A Disability Activist on New, Post-Covid "Community Members"
Marilyn Golden, Disability Activist. image source: dredf.org
“Q: We are currently in the middle of a pandemic, and many folks who have had Covid-19 are discovering that their symptoms are long-term, possibly permanent. You and I both acquired our disabilities. How should the disability community welcome these new potential members, who may not see themselves as disabled?
Marilyn Golden: The disability community has largely done a good job in saying that disability encompasses a wide circle. As to whether these newly disabled people will see themselves as people with disabilities, that shift often happens for people in the process of seeking accommodation. For example, if someone has compromised lung function due to Covid, they may need to park close to their destination in a disability access parking zone.
When an adult acquires a disability, as I did, it’s all too easy to take on prejudiced social attitudes toward disability—like the idea that people with disabilities must have miserable, unbearable lives—and apply these ideas to ourselves. I worried I wouldn’t be able to do things that bring me joy, like hiking, or that my disability would get in the way of relationships. But after about a year, I realized my fears were wrong. I had great friends, I could get out into nature, I could do important and fulfilling work. I could enjoy my life perfectly well. ”
Marilyn Golden is a Senior Policy Analyst at the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF), our nation’s foremost national law and policy center on disability civil rights, with offices in Berkeley, California and Washington, D.C. Ms. Golden attended Brandeis University, from which she graduated Magna Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa. Soon thereafter she acquired a disability and became deeply involved in the disability rights movement.
This interview appeared in Jewish Currents.