Zana’s Reviews > Sipping Dom Pérignon Through a Straw: Reimagining Success as a Disabled Achiever > Status Update

“Through my experiences navigating institutional life with a disability, I learned that just as a whale cannot be comfortably accommodated in a swimming pool, disabled individuals cannot be reasonably accommodated without systemic interventions to address ableism. Compliance alone is not enough to ensure our dignity and agency.”

‘I figured that one of my professors, a famed scholar in geopolitics who made a career for himself researching Africa’s postcolonial resource allocation, might be able to help me identify sponsorship to cover my travel expenses. So I shot him an email.... To my surprise, I was mistakenly copied to his executive assistant, in which he said that I was “full of crap” and didn’t “stand a chance in hell” of going.’

Omg

“Instead of full sponsorship, I was to continue my fundraising efforts for four more months, and only then would The Billionaire provide the remaining funds. I’d thought I could take him at his word—after all, £50,000 would be nothing to him. But now, I sat there, regretting not having asked him to solidify his commitment that I was done having to fundraise in writing.”

Omg

“It’s risky business flying while disabled. There’s an assumption that our devices are nice-to-have equipment rather than essential mobility aids. What’s often lost in the conversation about airline staff failing to handle our devices with care is that damage done to a wheelchair, for example, is actually an injury inflicted on the disabled person for whom that chair is their only mode of movement.”

“But despite these accommodations, the Oxford representative stressed that neither the university nor Somerville College was in a position to cover the cost of the most essential of my accommodation needs and the prerequisite for me to be able to enjoy all the other services they offered—a care aide....”

That's so fucking foul