OUR FIGHT IS AGAINST CAPACITISM by Amanda Lyra

Illustration Paloma Santos.

Capabilityism is so wrong that even the spell checker wants to fix it.

Capabilityism is the prejudice exercised against people with disabilities and that, veiled or not, uses words that pretend to praise or encourage someone who has a disability but does exactly the opposite.

Capacitism denies the capacity of a person with a disability, infantilizing, subjugating and belittling the fact that they are perfectly capable of answering for their actions. And say:

“Wow, but are you alone?”
“But you work.”
“Why don’t you just retire on disability?”
“It seems like a miracle you can do that.”

It is in acts like going to a restaurant and the waiter addressing only those who don't have a disability as if only that person were an adult. It's in the pat on the head we get when they say we're cute, that " we're so young and we've been through THAT " and, in this case, what they're referring to is life, it's adaptation, it's everyday life, but what For them, it is synonymous with suffering, torture, bitterness...

Empowerment is when they say that when they think about complaining about life, they remember us! I'll repeat it here: WHEN THEY THINK ABOUT COMPLAINING ABOUT LIFE, THEY REMEMBER US... and I'm going to tell you a secret, but don't spread it out: people with disabilities are human beings, so human that sometimes they complain, complain, get upset and can even waking up in a bad mood!

And a lot of people don't say that to hurt, but because they don't think that they also go through difficulties in their own day to day and that they go through situations where they also overcome adversities in their own lives, but nobody congratulates them for that.

Disabled people will only end when they understand the importance of talking about PERSON WITH DISABILITIES, to remember that the person comes first and that disability is just a characteristic that can be used to describe just one part of the entire universe that we are!

Being in a wheelchair is not what defines me, it's part of who I am. And please, regardless of your religion, do not tell anyone with a disability that if they have faith they will be healed!

People took years to understand and accept that life is a fickle coming and going of traumas and adaptations. And that one should not underestimate neither faith, nor creed, nor a person's ability to accept himself and enjoy the life he has.

I'd rather have a disability and be myself than not have one and be someone else. I like who I am and I accept myself.

I celebrate the struggle of the person with a disability not because of the disability they have, but because of the surprising ability to deal with empowering situations and attitudes throughout their lives, knowing that their mere existence is an affront to standards and that this is not a problem, very much on the contrary, it is the solution.

My act of protest is to exist. I exist fully and I firmly resist when there is inaccessibility, ignorance, prejudice, ableism, machismo and little people with little information or character.

I exist to turn into a song, to shout louder than we will resist! To show that our fight is for real, that we are much more than what people think we are and we are still going to make a lot of noise to say: Don't train me, I'm not a child, I'm not an angel, nor am I a saint. I'm just a person who has the right to be the best I can for myself, just like everyone else, with disabilities or not.

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Amanda Lyra is a singer, songwriter, producer and presenter, wheelchair user and creator of the Solyra Project . Follow her on FACEBOOK and INSTAGRAM .

Paloma Santos is an illustrator, wheelchair user and feminist. "In my work as an illustrator I try to represent female diversity". Follow her on INSTAGRAM and like her on FACEBOOK .

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