City of Philadelphia
Disability Pride Philly chose this year’s theme with precision: “We Belong Here and We’re Here to Stay.” This theme could not be more urgent or timely.
Read the full report at Inquirer.com
A few Saturdays ago, I ventured down to the Ben Franklin Parkway to attend and volunteer at Disability Pride Philly. This parade and festival launches more than a month of celebrations: July marks Disability Pride Month, honoring the Americans with Disabilities Act’s passage on July 26, 1990.
To some, “disability pride” sounds like an oxymoron, or a niche idea that may not touch them. As a person with multiple disabilities, I can tell you that disability pride matters more than you might think.
Accessible education, technology, rehabilitation, and civil rights protections let me live fully integrated into my workplace, community, and family. I hold a master’s degree and a doctorate. I do research on overlooked and unexamined issues that affect pediatricians and their patients. I live the life I choose, in the home I choose, with the job, hobbies, and community that I choose. These may seem like obvious rights for anyone to have. They are not.
Disability Pride Philly chose this year’s theme with precision: “We Belong Here and We’re Here to Stay.” This theme could not be more urgent or timely.
For most of American history, society separated people with disabilities like me from their families, schools, workplaces, and communities and placed them in institutions. Institutionalization confines children and adults with disabilities to restricted residential settings, cut off from family and community.
Institutions breed lack of oversight, abuse, insufficient care, and the systematic segregation of disabled people from society at large. Decades of evidence now show that people thrive when they receive support in their homes and communities.
Read the full report at Inquirer.com
