5/9/25 - Friday Video Share: "Tips for new wheelchair users who are returning to the community"
What do you make of videos like this?
Tips for new wheelchair users who are returning to the community
Empowered Para - April 2, 2025
This video is a good example of a particular genre of disability content or advice. It's positive, can-do, and focused on the disabled person's ability to make their own lives better through shaping their own "mindset."
It's also based on a belief that people are fundamentally kind and well-meaning, even when they are sometimes fearful or ignorant in their dealings with disabled people. Negative experiences are viewed as misunderstandings, or at worst, one-off encounters with exceptionally mean people, or poorly-managed, impersonal bureaucracy.
This sort of general positivity isn't everyone's cup of tea. For some it's empowering and hopeful. It suggests that we as individual disabled people have it within ourselves to improve our own lives, even if we get little cooperation from others. But for others, this sort of optimism can seem naive or even privileged – a perspective that's relatively easy to have if you don't have to fight for the most basic necessities, or against open hostility from people around you.
I think this sort of thing is useful, even if it's incomplete. Much of it is straightforwardly practical, not really all that idealistic. And I suspect that even the most hard-core disability activists would have to admit that there are moments when intentionally changing their mindsets – from doom and shame to hope and pride – has made all the difference.
Have a fantastic weekend!
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