The problem of disability is solved not through medical intervention or surgical normalization but through social change and political transformation.” Under a political/relational model of disability, however, the problem of disability is located in inaccessible buildings, discriminatory attitudes, and ideological systems that attribute normalcy and deviance to particular minds and bodies. These impairments are best addressed through medical interventions and cures failing that, individuals must make the best of a bad situation, relying on friends and family members to negotiate inaccessible spaces for them. For example, under the medical/individual model, wheelchair users suffer from impairments that restrict their mobility. In the alternative perspective, which I call the political/relational model, the problem of disability no longer resides in the minds or bodies of individuals but in built environments and social patterns that exclude or stigmatize particular kinds of bodies, minds, and ways of being. “he definitional shift away from the medical/individual model makes room for new understandings of how best to solve the “problem” of disability. The disabled people populating these billboards epitomize the paradoxical figure of the supercrip: supercrips are those disabled figures favored in the media, products of either extremely low expectations (disability by definition means incompetence, so anything a disabled person does, no matter how mundane or banal, merits exaggerated praise) or extremely high expectations (disabled people must accomplish incredibly difficult, and therefore inspiring, tasks to be worthy of nondisabled attention).” Similarly, by positioning Weihenmayer's ascent of Everest as a matter of vision, the FBL implies that most blind people, who have not ascended Everest or accomplished equivalently astounding feats, are lacking not only eyesight but vision. Indeed, Reeve's refusal to “give up” is precisely why the FBL selected Reeve for their model of strength in the “billboard backstories” section of their website, they praise Reeve for trying to “beat paralysis and the spinal cord injuries” rather than “giv up.” Asserting that Goldberg is successful because of her hard work suggests that other people with dyslexia and learning disabilities who have not met with similar success have simply failed to engage in hard work unlike Whoopi Goldberg, they are apparently unwilling to devote themselves to success. “In the logic of ableism, anyone who can handle such an (allegedly) horrible life must be strong a lesser man would have given up in despair years ago.
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