Striving to remove barriers that prevent us from building Vibrant, Diverse, Inclusive, Accessible Communities!
HuffPost launches this new section to center People with Disabilities as authors of their own lives, and the editor’s story about her best friend explains why that matters. At 23, her friend had a stroke, woke up in an Intensive Care Unit with locked-in syndrome, and endured months of paralysis, rehab, speech therapy, and other treatment before using eye-controlled technology to blog and write again. By rejecting inspiration porn and insisting that Telling our stories is resistance, the article makes clear that disability coverage must be led by truth, authorship, and power rather than pity.
The second main point is that disability is not a flaw to fix. The launch highlights Samantha Figgins, an Alvin Ailey dancer with hearing loss, and says her story explores what it means to see disability as a strength; it also points to Oksana Masters at the 2026 Winter Paralympics and says visibility matters. The article keeps returning to the idea that disability is one part of a person’s identity rather than a defect, and it insists that People with Disabilities deserve to be seen as whole people instead of being flattened into deficit.
The third main point is representation on the community’s own terms. The editor says the new section will publish stories that are honest, timely, and relevant to their communities, from inside the community, while rejecting tokenizing and refusing limits. That matters because the article says more than 1 in 4 Americans report living with a disability and that the definition of disability itself needs to expand, so coverage that excludes lived experience keeps barriers in place. This section instead promises unvarnished truth and joy from People with Disabilities whose voices have too often been pushed aside.
The fourth main point is urgency. The article closes by warning that the rights of People with Disabilities are being suppressed, and it answers that harm by calling for space where the full spectrum of disability can exist as whole selves. The plan to involve advisers from the community, including Samantha Figgins, Shahana Hanif, and Cozashay Marie, shows that authenticity must come from disabled leadership. For Community Builders, the conclusion is clear: remove barriers, make space for the entire spectrum of disability, and follow leadership from inside the community.
Read the Full Article: Introducing Voices of People with Disabilities.
By: Rajul Punjabi-Johnson
