The Complications of Kindness

i’m going to ask you to do

something counter-intuitive today

when the world already feels chaotic and

harsh

and unpredictable i’m gonna ask you to

question something

that feels sturdy and good and reliable

i’m gonna ask you to rethink the way you

think about kindness

so let’s start with a story in the story

i’m about 25 years old and i’m doing

something that feels

really normal for me i’m going grocery

shopping

and as a wheelchair user this looks

different for me than it does for a lot

of people

i’ve used a wheelchair for most of my

life actually so on this day

um i’m carrying this giant tote on my

lap and i have this perfect

gorgeous system for how i arrange the

boxes and cartons

just right um and i know it looks

precarious to people

but totally routine to me i mean have

you ever felt this way you know you’re

in the middle of doing something that

maybe looks

super complicated or confusing or hard

to someone else but

really you’ve done it like a hundred

times so it’s as automatic as brushing

your teeth

that’s how grocery shopping feels to me

so on this particular day

i’ve already been asked by a few people

if they can help me and i’ve already

given a couple of like friendly

easy breezy no thank you i’ve got it

and i’ve made it all the way to my car

and i’m about to load my groceries

in when this man approaches me and he

asks if he can help and

once again i give this like warm decline

um but this guy responds a little

differently he takes a few steps back

he leans against the car next to mine

and folds his arms across his chest

and watches me

i assume so he can be at the ready when

i inevitably need that help that i’ve

already

warmly declined so i set to work with my

every

everyday routine and i’m taking the

wheels off of my chair and i’m throwing

them in the back seat of my car

and then i’m pulling the body of my

chair over me to sit in the passenger

seat

and while i’m doing this i can feel this

man watching me and my

hands are starting to shake and i can

feel this little

line of sweat start to pop over my upper

lip because

i have to show him that i’m fine but

he’s not buying it and

the faster i’m trying to move the more

i’m fumbling and suddenly i’m fumbling

at this very ordinary task that

i complete every week and i just can’t

seem to get this

tote up over my lap and into the car so

i do something that’s pretty rare for me

actually i break out of this

hyper-friendly

persona and i say could you please stop

staring at me you’re making me feel

really uncomfortable

and this man doesn’t say a word um but

he moves back

to the other side of the car maybe like

10 feet away

and continues to stand there

so now i’m taking these items out of my

tote and throwing them into the car so i

can just pull this through and finally

i’m able to lift the tote up and over

and i slam my car door shut and i drive

away

and i make it through like two lights

before

i just start crying

and i bring you to that story

not because it’s exceptional

but because it’s representative of so

many encounters i have with people when

i’m in public

i bring you that story because i think

it captures

something important about the way that

american culture seems to think about

two things kindness

and disability

as a disabled person i feel this

tight like almost inextricable link

between

these two ideas when my disabled body

moves through the world

i become like a magnet for quote-unquote

kindness

and it can look like a lot of different

things um people

running across a parking lot to open a

door for me

people approaching me in a coffee shop

or on the street to pray over me

from my healing people offering me money

when i’m

buying snacks at the gas station uh

people coming up from behind me and

pushing me up a long ramp

or even people taking my son out of my

arms

and buckling him into his car seat

all of this is meant as kindness i

really do believe

attempts to reach out to connect

to alleviate perceived suffering or

strain

it almost feels absurd to complain about

this right i mean who really complains

about

being money or a few prayers

but imagine this with me if you would

let’s say that you’re like walking

to school or work or

the bus stop and someone stops you with

this concerned

brow and says hang in there as they push

a couple bucks in your hand

what would that signal to you maybe i

must look a little haggard this morning

or

do i look like i need a meal or maybe

like imagine you’re walking up a long

flight of stairs and someone swoops you

up in their arms and carries you to the

top and

you don’t even know who they are you

didn’t see them coming maybe you’re

scared maybe you haven’t even had time

to think but when they drop you up at

the top

they give you this big smile and say

there you go

like maybe if that happened once or

twice in a lifetime it would feel like

this

funny fluke maybe but what if there was

a good shot that something like that

might happen

any time you left the house

and the truth is in my experience

these moments feel like the opposite of

human connection

they’re the opposite of helpful they’re

painful

actually because they affirm to me that

i’m like this

little symbol and a big story

playing out in someone else’s head and

that leaves me feeling

disempowered disconnected

and erased so that’s what i want to

explore with you

that tension between intention

and the actual experience of this

kind of kindness i’m a writer

and i write a lot about being disabled

but when i bring

these moments to readers like when i

call on

uh this kind of kindness into question

i’m consistently met with resistance

frustration like sometimes even

anger and this is interesting to me

like you might think that as a regular

recipient of kindness

these bears would be interested in the

results of these kind gestures right

but i think that we respond

instinctually with resistance

because we hold kindness

close to our hearts we reach for it

as a defining characteristic to ensure

that

we’re good people because

kindness offers hope to humankind

i feel all of those things too

but what if actual kindness

like the kind of kindness that does good

and feels good and makes tangible

difference

is more complicated than we like to

think

in order to understand this relationship

between disability and kindness

i think we have to hold back the lens a

little bit and look at larger patterns

so when we look at the stories being

told about disability

in film or in literature or in the news

or in charity

through charity fundraisers i think two

things really stand out

and one is that stories of disabilities

are overwhelmingly told from the

perspective of non-disabled people

and two the disabled person in that

story

whether they’re a fictionalized

character or a real human person

is consistently flattened into a

one-dimensional stereotype

they’re the hero or the victim and

they’re rarely portrayed as anything in

between

and these stories are embedded deeply in

our culture

and we love them i know we love them

because

we keep telling them and celebrating

them from

charles dickens creating the character

of tiny tim almost

200 years ago to the viral news story

about the cheerleader who asked the

disabled kid to prom

i mean these stories are often what we

call feel good stories

they’re that spot of sunshine in the

news that we can

look to and take a sigh of relief and

feel that

shred of hope for the human race i mean

why on earth would i want to take that

moment

of relief away from us that when you

peel back the glossy finish though

there are at least three glaring

problems with these kinds of stories

first they center the story around that

non-disabled person

and they reduce the disabled person to a

plot device i mean we’re watching

ebenezer scrooge the center of the story

transform under the inspiration of that

secondary character tiny tim

or we’re celebrating that cheerleader

for asking the disabled kid

to the prom the second thing is that

they

allow us to explore the big picture so

we’re so busy celebrating the

non-disabled person

that we don’t even think to talk about

the incapacitating

stigma at play when one person asking a

disabled kid to a dance is so

newsworthy and finally

they perpetuate stereotypes of disabled

people they flatten

vibrant complicated humans into

caricatures of helplessness or

sensational achieved in each way

disabled people are held at a great

distance from the rest of humanity

these stories are with us when we go out

into the world whether we’re thinking

about them or not

they’re shaping the way that we interact

with each other

at the part of the talk when people

start to throw their brows at me

and get uncomfortable and someone

inevitably says

what am i supposed to do are you saying

i’m not supposed to

offer a friendly hand i can’t open doors

for people

i do that for everyone what are the

rules here

and i think that’s a fair question and i

totally understand

this anxiety but first

i think it’s worth interrogating our

resistance

to complicating our understanding of

kindness like what does our current

understanding of kindness give us

and i’ve had to do some personal digging

here uh when i think about my own grip

on kindness and i’ve come to this

conclusion

when we’re granted access to the world

and the way that others aren’t

we often feel guilty

there’s a discomfort in watching someone

struggle when we experience ease

and we can alleviate some of that

discomfort that we’re feeling when we

reach out a hand and pull someone along

but i think that if our discomfort is

driving that interaction

we’re focusing on ourselves and not the

actual person

in front of us i think

a gut reaction can do more harm than

good

what form of kindness could give more

to the people around us now here’s what

i think

i think human beings are complicated and

human and communication

is nuanced the point here is

not to give you a set of rules to

memorize about how to interact with

disabled people

or any kind of people really i’ve heard

from

a lot of folks with invisible

disabilities actually who are met with

skepticism

when they ask for help because

apparently they don’t look the part of a

person who needs help

ultimately i think we all suffer

when human beings are reduced to symbols

in a story that we think we already know

instead i ask that we pay attention

to the human person in front of us to

de-program that part of our brains

that reduces humans to symbols that we

think we can interpret

slow down wait look

listen if you really if you really can’t

tell

if someone needs help or doesn’t need

help you can always ask

but whatever that person says and this

is important

listen and believe them and i’ll say

that again

if you want to be helpful if you want to

be genuinely kind you have to listen

we still might get things wrong

sometimes but my hope is that we don’t

let that discomfort of messing up

make us throw up our hands and leave the

conversation

i think i would be remiss if i if i

closed us out without talking about

what’s at stake here

i mean is this whole talk just this

giant overreaction to some uncomfortable

moments i’ve had in target parking lots

uh i’ve actually struggled to articulate

what’s at stake in this conversation for

most of

my life i mentioned that i’ve been a

wheelchair user for most of my life and

i’ve had moments like this

almost as long as i can remember um but

this last year

i gave birth to a son and i actually

have a picture of him

um to share with you because you gotta

get it look at this

um cute face i think you probably want

to kiss him

everybody wants to kiss him he has very

kissable cheeks this is a picture

from christmas this this last year just

like a month ago

or two uh in this room actually um

and i’ve been surprised by how much

clarity

my son has brought to my identity

as a disabled woman because in some ways

you know i’m i’m the same person i was

before i live in the same city i drive

the same car

the same stores and appointments and

people still rush to assist me in the

most mundane tasks

but now i’m doing all of that with this

vivacious baby boy

attached to me and

shortly after my son was born i was

watching this

virtual panel of disabled parents and a

disabled lawyer

talk about the experience of being a

disabled parent

and i learned that it’s legal

in many u.s states including the state

where i live

for a parent to lose custody of their

child simply because they have a

disability

no proof of neglect or abuse necessary

and um i found it really difficult to

breathe

as soon as i heard that um suddenly

being read as helpless has higher stakes

right suddenly i’m able to see how these

tiny interactions these tiny encounters

on the street

and in cafes and grocery stores

translate into the big picture

this is why i feel urgent because when

we

automatically and by default read

disabled people as

always helpless in need of our

benevolence

we’re not trusting them to be parents

we’re not hiring them in the leadership

positions we’re not

voting them to hold public office we’re

not choosing them as romantic partners

there is more at stake here than awkward

encounters

or even hurt feelings the stories we

tell

matter and while the stories that we re

receive shape the way we see the world

we actually have the power to tell

different stories

like anyone else disabled people are

capable

and need help our competence and needs

are unique

i don’t know that i would say disability

should be normalized exactly

but i do get i do feel uh urgency

um that we need to expand our notion of

what a vibrant

valuable life can look like what

an independent woman can look like what

a boss or a leader

can look like what a nurturing mother

can look like

a kindness that brings about meaningful

ease

and access will lead to sustainable

systemic empowering changes that make

the world more accessible

for more people when i think

about what gives me hope for the human

race it’s not this

old version of quote unquote kindness

when i think about what gives me hope

it’s

our tolerance our ability to tolerate

toler

tolerate the ambiguity of human

connection

and our resilience to grow and adapt

in our methods of caring for one another

thank you

you