This is a white disabled man using ableism as a weapon in service of racism.

It's wrong to discuss this as usual inspiration porn which is often unintentional harm towards disabled people.

Here hate is motivator. He's weaponizing abled emotions to promote anti-Black racism https://twitter.com/MSNBC/status/1298804313070931968

I've been watching this pop up in my TL and trying to find the right words. I've seen others equate it to usual inspiration porn and that is very wrong.

If ever there was a video that showed that the experience of disability is different for white people, he just made it.

Ableism is a tool of white supremacy and capitalism and historically rooted in enslavement and colonialism.

It is impossible to be anti-ableist while upholding white supremacy and racism.

However you can be anti-stigma, pro-awareness, etc. and still be racist.

If you strip a lot of (white) disability orgs and white disability 'advocates' messages down to their frames, they essentially become 'I'm just as white as you, except I use wheelchair/service dog, etc.'

And thus you end up at 'see the person not the disability etc'

He is very well aware of abled emotions around him. Very conscious of how to appeal to them. He knows that they love a good 'overcome' narrative. He knows that ableds are clutching their chests with that mix of pity & awe that you are even trying bc they'd rather be dead than...

He's feeding them another way to sell that bootstrap bs and make himself available as 'proof' that if you do face adversity you could decide to 'overcome' it if you decided to - it's a matter of character. Which he, a white man has whereas those 'complaining' about racism don't.

When you see the videos of disabled men - it always seems to be men - being helped to stand for their wedding dance or whatever, you will not hear disabled people saying 'how dare the wheelchair user decide to do this.' Their choice
What we object to is the abled reaction to it.

As disabled people we're all aware of how and why those videos go viral - while at same time our policy papers for example get ignored. I would have a better chance of having a meeting with the PM if I had 2 ableds pull me up then if I researched & wrote for years about poverty.

So the issue is not him deciding to stand up. The issue is when, where and why he decided to stand up there. He absolutely knew the impact it would have.
Those videos are for 'likes' 'influence' and 'clout'
This one is for hate. For racism. For further violence and death.

I also don't want to hear any white people talking about his 'internalized ableism' - I'm sure he has some but I don't care that's irrelevant here. That has nothing to do with what he decided to do here. This is whiteness. This is racism. This is not internalized ableism.

I am disabled and I am also white. I could choose to lean into the latter to try to mitigate the impact of the former. That is, in essence, what disability rights often is.

He has taken it further. It's an extension. More blatant. More overt. More violent. But not fundamentally different. Which is why we are often at odds with these disability orgs and leaders. https://twitter.com/mssinenomine/status/1299421539092369409?s=20

I'm aware that to people outside disability - and many within - my objections on here to certain disability orgs and 'spokespeople/advocates' may seem like some version of internal politics, positioning, bickering, petty even. But so much more is at stake.

Whiteness in disability is toxic and needs to be eliminated and even more those of us who are white disabled people are required to be actively anti-racist. To be anti-ableist you must be actively anti-racist.

Awareness and anti-oppression are not the same thing.

Also he takes far-right positions, seems to have a fascination with Hitler and other white nationalist things, says racist things on Instagram and like his great leader 'embellishes' his resume. https://theslot.jezebel.com/my-dark-journey-into-the-soul-of-a-model-young-republic-1844324325?utm_campaign=Jezebel&utm_content=1597065921&utm_medium=SocialMarketing&utm_source=twitter