earthBOUNDtomBOY
by HEIDI JOHNSON-wright
She was slight of stature and made her way through
life on wheels, but she was a force to be reckoned with.
Stella Young was a feminist, disability activist, comedian,
writer, atheist, Aussie and avowed knitter. She embraced the term “crip,”
turning it back on the establishment. She refused to play the role that society
tried to impose on her: the cute, demure, little girl in a wheelchair.
Young once wrote: "I am
not a snowflake. I am not a sweet, infantilizing symbol of fragility and life.
I am a strong, fierce, flawed adult woman. I plan to remain that way, in life
and in death."
Sadly, her death came all too
soon. She recently passed away, suddenly and unexpectedly, at age 32.
Young lived with the challenges
of osteogenesis imperfecta, a condition that affected her connective tissue and
made her bones vulnerable to fractures. But that was hardly the thing that
defined her.
She didn’t shy away from and
the truths she knew needed to be told.
Young often spoke out against "the
soft bigotry of low expectations" people with disabilities encounter.
"It speaks to this kind of
assumption that people with disabilities are 'brave' because our lives are
horrible and that's not true at all," said Young.
In a TED talk, Young referred to the trite phrases
-- such as "your excuse is invalid" and "don't quit, try" –
that accompany photos of disabled people online. She found them annoying,
labeling them “inspiration porn.”
"The purpose of these images is to inspire you,
to motivate you, so that we can look at them and think, 'Well, however bad my
life is, it could be worse. I could be that person.'"
In her TED talk, Young
expressed disgust for the bromide, "The only disability in life is a bad
attitude:"
"No amount of
smiling at a flight of stairs has ever made it turn into a ramp. No amount of
standing in the middle of a bookshelf and radiating a positive attitude is
going to turn all those books into Braille."
But Young didn’t lambaste
only greeting card-worthy clichés. In an open letter that she wrote to her
future 80-year old self, she spoke of her struggle with disability identity and
self-acceptance.
“Remember those days back
before you came out as a disabled woman? You used to spend a lot of energy on
'passing'. Pretending you were just like everyone else, that you didn't need
any 'special treatment', that your life experience didn't mean anything in
particular. It certainly didn't make you different from other people.
Difference, as you knew it then, was a terrible thing. I used to think of
myself in terms of who I'd be if I didn't have this pesky old disability.”
Thank you, Stella, for
reaching out to disabled people struggling with the shame we’ve internalized from
society’s devaluation of us. Thanks for your fearless advocacy. For not pulling
punches with your words.
Stella is the Latin word
for “star.” Although Stella Young has died, her ideas will burn brightly for
eternity.
http://earthboundtomboy.blogspot.com/2014/12/a-tribute-to-stella-young.html
