged. McBryde must argue for her existence, while Singer believes parents should have the option to kill disabled children (otherwise known as eugenics). We are not meant to question whose argument we side with, rather how and why these conversations exist in the first place. In “Radical Visibility: A Disabled Queer Clothing Reform Movement Manifesto,” Sky Cubacub writes: “In the face of what society tells us to hide, we are unapologetic individuals who want to celebrate and highlight our bodies” (93). Keshia Scott notes how society attempts to determine sexuality by disability in “Last but Not Least—Embracing Asexuality,” detailing how she lives her life “still smiling” (128). And in “The Antiabortion Bill You Aren’t Hearing About,” Rebecca Cokley notes that “from birth, we’re raised by an ableist society to perceive our bodies as an almost external commodity...Some days it may feel like your body belongs to everyone but you” (162). Written as a response to Texas Senate Bill 1033—a bill that bans abortions on the basis of sex, race, or disability—Cokley argues that such bills strip “everyone, particularly people with disabilities, the right to decide what happens to one’s own body” (160).
What does it reveal about our society, about the publishing industry, that when a large publisher publishes a title on disability activism, it’s an essay collection rather than 40 individual stories? Not only is Disability Visibility a call to action for readers, but it’s also one for the publishing industry. Publishers must expand their own employee representation to better inform the stories they are choosing to publish, to better understand their disabled authors’ needs. Until then, these critical stories won’t reach the amount of people they should.
“Internalized ableism—the insidious belief that I would be a better person if I were not disabled—makes me feel like an imposter as a mother.
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