How do we center #DisabilityJustice amid #COVID19?

First, by centering the needs & experiences of our disabled neighbors. For this of us who are deaf/blind, ‘social distancing’ & mask wearing means communication & safe in(ter)dependent mobility is more difficult. https://twitter.com/DrOniBee/status/1254023206492680193

For example: my own experience with mask wearing amplifies my experience of disablement. The mask interferes with the functioning of my hearing aids (feedback), while pushing my glasses forward, which obstructs the little peripheral vision that I (deafblind) I have.

And masks in healthcare settings means that I am more likely to experience miscommunication- add on health system limitations on accompanying partners & advocates, and this means that I could experience adverse health effects.

Under pre-pandemic conditions, my experiences with hearing doctors was not positive.

I believe that I previously shared the experience of being sedated & post-op, waking up to the news that the docs broke my hearing aids while putting them on me. My $$$$ hearing aids!

Disabled people are not secondary considerations. They are not ‘risky’ patients against whom healthcare providers must protect themselves.

Disabled people are not ‘worth less’, despite the structural, endemic ableism that characterizes biomedical practice & decision-making.

Back to this:

I have not enjoyed being hypervisible as a deafblind Black woman whose partner (essential to my mobility) is a white man. (White) people keep assuming that 1) we are not together + violating social distancing & chastising us in public. https://mobile.twitter.com/DrOniBee/status/1254023206492680193

I’m not ‘making it about race’ either. Pandemic or no, whiteness deputizes those who identify with it to police public spaces as if they own them.

Related: https://mobile.twitter.com/Arrianna_Planey/status/1246735894167662595