#disabilitysymbol

The International Symbol of Access, or ISA, is what people call the “handicap” symbol. This symbol is supposed to be placed all over the world for parking spots, doors, seating, etc. It’s supposed to let those who are disabled know if a facility is accessible to them. Yet, there are places that the ISA is not and that’s a big concern. One example on University of Kentucky Campus is that the Memorial Hall building has no disability access currently. The only disability entrance is being blocked by construction and there are only stairs at the other three entrances. This isn’t good for those who are disabled and have classes in Memorial Hall because they can’t attend the class which causes attendance and grading issues on their account because the campus has blocked off the only disability entrance to the building.

According to K. Fritsch, the ISA symbol “produces, capacitates, and debilitates disability in particular ways” (135). What this means is that the International Symbol of Access makes disability seem a certain way through ableism and compulsory able-bodiedness. The ISA symbol is a picture of a person in a wheelchair that is white on a blue background. With this image, the ISA is producing disability in a neoliberalist, ableist framework that is simply solved with a symbol placed on areas making the area accessible (135). In other words, the ISA does disability because it produces disability, happy feelings, and exclusionary forms of inclusion. The ISA produces disability “through a neoliberal, ableist logic, capacitating disability as an individualized problem that can be known and solved” (135). The ISA produces happy feelings by “reproducing the capacitation of particular productions of disability and leading to the limited inclusion of capacitated forms of disability within neoliberal economies” (135). In other words, the ISA produces happy ideas through “cruel optimism” (135). Lastly, the ISA produces exclusionary forms of inclusion by “allowing for the production of the ‘able-disabled’... while other debilitated disabled people face ‘slow death’” (135). This means that disability appears to be included through the ISA, but it actually excluded through a slow death.