Disabled Americans--Most of All Disabled American Women--Can Make a Decisive Impact at the Polls
We Are the Largest Minority Group in the United States.
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Though she wasn’t from my Illinois U.S. Congressional district, I remember each time Tammy Duckworth ran for her Congressional office. Her monumental story reached me during a low point in my life, and I couldn’t help but be captivated by it. Having lost her legs in battle, Duckworth fought to represent the people in her Congressional district and later as U.S. Senator for Illinois.
She emerged into public life as I was processing living with multiple sclerosis. For the first seven years I battled not only physical obstacles but worsening clinical depression. I drew from her as I did from fellow fiction-writer Flannery O’Connor to keep going despite my disabling chronic illness. O’Connor died from systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) at the age of 39.
Both women proved to me that a disability didn’t count me out as a member of the human race or a woman. A Franciscan friar told me it didn’t matter that O’Connor, a Catholic, wasn’t officially canonized by The Vatican. I could still make her one of my patron saints as I still came to terms with my MS and the loss of several people over the years I had believed were my friends but proved otherwise.
As the years have passed, I’ve adjusted to living with MS and have embraced the motto of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society “Prepare for the worst, but hope for the best.” I’ve dived deeper into the works of Sylvia Plath, Audre Lorde, Nicola Griffith, Anne Sexton, James Baldwin, Joan Didion, Imani Perry—all authors who dealt with mental illness, autoimmune disorders or cancer.
Though The 19th today published a critical and negative article about Disabled Voters for Harris's lack of organization and possible campaign finance violation, my own sense of belonging to the disabled community deepened when I attended its Zoom call last Thursday night. A male contributed to the panel of disabled activists and educators, but mainly women of several races appeared. My community is incredibly racially diverse and diverse in sexualities. Our differences make us stronger in achieving our goal: accessibility and equity.
It was also the most inclusive space I have ever been a part of thanks to Disabled Voters for Harris panel member Dr. Akilah Cadet. Dr. Cadet lives with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, Ankylosing Spondylitis, Coronary Artery Spasms Alport Syndrome and major depressive disorder.
Dr. Cadet and the other panelists reminded us of basic facts, including that it is federal law for all polling places to provide accommodations. Not providing accommodations is not only illegal but another form of voter suppression. Unsurprisingly though, there remain unaccommodating polling places and states that discourage disabled voter participation. This happens a lot when polling places do not provide ASL interpreters on site.
Toward the end of our first meeting, Dr. Cadet brought up Project 2025. She explicitly said MAGA wants people like her gone because of she’s a Black woman and disabled. She spoke for all of us when she said she feels threatened and that we have to make electing Vice President Kamala Harris a priority so the racist, xenophobic, sexist, ableist and eugenicist Inmate Number P01135809, a convicted felon and adjudicated rapist, and MAGA are not re-elected nor newly elected.
Dr. Cadet said healthcare costs will balloon under Project 2025 and navigating the healthcare system will become even more difficult. She said she didn’t want to scare people, but Dr. Cadet also mentioned Nazi Germany’s Aktion T4 and its alignment to Project 2025. The first group the Nazis went after to sterilize and eliminate were the physically, intellectually and developmentally disabled and the mentally ill. The disabled served as the rehearsal for what later occurred during The Final Solution.
At the end of the Nazi regime, the Nazis had murdered around 400,000 disabled people according to Dr. Thomas Lutz, head of Berlin, Germany’s Memorial Museums Department at the Topography of Terror Foundation, in his chapter of Mass Murder of People with Disabilities and the Holocaust.
Disabled voters do face voter suppression for not only ignorance of and Machiavellian manipulations of the law but because we are the largest minority group in the United States We are also what Dr. Fredric K. Schroeder from the National Federation of the Blind calls “[t]he orphan minority.” Despite the ADA protection decades later, we are not mentioned in or protected by the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act that Lyndon Baines Johnson signed into law in 1964 and 1965, respectively.
Those of us on disability are penalized if we earn too much while working part-time or if we marry another person on disability. Those living with intellectual or developmental disabilities are paid horrifically low wages far below the minimum wage. The idea that we are broken and passive and unable to contribute to society remains prevalent in the U.S.
Disabled Voters for Harris showed otherwise, and those from outside the disability community not only need to support us during this election season but fight along with us as well. Audre Lorde said, “We share a common interest, survival, and it cannot be pursued in isolation from others simply because their differences make us uncomfortable.”
I'm one of those American women of a certain age with an obscure chronic illness that has caused me to be partially blind, but not fully blind. (Thankfully.) I understand how our society treats people, especially women, especially women of a certain age, with illnesses that aren't always visibly debilitating. Electing more blue representatives won't fix this entirely, but it will be a start. Solidarity and support and love to you.
This is a moving read, a message people need to learn about and think on.