At a certain point, Americans with disabilities and elderly infirmities took it upon themselves to develop civic associations, lobby their elected representatives, and convince their fellow citizens to set aside hard-earned tax revenue to make life easier on those who have a harder time getting around. They did it, and from what I can tell, it is now a completely uncontroversial decision. It was simply amazing. This one, narrow area of life—accommodations for people with disabilities—came to represent everything that I was learning to love about America: democracy, self-determination, civic
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Completely uncontroversial?? Spoken like someone who has never had to ask for ANYTHING the ADA supposedly guarantees. Not to mention complete ignorance of the whole “lobby and convince” part- people literally DIED for the ADA, chained their wheelchairs together around the capitol, were gassed and beaten and jailed, not to mention that deinstitutionalization of people with various differences JUST started in the 1980s!! Glossing over all this in service of her trite anecdote is actually insulting to everyone involved in disability justice.
