There’s some good critiques of the horrible stock photography online that’s supposed to show disability or disabled people. Do you know what I’m talking about? The thin, cisgender, 20-something white person in a manual wheelchair (usually too big or looks like it’s hospital-issued) sitting atop a gorgeous mountain with their arms raised triumphantly in the air. And sometimes they’re miraculously out of their chair too!
Haven’t come across the triumphant mountaintop that the person couldn’t have actually gotten to in that chair on their own? What about the beach at sunset? Water gently lapping the shore, sun leaving streaks of pink and orange across the wide sky? White arms raised triumphantly even though that person couldn’t have gotten to the shore on that sand in that chair with the standard-issue thin tires on their own, and there are no wheel prints anyway. What are we triumphing over? Why aren’t these chair users shown doing shit chair users often do? Where are the people of color, the fat people, the gender non-conforming people, the anything other than people who look like non-disabled fashion models celebrating having accomplished nothing?
Or, disability is an empty manual chair lurking in an empty hospital corridor. It’s the person in a business suit at a laptop, smiling at the monitor while some stand-up colleague smiles and points at the screen. To be sure, there are more actually disabled people in the mainstream stock photos than just a couple years ago, but it’s just not enough (and the keywords and tags are so obnoxious). Because it’s still alongside the stock photography where a non-disabled model is described as “handsome” or “attractive” in photos where he’s standing up and then just as “disabled” when that same handsome and attractive person is slapped into a manual wheelchair.
Damn it.
DisabilityImages.com is a start to countering this erasure of actually disabled people. There’s also PhotoAbility, which (not surprising given the politically correct capital “A” in PhotoAbility) recreates a lot of the awful inspirational mainstream stock photos, just with real disabled people.
And now we have a new project, both artistic and for stock photography. It’s called Disabled And Here, and I want you to support it on Kickstarter by either donating, sharing the link, or both. From the Disabled And Here Kickstarter page: “Disabled And Here is a visual celebration of disabled BIPOC in the Pacific Northwest. Help us fund this photo series to spotlight BIPOC with various disabilities – including invisible ones! On top of portraits and interviews, we’ll also shoot group pictures for stock photography usage, to provide accessible options that avoid the ableist gaze (commonly known as: seeing disabled people as objects of inspiration or pity rather than the multifaceted humans we are).”
Why support it? First off, it’s not just about sick and disabled BIPOC (Black Indigenous and People of Color) folks, especially including people who are queer, but it is made by these communities. This is not charity, it’s not special, and it’s not tinged with the white, able-bodied savior complex mess that is inevitable when white (disabled or non-disabled) people lead the charge in trying to serve communities of color.
When I go on and on about how I want more representation, leadership, and celebration of disability community, I always, always, always mean not just people like me. I mean disabled communities of color, queer disabled communities, sick people, chronically ill people, disabled immigrants and refugees, poor and unhoused people, and every possible intersection and iteration of these things. Just because I’m cisgender, white, and can independently raise my arms in a triumphant V whether there’s a camera there or not, don’t ever think I want to see more people who look, communicate, and move like I do. The richness of my community and of communities I’m not in deserves celebration.
Also, people are Disabled And Here. Please support the project.