Recently, I was called for jury duty. I sat in the courtroom all day, over eight hours total, but was never interviewed, and not chosen. Easy to consider that time wasted.
It wasn’t.
The judge didn’t know it, but I left the courtroom that day with my own verdict.
Participation matters.
It dawned on me during my fifth or sixth hour of sitting through interviews, cross-examinations, and detailed deliberations that democracy, flawed as it is, works best when everyone shows up. Not perfectly, but better. Jury duty was tedious, intentional, often boring. It wasn’t glamorous. It was, at times, uncomfortable.
That is also what made it essential.
So, let’s aspire to be honest about another touchy truth this Disability Pride Month.
“Disability is not a bad word” has done as much as it can do.
Thanks for the T-shirt.
Now, let’s put it in a museum and carry on.
I realize this may upset some people. I’m okay with that. Not because I enjoy being contrary, but because the stakes merit discomfort.
Linguist George Lakoff tells students, “Don’t think of an elephant.”
Go ‘head, try it. I’ll wait.
What happened?
For most folks, if you’ve ever seen, heard, or encountered an elephant, the instruction sparks an image or, at least, a concept. It conjures the massive gray mammal you’re trying to erase. Good intentions be damned.
After Watergate, U.S. President Richard Nixon proclaimed, “I am not a crook.” The only thing the world remembers a half-century later is crook. It’s a bipartisan blunder. Bill Clinton made a similar mistake during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. The lesson crosses party lines. It is impossible to refute an accusation by repeating it.
Similarly, every time we proudly proclaim disability is not this or that without reframing, we also invoke the shame, fear, or inadequacy our audience likely adopted long ago without realizing it. “Bad” gets top billing by default. Nothing changes. Slogans, as useful as they can be, are a poor substitute for strategy. If something doesn’t work, stop doing it.
Before we can reimagine, we have to reframe. Defensive language does not challenge lazy thinking –it comforts the status quo. Every time a frame is repeated, it gets stronger. Reframing, like democracy, requires skill, dedication, and a willingness to commit to the boring, necessary details.
I’ve written before that to be disillusioned is to be delivered from deception. Not fun, I admit, but the transition can be fertile ground for new beginnings. Disability can do that too, if we use it to disturb, disrupt, and dismantle. To free ourselves, and others, from the illusion that somebody else’s definition of normal was ever neutral, natural, or enough.
My challenge to you? Try a stronger start: Disability is.
Then get creative illustrating new options and opportunities.
For some, it’ll be history, community, culture, innovation, and improvisation. Others might signal an early warning system for bad design, lazy policy, or lack of imagination. In a world where “normal” too often is defined as nondisabled, the status quo loves disabled people who champion all that disability is not, because it lets them off the hook. Doesn’t push for accountability or require anyone to make uncomfortable, fundamental changes.
The 1944 standard “Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive” (written by Johnny Mercer and Harold Arlen) warned us not to mess with Mister Inbetween. Sage advice. The in-between is where the status quo does its dirtiest work. It’s the petri dish where loose language, partial access, the “we’d love to, but,” thrives. Where excuses mingle and multiply. Where access is managed but isn’t valued. Where accommodations are grudgingly provided but not centered. Where disabled folks are publicly applauded each July, while needed programs and practices remain routinely under-resourced.
It is also the space we have to stop protecting.
Disability and democracy have something else in common. Participation changes both the playing field and the game. Sure, sometimes we have no choice but to opt out. Systems that deny access cannot blame us for staying home. But another uncomfortable truth we need to face is the difference between being excluded and surrendering the field.
When we can participate and choose not to, when we default to the excused absence, the doctor’s note, the easy exemption, the workaround, or the favor that gets us off the hook, we leave the mess behind for somebody else to clean up. Solidarity with teeth, participation with purpose, and pride that refuses to be silenced by the status quo requires commitment.
To “not” less. And “is” more.
Start with “Disability is.”
Then embrace the essential work of filling in the blanks.
The answers may never appear on a t-shirt or bumper sticker, but they might frame a better future the status quo was not designed, nor seems inclined, to create.
Lawrence Carter-Long writes about words, meaning, and movies at the intersection of inspiration and perspiration. He is Director of Engagement for ReelAbilities International, which presents the annual ReelAbilities Film Festival and uses film year-round to advance disability inclusion, access, and cultural change on screen and off.
Opinions expressed are solely those of the writer(s) and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Able News at The Viscardi Center and/or The Viscardi Center.