So a couple days ago, Angela Peters, a wheelchair user with cerebral palsy, tried to get her nails done at a local nail salon. (âDa Vi nailsâ.) She was turned away because of her disability. Witnessing this, an employee at the Walmart nearby did her nails for her.
Here are some real headlines about this:
âWalmart Employee Gives Woman With Cerebral Palsy A Manicureâ
âWalmart employee uses break to paint nails for woman with disabilityâ
âWhy This Walmart Employeeâs Act of Kindness Is Going Viralâ
âWalmart cashier steps inâŚâ âWalmart worker givesâŚâ âThis Walmart employee paintedâŚâ âCashierâs act of kindnessâŚâ
You can probably already see where Iâm going with this, but Iâm not finished. I read a few of the articles. Many of them did not provide the name of the nail salon who had broken the law to discriminate against Peters, and the articles that bothered to quote Peters at all were sure to quote her as saying she âforgivesâ them and doesnât want to get anyone in trouble. Sheâs described as a âsweetâ and âhumbleâ regular customer.
As for the Walmart employee (who I wonât bother naming because she isnât the important part of this story), each article is basically a hagiography. They talk about how kind she is, how selfless she is, how she âstepped inâ to right a wrong (even though the nail salon will continue to discriminate and no one is stopping them so the wrong really hasnât been righted). Sheâs interviewed at length and no one fucking talks about the ADA or how itâs not just thoughtless to turn away a person with a disability, itâs cruel, discriminatory, and illegal.
âWeâre not trying to bash the nail salon. Weâre not trying to make them lose customers, make them look bad.â
WHY THE FUCK NOT? Imagine if your local businesses refused to serve women or POC â hell, weâre having a national dialogue about the fucking homophobic bakers. This is discrimination.
The thing is, itâs not just this story. This happens all the time. A disabled person is discriminated against, and instead of the focus being on a business, law, or entire system that has failed them, a news story will focus on an employee who helped them. Or a teacher. Or a cop. (Note: A recent report found that half of all people killed by cops have a disability! Google it.)
This reframes the story, and more importantly, refocuses it. This is now a story about an act of kindness. No one has to pay attention to the discrimination at play. No one has to pay attention to the laws being broken, or the laws being changed. No one has to look at a system of discrimination against PWD â because that might implicate them. If the causes of discrimination are examined, then people will have to change the way they behave. Funds will have to be reallocated. Laws will have to change, and existing laws will have to actually be enforced.
Most of all, no one actually has to pay attention to the disabled folks being discriminated against. We can, once again, just be another inspirational prop in a feel-good story that improves the lives of able-bodied readers but not those of the disabled people who actually need help. Itâs dehumanizing and it prevents us from claiming our rights.
Hereâs the real story here: A woman was turned away from a local business because of her disability and they will face no consequences. No one even wants them to. This Walmart employee who did her nails for fun? Doesnât matter at all.
I get wanting to see examples of human kindness. But kindness and justice are not the same thing, and one cannot replace the other. Itâs kind when my family interprets for my deaf relatives. Itâs kind when people help me with non-accessible doors. Itâs kind when a stranger gives a woman a manicure.
But kindness didnât help us when the cops came to our house multiple times and each time refused to bring an interpreter, which resulted in abuse victims being forced to interpret for the person who just beat the shit out of them. Kindness doesnât help me when I go to a building and thereâs no visible way to get inside. Kindness wonât help the next person who goes to that nail salon and gets turned away.
We cannot rely on kindness, just like we cannot rely on luck. Thatâs literally why we have discrimination laws. So people wonât have to hope their boss is âkindâ enough to hire disabled people â or women, or POC, or religious minorities, or LGBT people. So people wonât have to hope transportation companies are âkindâ enough to take your accessibility equipment. (Iâm fucking looking at you, Uber.) So people wonât have to hope their doctor will be âkindâ enough to get an interpreter. (Yes, my family members have literally been turned away from doctors before.)
I donât want to have to hope that I can live a normal life. I want to know I can because there are laws in place to protect me and my rights. Which is why these articles are so goddamn damaging. It takes the focus off of the issues we face and puts it right back on the able-bodied people who the media has always felt more comfortable spotlighting.
This approach prevents tangible change.
The fact that this news story went viral but HR 620 passing the House didnât? That says everything. It says that able-bodied people (and the media organizations that shape our culture) do not actually care about the well-being of people with disabilities. They care about feeling good about themselves without doing a goddamn thing to truly help us. They donât mind that we still depend upon them for every scrap of good we get â and donât want to fight so that we have the ability to get good things all on our own.
Itâs far easier to go âwow, that womanâs so niceâ than to change laws or make sure existing laws are actually enforced. That requires funds. It requires work. It requires legislative changes. And those are all things weâve been conditioned to never ask for for fear of being labeled a drain or a burden. No one wants to be that bitter cripple that no one likes. The one who asks for far too much, like basic human rights.
Fuck off with that âa wonderful woman helped a pwd who was turned awayâ bullshit. How dare you call this a feel-good story! Every headline should be âLOCAL BUSINESS DISCRIMINATES AGAINST PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIESâ and until it is, Iâll just keep on being goddamn furious.
âCoz frankly, I donât much care if they like me anymore. Having legal rights is better than being liked â because then you donât have to depend on being liked to survive. Amazing!
(Yo, call your senator about HR 620, a bill that will strip all efficacy from the ADA and prevent PWD from enforcing their rights. Donate to a local disability rights organization. Or heck, if this post resonated with you, drop a couple dollars in my ko-fi to help pay for my bus fare. I just learned that the nearest library to my new home is inaccessible, so Iâll have to take the bus across town! Lovely.)
