A 10 Year Old Talks About Disability Pride.

October is Disability History  Month in Washington state.  For homeschool, we talked a lot about Disability Pride and at the end of the month, were lucky to be able to go to Bellevue College to see Lydia Brown speak.   These are my son's thoughts on Lydia's speech, and all that we talked about during the month:  

My Thoughts on Disability Pride and Seeing Lydia Brown, by F:  

One day, I went to see Lydia Brown at Bellevue College.   Lydia Brown is Autistic and a student in college.  Lydia is an activist for disabilities.  They talked about Disability Pride and other stuff about disabilities.   

They talked about how people view disabilities.  They talked about how some people think disability is something that needs to be fixed.  Some people see the absolute opposite and say disability is natural.   I think I am natural.  

They also talked about pride.  I think Lydia would be in favor of how proud I am to be Disabled.  

I think Disability Pride is pretty cool.  We can do stuff that people don't even think of.  

Autistic people can have the power to change the world.  I can change the world by inventing things.  Or I can be the next president.  

People who say you should not be proud because you have a disability are total and complete jerks.  I want people to know that so those jerks think twice about what they say.  

It is a lot good to be different.  I think I am different sometimes.  I am Disabled.  

My favorite part about the talk was that I was allowed to move around during the talk.  Some people don't like that, but they were allowing us to move around.  They were pretty accepting of the way people move around.   

My mom showed me this quote by Neil Marcus: 

"Disability is not a 'brave struggle' or 'courage in the face of adversity'.  Disability is an art.  It's an ingenious way to live." 

I think that means disability is not to be made fun of but to know that you have power.