Another Great Essay Collection in Review: Disability Visibility

Another Great Essay Collection in Review: Disability VisibilityTitle: Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-first Century
Author: Alice Wong
Source: Library
Links: Bookshop (affiliate link) |Goodreads
Rating:four-half-stars

Summary: I learned a lot from this multi-author essay collection, which didn’t have even a single dud.

Well, I must say, it’s been an incredible reading year already. Kicking it off with a heartwarming romance helped get me out my reading slump and this is the second really wonderful essay collection I’ve read. All of the essays in this book are by disabled writers, activists, and/or speakers (some are transcribed speeches). Something I loved about this book is the broad scope of the collection. I always enjoy learning about the world from different perspectives. This book not only includes the experiences of people with many different disabilities; contributors also differ in race, gender, sexuality, religion, careers, and perspectives on disability. There were a number of commonalities that really jumped out at me too though.

This isn’t something I say about many multi-author essay collections, but there wasn’t a single essay that fell flat for me here. Every essay was well written. Those that considered questions of ethics were brilliantly argued, while those that shared personal stories were moving and evocative. I did have some favorites though! One that I particularly enjoyed was by a blind astronomer who was able to continue to interpret data that is usually plotted visually by converting the data to sound. Not only did this expand access to the field of science, it allowed the author to find information in the data that her colleagues had missed.

As the solution above showed, often it is a lack of accommodations that make activities difficult or impossible for disabled people. Many essays made this point implicitly. Once you’re seeing the world from a disabled person’s perspective, it’s clear that a lot of activities could be made accessible if that was a priority for more people. In addition to showing the frustrations of being disabled in a ableist world, these essays also showed a lot of the joy in their author’s lives. People who aren’t disabled often underestimate how happy disabled people can be. This belief was the focus of the incredible first essay of this collection. It was written by a disability rights lawyer who debates a Harvard professor who tries to justify infanticide of disabled babies because they won’t have happy lives. Horrifying idea, but a wonderful, nuanced essay.

The essays in this collection also included a lot of focus on community. Several of the essays focus on eulogizing, praising, or thanking one person. Others talk about the value of community and mutual aid more generally. I admired the work of the activists and community builders in these essays immensely. It also served as a good reminder that activism needs to be intersectional to truly work and that we achieve the best outcomes for everyone when we consider everyone’s needs. I learned so much from this collection and am excited to explore the books it references to learn even more.

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