According to the CDC 25 percent, or more than 61 million people live with a disability. 23 percent of them live in California. Yet disabled people are often pushed aside and rendered invisible. Many Americans don't know how to act around the disabled and often offer unwanted advice. This can make disabled people feel as though they aren't part of society.
Easterseals, an organization which provides advocacy and various services to the disabled, is seeking to change that with "D1$@B1L*tY Is Not a Dirty Word," a new PSA airing on a variety of networks such as A&E, Animal Planet, CNN, ESPN, Galavision, and HGTV, among others, including streaming services like Hulu and YouTube TV. The PSA, which will run through the end of 2024, holds a special meaning this month as July is Disability Pride Month.
In the PSA, which runs a minute, people who live with various kinds of disabilities express their pride in being who they are.
"Disability is still stigmatized in many ways," said Kimberly Cohn, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for Easterseals Southern California. "It shouldn't be. With 25 percent of people in the U.S. having a disability, the fact that disability is still talked about using euphemisms, or not talked about at all, shows that there's still change that needs to happen around acceptance and inclusion. Our 'Disability is Not a Dirty Word' campaign draws attention to this. The PSA is not scripted. It is people with disabilities telling their own stories and sharing their own journey to being proud of who they are."
Meet Andy
One of the people featured in the PSA is Andy Arias, a queer Latinx who uses a wheelchair due to having been born with cerebral palsy. Arias works as an actor, a producer, and a motivational speaker who lectures on diversity, equity and inclusion from a queer and Latinx lens. He also teaches DEI strategies, as well as cultural and linguistic competence strategies to faculty and students at a prestigious East Coast university.
In an interview with the Bay Area Reporter, Arias said that when he's out in public he's often on the receiving end of unwanted advice, or is asked why he's out by himself.
"People think they automatically have the right to tell people with disabilities how to live their lives because we've set up a system where people with disabilities are currently inferior to people without disabilities," he said. "Hence, people think they have the right to judge and give advice to those less fortunate than themselves. A perfect example is when I'm getting out of my vehicle and people are constantly asking if I need help putting my wheelchair together from my car. Seems nice enough. However I was able to get in my car with my wheelchair, and I should be able to get out perfectly fine. But people don't think outside of their bubble, so this makes it hard for them to fathom the level of my independence."
Arias added that there are a lot of disabled people in the queer community but that it's difficult for them to live as their authentic selves because of bigotry. He said that there are not a lot of resources for queer disabled people because the queer community isn't accepting of disabled folks.
"I think we are still a sidenote in the queer community," he said. "We must constantly fight for access, visibility, and the right to date and to be loved within this community. Many people still look at us as asexual individuals and a lot of us have loving, thoughtful sexual lives. Still, you rarely see that displayed in our publications or in our media, so to the community at large, we don't exist or matter."
Arias developed his sense of disability pride at an early age. He said he didn't have a choice, what with people marginalizing or making fun of him due to his being queer and disabled.
"I have to develop an internal sense of pride and turn off everyone else's volume because they know not everyone will accept me and like me," he said. "Honestly, I don't care about that. So my sense of pride comes from the impact I am making on the world and the value I bring to other people's lives, including my own."
He got involved with the PSA by answering a casting call. He's known about Easterseals since childhood, and he's proud to be a part of what they're doing.
"I hope the PSA leads to greater awareness and equality for people with disabilities and fosters more conversations and work for those who participated in it," Arias said. "My hope is that it gets national attention and people really start to move the needle forward."
Arias hopes that other organizations will follow Easterseals' example.
"We must all do this together to move the needle permanently," he said. "If one group of us is not equal our equality is just an illusion. To have true equality we must all be equal, regardless of where we come from, who we are, or how we present."
www.disabilitypride.com
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