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Disability Culture Rap continued

Helen Keller was a survivor, so she pulled back from telling the fuller truth; that’s often what survivors have to do: they have to swallow the rage, wear the mask, and, yes, pull back from telling exactly like it is so that there might be a next generation. And so, Helen Keller, a survivor, we honor you as our ancestor, our hero.

Naming and claiming our hidden history, our ancestors. Like the thousands of mental and physical "defectives," singled out for "special treatment" by the Nazis. Yes, disability culture is recognizing that we were the first victims of the Holocaust, that we are the people the Nazis used to refine their methods of torture on. So we must honor these unnamed victims as our ancestors, we must raise their unmarked graves into our consciousness, into the consciousness of America so it never happens again. And just as Native Americans insist the true name of discovery is genocide, more and more of us insist that the true name of "right to die with dignity" (without opportunities to live with dignity) is murder, the first syllable of genocide.

Naming and claiming our ancestors, our heroes. Like all those circus and carnival freaks, the first disability performance artists. Those rowdy outcasts who learned to emphasize their Otherness, turn it into work, a career, a life. Oh, it may have been a harsh life, sometimes even brutal, but a life: they kept themselves from being locked away in those institutions designed for the extremely different that have always been such a prominent part of the American economy. And so we claim these survivors as our ancestors and we honor them.

Naming and claiming our ancestors, our heroes. Now most of you probably know the story of James Meredith, freedom fighter, African American, who helped break the color barrier, the racial barrier to higher learning by insisting he had a right to an education; insisting.

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