A short essay into the personal experience of Keah Brown, a black woman with cerebral palsy. She talks about feeling joy and happiness as a black person with disabilities. She explains a little about her personal life, having written a book about her personal experiances, called “The Pretty One: On Life, Pop Culture, Disability, and Other Reasons to Fall in Love with Me” as well as being a progenitor of the hashtag #DisabledAndCute in 2017. She points out that she chooses to be happy as a disabled person. She wants to be remembered and noticed for the joy that she left in this world.
Quotation:
“Embracing my own joy now means that I didn’t always.” -Pg. 117
“I wondered why this positive message would elicit such negative reactions, and I could come up with only one reason: these readers, both disabled and not, reacted defensively because they’re not centered in my story – because I’m calling for inclusion that decenters whiteness” -Pg. 118
“Calling out ableism, racism, and homophobia in marginalized communities through my writing. It means that I’ve literally stopped apologizing for the space I take up on stages or in the airport.” -Pg. 118-119
Reflections:
While I can appreciate the sentiment that she is trying to make, there’s some things in this essay that kind of got to me. One is her idea that people are uncomfortable with her being a happy disabled person because she is black. Why should that be a problem? There are plenty of black people with disabilities – I know a few personally. And then she talks about how black people are represented in the media. I’m generally one who doesn’t care about representation in the media. Since when has media been an accurate reflection of human life? It gives the whole essay a narcissistic tone that is difficult for me to enjoy or ignore. Even so, I’m glad Keah Brown was able to share her thoughts – it’s obviously making a difference in the lives of many disabled people, and I can appreciate that.