Can you imagine posting a trash take like this while 60% of the UK's Covid deaths are disabled people? Just say you care more about your holiday than disabled people's lives.
It's certainly been an...experience to find out just how many people value their trip to Spain more than my life
Can you imagine having the nerve to say that nondisabled people are being discriminated against in the pandemic, when disabled people make up a majority of Covid deaths, DNRs are still being issued, and we're being ignored in the vaccine rollout? Good lord
Can you imagine saying, with a straight face, that disabled people have 'a higher class of civil rights'? Is Rachel aware that a majority of disabled people aren't a vaccination priority, and that we're fighting tooth and nail to be included?
What is this 'higher class of civil rights' Rachel thinks disabled people have? That we make up 60% of Covid deaths, despite being less than a quarter of the population? That DNRs are still being used against us? That we're at the back of the vaccine queue? Seems legit, Rachel /s
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
Ever since the news came out last week that a majority of Covid deaths in the UK are disabled people, I've been able to think of little else. Despite making up less than 15% of the population, disabled people make up 60% of the UK's Covid deaths.
I've been wondering why I've been so desolate, sluggish, and unable to concentrate. Watching eugenics become casually mainstream might have something to do with it.
Disabled people in the UK have been living with a certain amount of background terror for over a decade now thanks to Tory rule. But I've never seen so many people say, on national platforms, that my life is expendable as much as right now. It's incredibly hard to take.
How many disabled authors have won the Carnegie Medal, I hear you ask? Precisely one, as far as I can tell: Rosemary Sutcliff, in 1959. What makes it more enraging is plenty of nondisabled authors have won the award via their books about disabled characters. 🙃
Rosemary Sutcliff (1920 — 1992) wrote dozens of bestselling historical novels. Many of her books were set in Roman Britain. Her best known books now are The Eagle of the Ninth series and her retellings of the King Arthur legends.
I only found Sutcliff late last year. I tweeted about her, and a lot of people got in touch to let me know they loved her books as children, but didn't know she was disabled. I wondered why that is. My main theory of why this might be is...
Well, I finally sent my manuscript away today, which means I can put this wad of paper away in a drawer. I can honestly say I've done the very best I can at this very moment.
ID: A white hand holding a thick stack of paper.
I started working on the manuscript more intensely as the pandemic began, really to give myself something to wake up for, as all my work vanished. I can honestly say that I know why every full stop, comma and line break is exactly where it is.
Thank you to everyone who gave me notes on the poems - whether I took them on board or not, every note helped me know the poems better.
In case there was any doubt, DNR orders are still being imposed on disabled people. Someone just tweeted at me saying that 'it's hardly an immoral choice to make.' The fact that disabled deaths have been seen as acceptable or inevitable by so many is disgusting beyond words.
Yesterday, it was revealed that 60% of Covid deaths in the UK were disabled people. The same day, Tory MP Charles Walker was on Channel 4 News, arguing that disabled people like me are acceptable losses. Disabled people in the UK are not fine. Check in on your disabled friends.
Meanwhile, almost everything in this earlier tweet of mine is still true. I repeat, disabled people are not okay.
Last month, Lord Sumption said on the BBC that disabled lives were 'less valuable' than others. I can't stress enough how normalised the narrative that disabled people are 'acceptable losses' has become.
In 2008, Scope asked disabled children for their views on books. Here's what they had to say. To quote the kids, 'we think there should be more disabled people in books.'