Beyond Random Acts of Diversity

The 2016 Presidential election in the United States of America (USA) was unnerving for many diverse and disadvantaged populations, including disabled people. ¹ The eventual winner, Donald Trump, repeatedly mocked disabled people, blamed disabled people for violence (Cork, Jaeger, Jette & Ebrahimoff, 2017), and published a campaign book titled Crippled America, an obvious slur against disabled people. The Presidential administration that followed translated this discriminatory attitude into policy, exemplified in the appointment of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Both DeVos and Sessions have histories of ignoring community need and instead privilege more affluent populations (Cherkis, 2016; Black, 2017; Brown, Strauss, & Douglas-Gabriel, 2017). Most recently, Sessions has moved to remove guidelines for the implementation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), undoing decades of advocacy, activism and policy protection for disabled people. In particular, there is growing concern about decreased access to healthcare, work and education (Diament, 2018). The current Presidential administration clearly takes aim at ‘varied inconvenient populations’ reinvigorating and openly condoning a history of white supremacy and violence (Block & Friedner, 2017). This fulfils the purpose of characterising only the chosen few, as truly American and worthy/deserving of citizenship. The administration’s clear support of violent incarceration, deportation, and detainment practices echoes histories of racist immigration policies, and the ableist foundations of eugenics (Puar, 2007; Snyder & Mitchell, 2010; Block & Friedner, 2017). This is acutely frightening for disabled populations, as:

there is potential for suffering in the current practices of making inconvenient populations disappear, in incarcerating and ejecting on a grand scale, in determining who is and is not entitled to what kinds of health, education and social supports, and in the gutting of the already-thin social safety net.

(Block & Friedner, 2017, p.70)