Officer Cites a Woman with a Disability for an Act Her Body Made Impossible

A woman who is an amputee, an adaptive athlete with no right hand, was pulled over by a sheriff's deputy who claimed he had watched her holding a phone in her right hand as she drove. When she raised her arm to show that she has no right hand, he would not believe what was plainly in front of him. People with Disabilities know this experience well, the moment when their own account of their own body counts for less than the snap judgment of a person in authority. By recording the stop and sharing it in her own voice, she insisted that People with Disabilities be heard rather than overruled.

Even after she proved that holding a phone in a hand she does not have was impossible, the officer would not retreat. He allowed that the phone was perhaps not in her right hand, then claimed he had seen one anyway and wrote the citation. This is how People with Disabilities are pushed aside by those who would rather defend their own authority than acknowledge the truth standing right in front of them. People with Disabilities should never be made to prove the reality of their own bodies before anyone will believe them.

What happened to her is not rare. Researchers who studied the life satisfaction of young People with Disabilities found that the discrimination they faced measurably lowered their wellbeing, which shows this bias runs through daily life rather than surfacing once in a single strange stop. When prominent public figures have openly mocked People with Disabilities, that cruelty tells everyone watching that such treatment is acceptable, and People with Disabilities carry its weight every day. The harm here is not one officer's error but a society that keeps treating People with Disabilities as easy to doubt and easy to dismiss.

People with Disabilities must be heard, and listening means far more than letting a video spread; it means taking up the shared work of removing the barriers that let ableism stand. The woman in this story spoke in her own voice about what was done to her, and a great many people listened. Community Builders carry a shared and collective responsibility to center People with Disabilities in every decision and to make certain that People with Disabilities are the ones speaking about their own lives. That responsibility belongs personally and collectively to each of us who would build a community where People with Disabilities are heard, believed, and fully at home.

Read the Full Article: Officer Gives Disabled Woman A Ticket For A Crime That Would Be Basically Impossible For Her To Commit.
By: Mary-Faith Martinez