#sofiawebster

By Sofia Webster

Today 25 years ago, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was signed into law. This is the major piece of legislation in the United States that protects people with disabilities under the law. The ADA is very special and precious to me.

Without it, I would not have nearly as many opportunities as I do today. I would not be able to: use sidewalks, use public transportation, enter public buildings such as government entities, movie theaters, stores, and restaurants, attend college, find an apartment, get a job, and so much more. Business owners could bar me from entering their establishments or kick me out for being an eyesore.

The ADA is also responsible for a lot of things that able-bodied people usually take for granted, such as curb cuts, elevators, crosswalk buttons and sounds, automatic door openers, ramps and rails in public buildings and bathrooms, accessible public transportation and "kneeling" busses.

I am so thankful to those disability activists and advocates whose work and struggle got the ADA passed. My life is better because of them.

But we also have to be critical about the ADA. Just like the 1964 Civil Rights Act and Obama being president did not end racism, the ADA did not end ableism. The ADA is not always respected or followed, and many institutions and public entities are in direct violation of it (LOOKING AT YOU, UofO). Also, equal opportunity for disabled people is more than just curb cuts and ramps. It's about dismantling ableism and the systemic oppression that disabled people face.

The ADA didn't fix ableism. It didn't fix: police brutality against disabled people, especially black disabled men and people of color with intellectual disabilities or sensory disabilities, disabled people living well below poverty lines, SSI benefits being dismally low, doctors euthanizing children with disabilities, forcibly sterilizing disabled adults and preventing them from having children, jobs and companies being afraid of employing disabled candidates, disabled adults and children being forced into institutions, caretakers murdering disabled people, the rampant sexual violence that up to 90% of women with disabilities face, the intimate parter violence that so many disabled people in relationships encounter, and so much more.

It won't fix disability microaggressions, disability binarism (the idea that if you are not a wheelchair-using paraplegic person, you are not disabled), actors participating in crip-face (when an able-bodied actor plays the role of a disabled person and then wins an Oscar for it), the overwhelmingly white image of the disability rights movement, eugenics, doctors and social workers questioning disabled people's ability to be a parent, etc etc etc.

To everybody being revolutionary from their bed I see you Even though you haven't gone to your African American female novelists class in a while I hear you Even though you couldn't go to that anti police brutality protest today I feel you Even though you don't have the spoons to be at that meeting I am with you Your pain is real Your struggle is valid Your presence is valued  You're revolutionary.