I won’t lie: Being disabled sucks. And the thing is, most times the marginalization and ableism are often worse than the actual things I can’t do.
Yes, it sucks sometimes that I can’t always do everything with my body that seems to be second nature for most people. It sucks that there’s essentially an entire social system in which me and people who share my struggles are second-class citizens. That is why it’s so important to work as hard as we can to end systemic ableism.
Having said that, getting to cut lines at theme parks is pretty cool.
Don’t get me wrong! Any incidental social advantages that a disabled person might receive pale in comparison to the crushing marginalization and discrimination inherent in ableism as a whole. And of course, these little niceties are not worth maintaining a discriminatory social order if we have the power to overthrow it.
But like, we get to skip lines! We get the best parking spaces and some of us can’t even drive!
We get the bigger bathroom stalls. We need those, but like, doesn’t it sometimes feel good that we get the nice, special ones?
One time, my dad forgot the tickets to a baseball game and didn’t realize it until we were already at the stadium. But we got in anyway!
In the much better world we all deserve, I would lament that this kind of cool shit couldn’t ever happen to me again. Obviously, we need a more equal world. But dammit, let us keep a few of the perks?