July is Disability Pride month. Honestly, I wasn’t aware of this until just a couple of years ago. But it is generally celebrated in July to commemorate the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act in July 1990. In March of 1990, in a creative and poignant act of civil disobedience, a group of people with disabilities showed up at the United States Capital to demonstrate how inaccessible public buildings are. They set aside their mobility aides and literally crawled up the steps of the Capital to make the point that they are a demographic that could not access the very government that claimed to represent them.
Later that year in July, President George H. W. Bush signed the ADA into law giving disabled people the most basic of protections and requiring many public spaces to have accessible entrances. This of course was met with extreme resistance across the country with many states attempting to opt out of having to treat people with disabilities with equal rights. I recall the church I attended in the late 1990’s being irate about having to include a ramp entrance in their remodeling plans because “it would ruin the aesthetic” of the church. That was my first introduction to how even people who claimed to follow a religion of “love your neighbor” actually care very little for the needs of the disabled and the hurting.
Since then, I’ve continued to encounter resistance and in today’s world could not imagine a Republican president signing in a law to give protections and rights to the disabled. I’ve had some disabilities since birth (missing limb) but have only started needing a wheelchair in recent years and so have become much more aware of the lack of accessibility and the resistance in the world. From the casual but ubiquitous habit of people parking in handicap parking spots (or worse, the loading zones) without permits (because they are just going to be a couple of minutes, or their kid is still in the car, or…) to people blocking curb cuts and sidewalks with their car, scooters, or trash cans the lack of regard for the needs of the disabled is everywhere. I’ve encountered people some 35 years after the passing of ADA – people who work in construction of buildings – who have never heard of it. I’ve encountered otherwise caring people who regularly back their trucks up to sidewalks in ways that completely block accessible routes because they never stopped to think about the needs of the disabled. Even after all these years accessibility is still an uphill battle.
Hence the need for a Disability Pride month. Throughout this month I’ll be posting reflections of what disability pride means to me and ways that others can be better allies. But I wanted to start the month of with a reminder that we exist and that we want to be seen. The recent introduction of the Disability Pride flag is a step towards raising awareness in that regard.
Created by Ann Magill, the Disability Pride flag is a muted colored flag with a charcoal black background with diagonal colored stripes across it. The colors represent –
Black: The black background represents the mourning over eugenics and mistreatment of the disabled and the rage and protest against ableism we face in this world.
Diagonal Multi-colored band: The light that cuts through the darkness of the barriers placed in our way using the six standard colors of the international flag to show that disability is global.
Green: This stripe signifies sensory disabilities, including blindness deafness, lack of smell, lack of taste and other sensory conditions.
Blue: This stripe represents those with psychiatric disabilities, such as anxiety, depression and other mental disorders.
White: This central stripe represents people with invisible disabilities and/or undiagnosed conditions.
Yellow: This stripe signifies those with cognitive and intellectual disabilities and other neurodivergence.
Red: This final line denotes persons with physical disabilities.
People with disabilities make up an estimated 28% of the population and it is the only “minority” group that anyone can find themselves in at any moment. An accident, an illness, a surgery (like with me) can leave you disabled overnight forced to live in a world full of barriers that doesn’t take the time to truly see and understand you. This Disability Pride month I want to help make us more visible.
