Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution

As a doc, it covers mostly all the bases and is heartfelt without being sugary sweet. You get a feeling for the times, the various areas of civil rights and political action (before that mean PAC). Finally getting the ADA signed and enforced was a 20yr struggle I remember well. I had forgotten that some politicians you'd think would have been supportive were not and visa versa. In those days, with no social media, if you weren't voters (or not perceived as such) and didn't get news coverage, politicians generally had little interest. However, one big counter argument against few benefiting (even though those "few" were/are the biggest minority) was overlooked here, otherwise I would have given it a 10/10:

After I had my first knee surgery, I had complications. I spent a long time on crutches. I went to physical therapy daily but the restroom in that building was incredibly tiny, with two stalls you could barely get into, much less with crutches and a backpack on (forget wheelchair). And that was a medical building in one of the largest medical centers in the US! It was 1988-89. So a great argument against few benefiting was that many able bodied people would spend some time as a disabled person and I saw those people every day in PT, a lot of them. I ended up having 5 more knee surgeries so spent lots of time needing accommodations. I still use a ramp as stairs are not my friend and I'm happy for other accommodations as well, esp as I get older. It shouldn't take my experience to have empathy, but empathy is a greatly underdeveloped organ in humanity.

It's amazing to me that a country that saw the polio epidemic render millions disabled, that saw wars disable millions of young men (Vietnam in particular in those days), and on and on, had such a hard time finding empathy and a few dollars so that everyone had access and opportunity, which saves money in the long run because less institutionalization is needed and more people can work and contribute. It is amazing that many still are the heirs to the nasty undertones of the kind of thinking that delayed this legislation for so long.