A Disabled Activist Speaks out for her rights during a pandemic
This article really hit me hard as a young disabled person living in a pandemic
During the month of January, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, went on national live television to report “really encouraging news” that was related about the COVID pandemic. Walensky mentioned three-fourths of deaths from the current variant is from people that have ongoing medical health conditions. However, she mentioned “These are the people who were unwell to begin with.” This kind of comment fulled anger inside millions of Americans that were born with a physical and/or mental disability (kind of like Alice Wong).
Wong is a writer, organizer and activist that went on Twitter to defend her self worth and persona as an Asian woman who has a physical disability. Wong lives her life with the aid of a power wheelchair and a ventilator due to a genetic neuromuscular condition. During her college education in 1993 in Indiana to become an activist, Indiana’s Medicaid program paid for her to live independently, however that took a turn for the worst. She was forced to move back home with her parents. She then transitioned to living in the Bay Area of San Francisco for grad school. She decided to advocate for public health benefits for disabled people.
If you want to read more about her story, click the link below
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/a-disabled-activist-speaks-out-about-feeling-disposable fbclid=IwAR02KbgRoujCWcZove584eSVHecxiIlLDF-vlMyMNfJtypGzhRrxMn7iwWU
As I was reading this article, I was really pissed off when I heard the comment from Walensky. I’m a young Asian American that has ADHD and I have had to live with multiple struggles in my childhood, including during this never ending pandemic. I’m totally supporting Alice Wong and how she is advocating and supporting people that have disabilities and saying that you should never be ashamed of who you are as a person and don’t let people own your self worth.