Summary: 

Keah Brown writes about her relationship with hope and joy, and the arguments and assumptions that she faces as a black disabled woman who many assume will never be happy because of her disability. She writes about how disability is almost always presented in the media as a cis white man in a wheelchair, and how she is never seen in the media, even though she very much exists in the real world. She discusses how she found joy in spite of her previously negative mindset that she had prior to the winter of 2016, and how joy is not something you could just expect someone to start feeling, but that it has to be nurtured, it’s work. She makes it clear to the audience that she does not feel joy everyday, that she doesn’t expect anyone to, but that associating disability with joy, pride, hope and love, will change public minds for the better. She explains her hashtag #disabledandcute, and how if focuses on finding joy in the little things, of continuously taking time out of your day to actively think positively about yourself.

Quotes:

“Instead they think of cis white male wheelchair users who hate themselves, because that is so often the way that pop culture depicts us.” (Brown 118)

“I may not find joy everyday. Some days will just be hard, and I will simply exist, and that’s okay, too. No one should have to be happy all the time — no one can be.” (Brown 119)

“I was once a very self-deprecating and angry person who scoffed at the idea of happiness and believed that I would die before I ever saw a day where I felt excited at the prospect of being alive” (Brown 119)

“Forcing myself to reroute negative thoughts with positive ones. Instead of saying what I hated about myself, I spoke aloud what I liked about myself.” (Brown 119)

Reflection:

Brown’s outlook on life, and her optimism is almost contagious in this essay. She does a really good job of setting the stage on the issue she sees and ends it with a very great call to action that encourages readers to think more positively about themselves and disability. I was impressed with how she predicted possible counter-arguments (or what nay-sayers would claim) by directly addressing them, and also explaining how important and necessary joy is. Her stance on joy having to be worked on and nurtured, and not just coming naturally to people, is very nice to hear. Instead of telling her audience to “Just feel joy, stop feeling upset”, which is what I have always worried about when it comes to essays on how to feel joy, Brown is realistic in her methods and expectations. This piece also works as a much more critical piece on the social expectations of disabled people, the expectation that disability equals misery and suffering. Her methods of tackling these issues are very efficient and well developed, and the personal aspects of her own story are used to further support this argument.