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Ryan Shazier walks across the stage to announce the Steelers 2018 first round draft pick, April 26, 2018.
There has been a recent outbreak of disabled people being insulted by guys who used to play football. These former players aren’t intending to insult us. They probably don’t even realize they’re doing it.
First there was Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker Ryan Shazier, who was paralyzed from an injury during a game last December. He was carried off the field on a stretcher. But then, in April, during the NFL draft, he gingerly walked on stage, steadied by his fiance, and announced the team’s first pick. He received a standing ovation.
In May, Georgetown University linebacker Ty Williams, who also sustained a paralyzing injury during a game in 2015, rose from his wheelchair at Georgetown’s graduation ceremony and walked haltingly, using a walker and leg braces, to accept his diploma. He also received a standing ovation.
This graduation story is one of the tiredest media clichés. You can google up dozens of them. The narrative is always the same: A person becomes disabled but vows to walk again and triumphs over all odds. And they always receive a standing ovation. Not standing to honor them is like not standing for the national anthem.
I wouldn’t be writing about this if these stunts were merely irritating. But they are harmful, because they reinforce destructive stigma of disability shame.
Why do editors and producers eat these stories up so much? It’s because they’re considered to be feel-good success stories. They carry the message that the primary obligation disabled people have to themselves and everyone else is to do everything in their power to shed that disability. Those who succeed, or at least try hard to, are examples of people “overcoming” their disabilities. The converse side of that message is that those of us who continue to live with disabilities are failures.
The stunts aren't merely irritating, they are harmful because they reinforce the destructive stigma of disability shame.
Tales of cripples overcoming their crippleness are rooted in the myth that disabilities are nothing but a complete burden and hindrance. People never overcome anything good. We never say someone overcame their Ivy League education to become a successful lawyer.
These rising and walking stories are also considered stories of hope. So again, this necessarily implies that being disabled equals being hopeless. I especially worry about the effect this subtle message has on people in similar situations as Shazier and Williams.
What about people with disabilities who don’t want to expend enormous amounts of time and energy trying to develop the ability to take a few halting steps? What if they’d rather learn how to master maneuvering a wheelchair and get on with enjoying life? Should they see themselves as failures? Quitters?
I believe those who feel compelled to make these public walking spectacles are succumbing to disability shame. Their actions say that being in a wheelchair diminishes the significance of the moment. And when we vigorously applaud them, we vigorously agree.
I wish just once I could see a real story of hope where somebody like Williams or Shazier brashly makes a grand entrance in a colorful new wheelchair and maybe pops a wheelie or two. This would send the message that life with a disability isn’t inevitably a lesser life. You should still be proud of who you are. You can still have hope. You can still have fun. You don’t have to overcome yourself. Just be yourself.
The people in the audience, however, may well feel cheated when deprived of the overcomer story they were all expecting. They might start booing.
Mike Ervin, a writer and disability rights activist in Chicago, writes the blog Smart Ass Cripple at smartasscripple.blogspot.com. His most recent book is Smart Ass Cripple’s Little Chartreuse Book.