I teach and mentor a large number of disabled students, many that hope to become writers, most immunocompromised. Even if I am safe to travel, I will not risk exposing them to what could prove deadly.
I also planned to leave AWP and head home to visit my aging parents, in poor health and without health insurance, as well as my 1-year-old niece, who has been undergoing weekly chemo for the last nine months, again without health insurance.
I hope none of my students or my family see the rhetoric weaponized against disabled bodies in regards to this conference.
Yesterday, I witnessed people lobbying eugenics language, suggesting “only” those with compromised immune systems would be impacted, when we know disability does not discriminate, 1 in 4 US adults has a disability, and that anyone can carry back to compromised communities.
I saw folks suggest that those who were concerned had “anxiety” or “ocd” and should “just calm down and wash your hands,” ableist slurs against mentally ill folks—like me—that suggest we are incapable of logic or agency.
I saw abled folks policing disabled bodies online just as abled folks police disabled bodies in the real world. I saw suggestions that those calling for the conference to be canceled were scared, paranoid, lazy, privileged.
I watched disabled folks disclose on this very public platform to “prove” or “justify” their choice or absence to others, just as my students often must “prove” their disabilities to scoffing professors and patients must “justify” their needs to physicians, family, employers.
I saw a large number of women—those who are pregnant, primary childcare providers, or caregivers to family and elderly parents—make tough decisions. I saw marginalized folks without access to healthcare do the same.
And as disabled folks announced their decisions and AWP announced that the conference would go on, I saw abled folks jump at the chance to fill missing panel seats, willing to capitalize off disabled bodies. Erased, silenced bodies.
I thank folks like @rocketfantastic @reluctantlyjoe and @elissawashuta for their thoughtful takes. Folks like @danalevinpoet for the #AWPvirtualbookfair. Presses like @splitlippress who will take substantial losses but still offer AWP discounts online.
I thank folks like @silas_hansen who offered to read panelist papers or play video recordings, offering his time and technology in order to provide access to those who cannot attend.
While the conference is allowing panelists to participate via video, this has not always been the case. For many years, many disabled folks who could not attend the conference because of accessibility were unable to participate. Most conferences are not still accessible.
The frustration most of us felt yesterday is the frustration disabled folks face daily in trying to get answers. In trying to get access.
And the brief fear many felt that the conference might be canceled, the opportunity for community, to network, taken away is the fear disabled folks face every conference cycle when organizers of panels and events not mindful to make them accessible.
The decision by AWP to continue with the conference and allow attendees to make the decision about whether or not to attend reminds disabled people we don’t matter to the conference, to the attendees, to those happy to fill our panel seats.
Being told disabled bodies don’t matter as much as the comradery of others and the profits for a large conference is eerily reminiscent of what disabled folks experience from an abled world and capitalist healthcare industry.
Like large healthcare systems or our current government administration, the lack of concern over the impact of this conference on disabled bodies reminds us of how individual desire and capitalism will always trump caring for disabled folks.
Many folks still plan to attend because they are already there, because they are publishers or attendees who will lose a tremendous amount of money if they cancel, because they want to honor panel and reading commitments to others...
because they have books out and deserve this important chance to celebrate their hard work and success. I hope these folks have a wonderful time.
But I also hope we can have a conversation about the cost of attendance, the elitist nature of some conferences, the commodification of health and the cost of disability.
I recognize my privilege in being able to choose not to attend. I am sad to miss my panel about writing mental illness with @ilanaslightly @paulsilence and @bruceowensgrimm because we saw a lot of misinformation about illness yesterday and a lot of fear.
I’m sad to miss my book signing with @ohiostatepress because I am proud to have published ‘Quite Mad’ with them, a memoir that tackles misconceptions about mental illness and interrogates America’s history of mistreatment of disabled bodies, a history very much still at work.
But know I’ve made the right choice. Today a disabled student who is scheduled for many surgeries this semester and has been taken off immunosuppressants because of coronavirus, asked if I would be in attendance at AWP. If so, they would be at risk in my class.
I am glad my class can remain a safe space for this student. And I thank those of you who have made the same tough choices for your students, your friends, your family. For yourselves.
