It's not an accident – our world is built to exclude disabled voices

This exclusion isn't a glitch in the system – it is the system.

We live in a fundamentally ableist society. One where disabled voices are not only silenced – they are erased. This is not by mere oversight or accident. It is by design.

Despite decades of activism, policy changes, and public awareness campaigns, the truth remains: disability is still widely misunderstood, and often deliberately dismissed. Where appearances are valued more than truth, and productivity is measured by able-bodied standards, disabled lives are treated as inconvenient, unworthy, or worse – expendable.

The hypocrisy of modern allyship 

It’s almost insulting how many proclaim themselves to be allies to the disabled community while conveniently looking away when actual discrimination unfolds before them. Performative allyship has become a social currency – cheap to declare, costly to enact.

Discrimination isn't always loud or grotesque. Sometimes it hides behind phrases like: "We can't hire a disabled person – they're simply not as able."

These aren't just slips of the tongue; they are admissions of systemic bias. And more disturbingly, they often come from individuals in leadership – those who are supposed to safeguard justice and equity. Their success rate in dismantling ableist structures? Embarrassingly low.

Oversimplification and the comfort of categories

Society loves neat boxes. You're either abled or disabled. Productive or burdensome. Normal or "special needs". These binary labels make it easier for institutions to govern, easier for people to judge, and far easier to exclude those who don't fit within the lines.

But human beings don't exist in binaries. Identities are complex, overlapping, and dynamic. Yet many would rather ignore intersectionality – because it demands we think harder, listen longer, and give up power and privilege.

Take Frida Kahlo: a disabled, queer, Latina artist. Her life was layered, political, and deeply challenging to societal norms. And yet, today, some reduce her to a decorative feminist icon with flowers in her hair – ignoring her pain, her disability, and her rebellion. This is what happens when society demands palatable narratives and erases the discomfort of truth.

From stereotypes to structural violence

It is not just attitudes that harm – it's systems. It's the lack of access to public infrastructure. The underfunding of disability support. The gatekeeping in employment, education, and leadership. The enduring assumption that "reasonable accommodations" are unfair advantages, rather than basic rights.

Underlying it all is a familiar, often unspoken sentiment: "Disabled people already get enough –why should they deserve more?" This isn't equity. It's contempt wrapped in bureaucracy.

The call is coming from inside the house 

Sometimes, the people upholding the most discriminatory systems are those who claim to be building better ones. Whether it's in academia, activism, or politics, we need to admit that some of the loudest voices for "progress" are dangerously out of touch – and too often, unwilling to listen.

What this moment demands is not more shallow DEI statements, nor another conference on inclusion that excludes disabled panelists. It demands reckoning.

We must unlearn the biases we were taught. We must make room – not just in policy, but in mindset, media, leadership, and culture. We must rebuild from the ground up – even when it is uncomfortable, inconvenient, or slow.

Rebuilding means more than representation 

Fixing the system doesn't mean giving scraps to those long excluded. It means redistributing power, rethinking priorities, and designing structures that don't require people to fit into able-bodied molds just to survive.

The real work of justice cannot be done by labeling disability as "inspiration" when convenient, or "incompetence" when threatening. It starts by listening. By believing. And by letting disabled people lead.

Let’s stop pretending it’s fixed 

It's time to stop lying to ourselves about the state of inclusion in this world. Real justice doesn't live in comfortable narratives or token representation. It lives in uncomfortable truths, structural change, and radical empathy.

We don't need more promises. We need space.
We don't need more pity. We need power.
And we need it now.