Cover image for About us : essays from the Disability Series of the New York Times
Title:
About us : essays from the Disability Series of the New York Times
Publication Date as Range:
2019
ISBN:
9781631495854
Edition:
First edition.
Physical Description:
xxxiii, 286 pages ; 25 cm
Abstract:
Boldly claiming a space in which people with disabilities can be seen and heard as they are--not as others perceive them--About Us captures the voices of a community that has for too long been stereotyped and misrepresented. Speaking not only to those with disabilities, but also to their families, coworkers and support networks, the authors in About Us offers intimate stories of how they navigate a world not built for them. Since its 2016 debut, the popular New York Times' "Disability" column has transformed the national dialogue around disability. Now, echoing the refrain of the disability rights movement, "Nothing about us without us," this landmark collection gathers the most powerful essays from the series that speaks to the fullness of the human experience--stories about first romance, childhood shame and isolation, segregation, professional ambition, child-bearing and parenting, aging and beyond. Reflecting on the fraught conversations around disability--from the friend who says "I don't think of you as disabled," to the father who scolds his child with attention differences, "Stop it stop it stop it what is wrong with you?"--the stories here reveal the range of responses, and the variety of consequences, to being labeled as "disabled" by the broader public. Here, a writer recounts her path through medical school as a wheelchair user--forging a unique bridge between patients with disabilities and their physicians. An acclaimed artist with spina bifida discusses her art practice as one that invites us to "stretch outselves toward a world where all bodies are exquisite." With these notes of triumph, these stories also offer honest portrayals of frustration over access to medical care, the burden of social stigma and the nearly constant need to self-advocate in the public realm. In its final sections, About Us turns to the questions of love, family and joy to show how it is possible to revel in life as a person with disabilities. Subverting the pervasive belief that disability results in relentless suffering and isolation, a quadrapelegic writer reveals how she rediscovered intimacy without touch, and a mother with a chronic illness shares what her condition has taught her young children.
Genre:
Added Uniform Title:
New York times.
Holds: