Sometimes I just have to comment on really bad reporting of disability. Today it is the turn of Ars Technica, a technology news website that I read every day. The story is about a woman who may have murdered her mother. Nevertheless, her actions don’t negate the harm done by this kind of language:
If it weren’t for daughter Gypsy Blancharde’s posts on Facebook, she would likely be seen as a missing wheelchair-bound cancer patient who survived Hurricane Katrina and who has become a victim of foul play herself.
Instead, the daughter—who can actually walk and was believed to have had leukemia and muscular dystrophy—faces murder charges alleging that she and her secret 26-year-old boyfriend, Nicholas Godejohn, killed her mother Clauddinnea “Dee Dee.”
Where do I start with this?
This woman is, in fact, someone who used a wheelchair. All the rest seems to be assumptions based on the fact that she was seen walking, that she is not “wheelchair bound”. I am also not “wheelchair bound” and frankly, that is a really offensive term. My wheelchair frees me, it enables me.
Wheelchairs are like glasses. You do not have to need them all the time to genuinely need them some of the time. Many people can walk a few metres or even further but still need to use a wheelchair for much of the time. Attitudes like that in the article are what make people call me a benefit cheat and a scrounger when I get out of my wheelchair to reach shopping on high shelves, or when I walk from car door to car boot to get my electric wheelchair out. The same applies to other mobility aids or other help with disability.
Please, stop talking about disability and disabled people in these horrible terms wrapped in stigma and judgement.