The Everyday Political
After my junior year, I read Hannah Arendt’s On Revolution. Fascinated by this woman and by her thoughts, I began to investigate the whole of her philosophical writings. Most striking to me was this idea: political action does not require voting or consensus. It only requires an action done in the public sphere. It follows, then, that my actions can become political at my will. There is no need to write a letter to my congresswoman or to call the office of my governor — a linkage to power requires only an action and the possibility of spectators.
I think a lot about what it means to be political, to hold power or not. That’s probably because I watch the news media report on politics and the chaotic and sabotage-ridden tug-of-war politicians and public figures engage in as they try to access power for themselves. They probably haven’t read Arendt. If they had, these people would likely realize that they already have access to power, just by virtue of their speaking and debating in public, beamed by satellite and cable into millions of American households.
I think of myself as a public figure because the epithet denotes a sort of influence and power derived from public acts and because I am a public actor. For me to walk down the street, to drive a car, to sit in a classroom and learn — each of these is a political action, an assertion of my rights to be seen, heard, and acknowledged. There is special weight in these politically assertive acts of the everyday, I think, because in different circumstances, I would not exist in the public sphere because I am disabled.
It has taken me nine years since my diagnosis with cerebral palsy to understand the implications of being disabled and of wearing a leg brace. I get a lot of looks when I walk around with shorts on — most people glance at me and then, realizing that my leg brace makes me an alien life form, they carefully examine my orthotic. The brace, which is the only noticeable manifestation of my cerebral palsy, always prompts an onslaught of invasive questions, inquiries to what terrible calamity befell me or “what’s wrong” with me. My response to these public interrogations is always the same: silence, followed by a response of “I have cerebral palsy,” at which point, I walk away.
I now realize the political potency in that. Elsewhere, I might need to hide my disability, to “pass” as able-bodied, in order to convince the public of my competency and my right to exist. Yet my straightforward answer reveals that I have no shame in my ability status — and moreover, nobody is entitled to question my body, nobody is entitled to satisfy their curiosities by means of my body. To live without concern for the curiosities and probing glances of other people is a power I have reclaimed through consistent public and political actions.
The power of the public sphere is that of influence. Actions done in public set precedent. My actions are political not only because they are done in public, but also because they serve as examples to my successors. By publicly existing with a visible disability, I assert by example that there is no stigma in being disabled; there is no need for closed doors or hushed voices. Ultimately, I hope that other disabled persons feel the equally liberated, so that they may follow in my footsteps, fully supported by whatever means necessary.
