That is why visibility matters. The Capitol Crawl showed the country what inaccessibility looked like in a single, powerful display. The Cy-Crawl is doing something similar on a campus level. It is translating policy into lived experience. It is asking people not just to acknowledge accessibility in theory, but to see where it breaks down in practice.
It is easy to support diversity in theory. It is much harder to restructure systems, conversations and power dynamics in practice. Lorde calls out the tendency to avoid that work by relying on familiar frameworks (academic, political or social) that were never built to include everyone in the first place. That is what she means by “the master’s tools.”
June 9, 2019. Ali Stroker wins Best Featured Actress in a Musical at the 73rd Annual Tony Awards. An actor, singer, and wheelchair user, Ali Stroker has been a trailblazer for disability representation on the stage. She was the first wheelchair user to graduate from the Tisch School of the Arts Drama Department at New York University. In 2015, she was the first wheelchair user to appear on Broadway, starring as Anna in the musical, Spring Awakening. For her performance as Ado Annie Carnes in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, Oklahoma!, Stroker became the first wheelchair user to win a Tony Award in 2019.
Take the quiz: Check Your Ableism!
Being Young and Disabled
By Noah Griffth, Auburn University
I Was a "Student of Concern"
By Kate Jackson, Rutgers University
In My Moment of Distress
By Anonymous, Temple University