22.3: Assignment by H. Morrison

Assignment

Use the information below to craft a proper MLA Works Cited page for the essay Accessibility and Acceptance: Disability in the US Today. Note, items 2 and 3 have all the needed info, but for item 1, you will have to use the link to explore the source and find the correct information.

Also, answer the following questions

• Are all used sources cited?
• Are the in-text citations in the essay done correctly?

Source Information

1. “Disabled Workers Saw Record Employment Gains in 2023, But Gaps Remain.” https://www.americanprogress.org/article/disabled-workers-saw-record-employment-gains-in-2023-but-gaps-remain/#:~:text=Feb%2022%2C%202024-,Disabled%20Workers%20Saw%20Record%20Employment%20Gains%20in%202023%2C%20But%20Gaps,more%20to%20close%20persistent%20gaps.
2. Tavia Sousanis,. https://accounts.theatlantic.com/pro...rce=google&utm. “Uninspired: The Reality of Living with Disability.” The Atlantic, 14 May 2024.
3. Maree Wolf, “Exploitation for Acceptance.” https://www.disabilityrightsnetwork....otarealarticle. Disability Rights Network, 10 Oct. 2023.

Full text of essay

Accessibility and Acceptance: Disability in the US Today

Most everyone at some point in their lives will become disabled. This is a truth we often do not want to consider because it makes us feel scared and vulnerable. However, that fear and vulnerability is something that millions of Americans, of all ages, face every day with little or no emotional, social, or financial support. “Disability” is an umbrella term that can refer to physical, mental, or intellectual impairments, or combinations of them, that make engaging in certain activities or the world in general more difficult or even impossible. Disability occurs because of genetics, environmental factors, disease, injuries, and traumas. While they can technically be short term— for example, a broken arm—disabilities are most commonly understood as long term and even lifelong. Examples of disabilities range from being blind, to autism, to having an amputation, to ADHD. US society has improved in its treatment of disabled people, particularly since the inception for the disability rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s, and the resulting Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Our understanding of what disability is has broadened and become more widespread: we regularly see disabled people in films and in daily life. However, there is still much work to be done to fully include and support disabled people. In the United States today, there is inadequate media portrayals, social acceptance, and financial support and opportunities of disabled individuals which maintains their marginalization.

The media depicts disabled people in harmful ways by portraying them as childish or as jokes, if they choose to depict disabled people at all. While media portrayal of disabled folks has improved, today we still see negative stereotypes and underrepresentation. The popular documentary-style show Love on the Spectrum (LotS) depicts young adults with autism engaged in the pursuit of romantic relationships. Like other dating shows, it follows participants’ lives as they get ready for and go on dates. In the article “Exploitation for Acceptance,” author Maree Wolf states “while Love on the Spectrum outwardly purports to be inclusive and increase representation of autistic adults, it actually does the opposite. It makes a spectacle—a bumbling circus sideshow—of earnest autistic’s pursuit of community and connection. The participant’s lives aren’t treated is real or serious—they are treated as jokes or ‘aww, cute!’ moments.” LotS’s cast is made up of autistic people, but as Wolf argues, the representation the show offers through editing and dubious interviewing techniques is harmful and dehumanizing, and just a matter of entertainment for the audience at the expense of real people. No person’s humanity should be reduced to a joke or gimmick. Often, when an autistic participant is going about their normal activities in the best way they can in LotS, background music meant to indicate silliness or youthfulness will play (Wolf). This signals to the audience that the autistic individuals they see on their screens are similarly silly or infantile, even when they are being serious. The show conveys the message that autistic people are funny and indeed of protection, but also very different than “normal people.” The presumably non-autistic viewer can feel good that they are viewing autistic people positively and in need of protection, rather than as stupid or unimportant. Most troubling is that LotS is a very popular, well rated show (Wolf) and many disabled folks do defend it because of the representation it offers. However, it stands out as just one example of how the current popular media harmfully depicts disabled people.

Social acceptance of disabled people has also improved in the past several decades, but it is also insufficient and problematic for disabled people’s overall well-being. Acceptance entails more than tolerating or providing bare-minimum support: social acceptance looks like full inclusion and advocacy; it looks like reframing what is “normal” and meeting people where they’re at. However, social acceptance is in short supply for too many disabled people. In “Uninspired: The Reality of Living with Disability,” by Tavia Sousanis, the lives of “high achieving” disabled people are explored. When Adriana, a 28-year-old civil engineer who is unable to use her legs, got engaged to her long-time boyfriend, she was met with hostility rather than joy. Author Tavia Sousanis reports Adriana’s experience: “‘I could tell his friends, who I know liked me, were like, are you really going to marry the paraplegic girl?’ Adriana laughed, but her eyes filled with tears. She continued ‘And his mom—I love her, we’re good now—but she cried when he said he proposed to me because she thought my disability meant she wouldn’t have grandchildren…that’s not even true.’” Adriana’s story shows that despite being accomplished and well-liked, she was reduced to her disability status and deemed undesirable. The results for her were heart-breaking. Several others in Sousanis’s article describe similar situations wherein they are regarded as “courageous,” “awesome,” and “truly inspiring” by those around them because of their disabilities, but when it came to being hired for a good job or being accepted into a new friend or family group, they are often painfully excluded. Maree Wolf also maintains that disabled people are understood as useful when they provoke sympathy or even gratitude in the able-bodied but are disregarded when they need accommodations or true acceptance (“Exploitation for Acceptance”). All humans need some measure of social acceptance to not only fulfill the innate emotional need for connection and kinship, but also to help ensure their physical and medical needs are met. The lack of social acceptance that many disabled people face poses a serious and unacceptable threat to their well-being.

For disabled individuals who are at all able to work, employment is a significant struggle, wages and benefits are low, and thus their needs are often unmet. In “Disabled Workers Saw Record Employment Gains in 2023, But Gaps Remain,” by Kennedy Andara et al., it’s reported that only 38.2 % of disabled, working age adult men were employed in 2023. This is actually a significant improvement, a record low, but it’s clear that this is a problem when compared to the 80% of employed able-bodied men in the same year (Andara et al). It should also be noted that these statistics describe any type of employment—full or part time. Andara et al. notes that “people with disabilities are almost twice as likely to work part time.” This means that actual earnings, access to employer-provided healthcare, and other necessary benefits like paid time off and, ironically, disability insurance may be far less available to disabled workers. Part-time jobs offer less money annually, even if the hourly rate is the same as full-time, and part-time jobs rarely offer paid time off or any other benefits. Further, according to Andara et al., “Black and Hispanic disabled people experienced higher unemployment rates in 2023—at 10.2 percent and 9.2 percent, respectively. The unemployment rates of these groups are consistently above the average for disabled workers, due to the additional hardships of intersecting and compounding racism and ableism.” Not only do disabled people of color experience ableism, and the systemic disadvantages of it, but they experience a compounded disadvantage due to racism. The painful irony is that many disabled people need healthcare and daily assistance that costs much more than the needs of the average, able-bodied people. The result for all disabled people in general is economic difficulty and poverty, and unmet needs.

In conclusion, despite some increases in visibility and legal protections for disabled people, their marginalization remains a serious issue in the US. When portrayed in media, disabled people are too often depicted as juvenile or as inspiration for non-disabled people, furthering harmful stereotypes and exclusion. While social acceptance has improved, it’s still lacking and causes emotional harm and even physical neglect in disabled populations. Finally, disabled people’s access to acquire and maintain employment that offers a living wage and much needed benefits is very limited and results in increased economic hardships. Increasing and furthering the cause of disability rights is crucial not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because disability will—sooner or later—touch all of our lives.