How to be an anti-ableist advocate

Tiffany Yu has some tips

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I had the privilege of interviewing disability activist Tiffany Yu recently about her work with Diversability and her new book, “The Anti-Ableist Manifesto: Smashing Stereotypes, Forging Change, and Building a Disability-Inclusive World.”

Diversability is “a community of people with disabilities (and the allies who support us), on a mission to elevate disability pride, together.” It is a virtual space where people find support by sharing lived experiences, elevating each other’s voices and bolstering each other in our creative and business endeavors. Having a noticeably paralyzed hand (the result of a traumatizing car crash that killed Tiffany’s father when she was 9), she felt isolated and unwelcome in society. In a TEDx talk she spoke of the prejudice she felt as a disabled person.

“I’d always noticed that people seemed pretty uncomfortable with disability and, as a result, they were uncomfortable with me,” she’d said. “All I really wanted was to be liked, to be accepted, to be understood.”

She went on to say that because non-disabled people don’t fully understand disability, they fear saying something offensive or not politically correct and so they end up saying nothing at all. Thus, are born the assumed stereotypes perpetrated by media representing disability as “a medical diagnosis, someone needing fixing (or worse, can’t be fixed), a tragedy or charity case.”

These stereotypes make broad and inaccurate assumptions that disabled people can’t achieve, can’t contribute to society, can’t live meaningful lives. And, sadly, because disabled people often feel like a burden, like they don’t belong, they adopt these beliefs about themselves — that’s internalized ableism.

It was these insights that prompted Tiffany to form Diversability — to build a community for human connection and to advocate for empowerment, disability pride and inclusion.

She also began posting short videos on several social media platforms titled “The Anti-Ableism Series.” They usually begin with Tiffany asking, “Do you want to be a better ally to disabled people?” These videos provide tips to improve interactions with disabled people — tips like sending questions to all job candidates in advance of interviews to allow those who might need more time to process information and form suitable responses. She addresses the importance of health care professionals, family members and friends to believe disabled people’s experiences of pain, emotion or challenges.

The messages from these videos became “The Anti-Ableist Manifesto” which is, in part, these tips collected into a single published document. It’s an important book that really pinpoints the causes of and fixes for ableism.

During our interview, Tiffany spoke of a powerful moment in her quest for equality and inclusion. She had a pediatric hand surgeon who watched her first TEDx talk in which she discussed the need for trauma units to provide mental health care to children in addition to treating their physical injuries. As a result, the doctor added a mental health support professional to his team.

“I had no idea that by someone seeing that, that they would take real actionable steps to change something that's going to change these kids’ lives,” she’d told me.

To read more of my conversation with Tiffany, you can check out the Q&A I composed for the Christian Science Monitor from that chat.

In the meantime, I’ll sort of steal a line from Tiffany: How can you be a better ally to disabled people? I’d love to know your answers. Post them in the comments if you feel so inspired. And I hope this post has given you some things to ponder. I’m grateful to all of you for reading my missives and for your support.

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Thanks for being here. Hugs!