Donald Trump’s everyday disablism didn’t surprise me

Frances Ryan

Bigotry, prejudice or ignorance – call it what you like, the Republican hopeful didn’t invent it. But that doesn’t mean we should just put up with it

If you’ve been on social media today, it’s likely you have seen the video that has emerged of Donald Trump “imitating” a disabled New York Times journalist.

During a speech to his supporters on Tuesday night, Trump can be seen flailing and twisting his arms, apparently mocking Serge Kovaleski, a key critic of the Republican presidential hopeful; Kovaleski has arthrogryposis, a congenital condition that affects joint movement.

A few seconds in – once he really gets into it – Trump holds his hand in front of his chest in an exaggerated, claw-like position. “Disability is repulsive”, is the message he conveys, as if degrading an opponent by imitating their disabled body is a legitimate way to bring them down to size. I’m probably meant to feel outraged by Trump’s behaviour. But, watching the footage, I wasn’t even surprised. This is a man who in the past week alone has refused to rule out identification for Muslim Americans noting their religion and has declared that even if waterboarding terror suspects doesn’t work, he would approve it because “they deserve it”.

And, if you muse publicly about dating your own daughter, you have probably reached the threshold for how low you can go.

When I watched this latest video of Trump I just felt the sort of weary sadness that comes from no longer being shocked by watching a person mocking someone for being disabled. Just as I did when last year Ukip’s Godfrey Bloom was recorded jeeringly asking a disabled student at the Oxford Union if he was Richard III.

That lack of shock isn’t because the person doing the mocking is a ludicrous figure, such as Trump, but because when you are disabled you experience this kind of behaviour all the time.

Just last weekend, for instance, I was in a London cab and the driver – already frustrated at having to help my wheelchair into the taxi – refused to talk to me directly. He preferred to talk to my (non-disabled) sister, referring to me using the phrase “people like her”. I don’t tend to yell at people in the street, but I found myself doing it by the end of the journey. There is something about the humiliation of being belittled for having a disability, let alone outright mocked, that leaves you wanting to grab back any level of self-respect you can get.

What is perhaps more shocking than Trump’s actions are the stories the disabled community has to share about incidents when their disability has been mocked.

“Someone once shouted ‘Bet you have fun with that on at night, don’t you, lad?’ as my [boyfriend] pushed me in my wheelchair,” one woman told me. “People mock me for having a funny walk and for using crutches, to make their mates laugh,” said another, whose joints dislocate as they walk.

One man who uses crutches recalled a drunk “ranting I should have a parrot on my shoulder”. Another spoke of a shop owner who “went all am-dram in front of whole shop, saying: ‘Look, she’s tried to kill herself!’ pointing to my scars.”

This doesn’t include the accounts when “mocking” turned into outright physical abuse. For instance: “I was called a scrounger and spat at just because I use a wheelchair.” Perhaps the most telling – and depressing – comment was from the disabled woman who noted insults “tend to bounce off me” now. Are we supposed to be resigned to this? These experiences aren’t trivial or a matter of a few people needing to get a thicker skin. They are a common, and often quietly accepted, form of bigotry, even in our so-called tolerant society.

It says something that even the word to describe prejudice against disabled people – disablism – isn’t familiar in the way that homophobia, racism or sexism are.

Whatever we want to call it – disablism, bigotry or ignorance – it neither started nor ended with Trump. For many disabled people, this latest outrageous viral video is tragically a fact of daily life.