With disability pride month beginning, it’s important we take a moment to recognize who this month is usually about: straight white cis male wheelchair users. The Squeaky Wheel itself was created by one of them, and you guessed it — he’s writing this very story.
White wheelchair guys have long been the face of disability. Whether they’re a sporty Paralympian with a spinal cord injury, an evil amputee villain petting an equally white cat or a Stephen Hawking-esque super nerd with a congenital disability, there are many known species of white wheelchair guys.
If you asked a Fortune 500 company to imagine a disabled person, they’d imagine a white wheelchair guy. That is, if Fortune 500 companies even had a sliver of a sense of imagination.
Historically this has always been the case, and recent years have been no different. According to census data, white wheelchair guys make up less than 8% of the disabled population in the United States, but they make up almost every damn disability advertisement I have seen this month. When I Google “disabled person,” they’re four of the first 10 images, and when I Billy-on-the-Street-style scream “Name a disabled person!” at strangers, white wheelchair guys make up most of their answers. For full disclosure, they make up around 15% of the Squeaky Wheel team as well.
Even the literal international symbol for disability is a white wheelchair guy. If you’re disabled, white wheelchair guys are like the random people in the elevator with you: Some smell good, some smell bad, but either way you can’t escape them.
The discrepancy here is quite jarring, and what’s even more terrifying (well, for me, a white wheelchair guy) is that I’m nearing the end of this story and don’t really have a funny way to end it.
I don’t want to be the face of disability. It’s the reason the Squeaky Wheel logo looks like the Nickelodeon logo f*cked an alien squid, and why it doesn’t look like my face or the guy from your (likely expired) accessible parking pass. So please, if you’re celebrating Disability Pride Month, please be mindful of the speakers you hire, the content you post and the image in your mind when you fantasize about think of disabled people.