7. Disability In The Age of COVID

Disability may be the final frontier for our consideration of human rights, following pushes for Black people and other people of color to get civil rights, for women's rights, and for gay/lesbian/bi people and now also trans people. Some people will start life with some kind(s) of disability/-ies, but everyone will become disabled in some way in their lifetime. COVID is considered a mass-disabling event, mirroring in some ways the ways HIV killed so many gay men and Black women, and, again, is downplayed because of who is most heavily impacted: people of color, the poor, the elderly, and immunocompromised or otherwise disabled people. What will it take for us to care about others' experiences? Can we make things more accessible for all without getting caught up in how we have to change to accommodate others?