Cripples At Christmas Cartoons 2024

Image description below each image

1.   The Adapted Hot Wheels Collection Blew Santa’s Toy Budget…

 

ID: A stick figure Santa stands beside a cartoon accessible van. Santa’s speech bubble says “$70,000 for one?! I’ll be eating Ramen all year!”

2.   The Wheelie Elves Were Forced to Drink Cold Cocoa Because SNAP (Food Stamps) Doesn’t Cover Hot Items…

 

ID: Two stick figure wheelchair users with elf hats toasting cups with straws. One figure has a speech bubble says “Cheers! One day this cold cocoa will be $7.50 at a hipster café. 

 

3.   The Wheelchair Barbie’s SSI (Supplemental Security Income) Amount Was Cut Because She Doesn’t Pay Rent…

 

ID: There are two wheelchair user stick figures. One says, “No shit we don’t pay rent. The dream house came free in our box!” Santa replies, “Don’t look at me. All the Barbies are packaged with a house.”

 

4.   To Honor the Queen of Christmas, the Disabled Elves Named Their New SureHands Lift “Mariah Carry”

 

ID: Two wheelchair users wearing elf hats are seated below a hoist lift on an overhead track. A third is in the hoist lift above them. One of the elves says, “Get it? Because it carries us!”

 

5.    The Disabled Elves Filed an HR Complaint After Being Asked to Assemble the Chutes and Ladders Games at the North Pole…

 

ID: One wheelchair user elf says to the other, “I can’t climb a ladder! Or slide down a chute! This is a microaggression!” The other replies, “Can’t we make a game called Ramps and Elevators?”

 

6.   Santa Couldn’t Figure Out Why More Kids Weren’t Asking for Disability Inclusive Monopoly Games…

 

ID: Santa stands beside a “Monopoly: Disability Edition” game box. The box reads, “Features a Single Accessible Property, $1 Bills Only, and 24/7 SSA (Social Security Administration) Surveillance”

 

7.   The Seven Disabled Swans Were Not A-Swimming Because the Sole Adaptive Swim School Had a Five-Year Waitlist

 

ID: Seven swans with slightly askew eyes are lined up. One says, “Well, this is awkward. Should we go out to lunch instead? It would kind of screw up our lyrics.”

 

8. 

   The Eight Maids A-Milking Got Very Busy as DXA Scan Day Approached for the Elves with CP…

 

ID: A stick figure wheelchair user with an elf hat says, “Can we hire eight more of them? We’re gonna need a lot of milk to save these bones.” A cow replies, “They can only demand so much milk, dude.”

 

9.   The Misfit Toys Struggled to Dodge Unsolicited Calls from SantaCare’s Complex Care Manager…

 

ID: A spotted toy elephant, a square-wheeled toy train, and a winged toy lion are lined up. The lion exclaims “We told you we don’t want to talk to your f*cking social worker! We see you trying to cut costs!”

 

10.   Every Year, the Misfit Toys Looked Forward to Summer Camp with Other Holiday Creatures Who Just “Get It…”

 

ID: The spotted elephant from the Island of Misfit Toys stands beside a Countdown to Crip Camp sign marked: “175 days.” His speech bubble says, “I can’t wait to see the one-eared chocolate bunny and the ghost with a startle reflex…

11.   The Disabled Snow Couple Faced a Benefit Cut for Cohabitating in the Same Snowglobe…

 

ID: A snowglobe contains two snow people, a man with crutches and a lady with a wheelchair. The man says, “This is bullshit. We both came from the store fused to this snowglobe!”

 

12.    When the Care Bears Were Chosen to Host the North Pole Toy Christmas Party, the Disregard for Accessibility Was Noted by Their Misfit Disabled Cousins, the Chair Bears

 

ID: Two Care Bears in power wheelchairs and an able-bodied Care Bear stand by a “North Pole” sign. One of the power wheelies says, “What do you mean there’s just one step? Christ, you only have to accommodate us once a year!” The able-bodied one replies, “We have 4 Ken dolls who can carry you up the step!” and “Oh yeah; there’s gravel too…”

 

Disability Pride Month Feature: Meet Miles Platt, Kid Chef from MasterChef Junior Season 9 Who Has an Upper Limb Difference

 To celebrate Disability Pride Month, I had the great pleasure of interviewing a remarkable young man with a disability and a star of one of my favorite TV programs. 

 

Miles Platt, 11, of College Station, TX, sat down with me via Zoom to discuss his incredible run on MasterChef Jr., a Fox show featuring the most talented kid chefs in America. 

 

Platt, who has a congenital limb difference called symbrachydactyly, was born without part of his left arm. But Miles and his family do not see his limb difference as a shortcoming. 

 

Said mom Angela Platt, who learned of her son’s disability at birth, [Miles] “is not missing anything. He was born the exact way he was meant to be born.” Ms. Platt shared that this perspective shapes how she talks to Miles and others about his limb difference. 

 

She was quick to emphasize that “we [as parents] never want him to feel ashamed,” and adds that “we want him to try anything and everything he wants” even if it requires some extra creativity and adaptation. 

 

Miles was invited to audition for MasterChef Jr. Season 9 after casting noticed his cooking videos on his mom’s Instagram page. Miles has been cooking since the age of five and helping his parents in the kitchen soon blossomed into Miles himself taking the helm. 

 

Miles’s passion and skill stood out among the nearly 12,000 young chefs who applied, and when the pool was narrowed to 500 kids, he was challenged to showcase his culinary prowess in a live demo on Zoom. 

 

From there, the group was pared to 100, and eventually, the top 25 were brought to California to audition live and complete a series of interviews. Finally, Miles was chosen for the top 12, the group of young people featured on the show. He placed eighth in the competition and captured the hearts of many viewers at home with his kind and gentle nature.

 

Miles shared that days on set were action-packed, with a different challenge presented by the judges each day. However, the young chefs still had to make time for several hours of schooling amid a busy filming schedule. 

 

He described a studio kitchen teeming with every ingredient imaginable, joking that when looking for scallops, he happened upon a more obscure item he had never heard of—baby pearl onions. 

 

Miles spoke with unusual poise and maturity about recipes unfamiliar to me as an (aspiring) adult. He also reflected fondly on the bonds he formed with his fellow contestants, which his mom emphasized were not just for show. 

 

She remarked that these young competitors are “actually friends” and spent their time in the kitchen cheering for each other. Ms. Platt added that another parent said it best. The kids are “in competition with the challenge, not necessarily each other,” and they want to see their friends excel. 

 

In addition to enjoying his new friendships, Miles has enjoyed the opportunity to represent people with disabilities on the show and remind them that they too have a place in the kitchen. 

 

When I asked him about his adaptive strategies to make cooking more accessible, he told me about a is modified cutting board that assists in holding an item and allows for one-handed use. The cutting board now available on Amazon and represents an expanding selection of inclusive culinary tools making their way out of high-priced rehab catalogues and into the mainstream market. 

 

When asked to share his message about living with a disability, he said that “just because you have a disability or a limb difference, that doesn’t mean that you can’t do what everyone else can.” In other words, he warned others not to make assumptions about people with disabilities and believes that there are many ways to make an activity inclusive.

 

Miles’s mother, Angela, is excited and “blown away” that Miles “has been able to use his disability and his story to show others they have a beautiful place in this world.” 

 

Before pursuing MasterChef, the family discussed the pros and cons of media attention, knowing that “not everyone is kind, especially to people with disabilities.” 

 

Ultimately, Miles decided to go for it, and his message has resonated, especially for people with disabilities eager to see themselves and their stories reflected in the media. Ms. Platt said her son’s embrace of his own story and excitement to represent has left both Miles’s dad and her “overwhelmed with pride.”

 

She cited Miles as the reason they are aware of a beautiful limb difference community, which they knew little about before his birth. 

 

Miles recently shared via Instagram that he would be a special guest at a family weekend for the Lucky Fin Project, an organization that supports families of those with limb differences. 

 

His talents extend beyond the kitchen to an array of hobbies including surfing, rock-climbing, drawing, and crocheting. He and his family love to give back, and every year since he was five, they host a fundraiser for Miles’s birthday to benefit a community cause. This year, Miles chose to collect duffle bags for children in foster care, and since the inception of his annual fundraisers, has collected an estimated $22,000 for various causes. 

 

Ms. Platt knows Miles has “opened our eyes” and “taught us to love others better” in just 11 years of life. 

 

Lucky for us, Miles Platt is just getting started. 

 

This July, I am honored to highlight him among many amazing individuals who embody disability pride and power. 

 

To learn more about Miles and follow his cooking adventures, you can visit him on Instagram.

 

 

                            Access description: Miles Platt, a young white boy with blondish hair cooking with an adaptive cutting board designed to hold an item in place. He was born without part of his left arm, resulting in an upper limb difference.

                               Access description: A black flag for disability pride featuring various stripes representing different diagnosis groups.

 

The Hardest Thing to Carry: On Disability and Grief

 Dedicated to the disabled friends and community members who have died before me. Sharing this life with you is the greatest miracle I could dream up.

 

It’s no secret that life as a disabled adult is hard. 

 

The seemingly endless search for reliable home health aides. 

 

The eternally backlogged wheelchair repair companies.

 

The countless restaurants and stores and offices that oops, weren’t wheelchair accessible after all. 

 

It can feel like a weird carnival ride.

 

But most days, I can deal with the wacky insurance phone calls, the nebulous landscape of adult healthcare, the stunningly bad adaptive clothing selection in adult sizes…

 

No one really talks about the true hardest part—losing friends, classmates, and community members far too soon.

 

Nothing prepares me truly for the call…or the text message…or the smiling portrait photo on my Facebook newsfeed informing me that another disabled person I know is gone.

 

Then there is the noise when it hits you—that primal noise, between a scream and a wail.

 

It is one I pray you never hear rising from your throat. 

 

The most difficult aspect of having a disability is our community’s proximity to early death, sudden death, and the tsunami of grief that comes with it. 

 

Many disabilities, like certain forms of neuromuscular disease progress in a relentless trajectory that puts some of my friends at risk of death in their late 20s and 30s. 

 

While life expectancy is just a number, and many people build lives far beyond the doctors’ predictions, a terrible fact is that I have watched too many young people with disabilities die when it seemed like their lives were just beginning. 

 

Co-occurring conditions can put us at risk for respiratory failure, blood clots, and infections. 

 

Then, of course, there are those who die from systemic failures within our healthcare system, even here, in the richest country on earth.

 

While my community knows these losses too well, no one is ever prepared.

 

How can you be? 

 

A day eventually came when I realized that the number of deceased peers I know could now be counted on two hands. 

 

Then came the day that number could no longer be counted on my hands at all.

 

Laying a 20 something, a 30 something, a 40-year-old to rest may be too common in our community, but it is never natural, and it is always cruel. 

 

There’s something uniquely, breathtakingly awful about sharing in the college experience with someone, a time that represents the pinnacle of youth, and then having him or her smiling above your desk on a prayer card in what feels like the blink of an eye.

 

Or going to your beloved childhood summer camp with someone, the images of that friend as a little girl with missing teeth vividly alive in your mind, and little more than a decade later, sitting beside her coffin and asking yourself how this can be real. 

 

It’s a terrible and beautiful contradiction that the disabilities that bonded us in life, that put us on the path to even meet, are the same ones that snatched my friends from me too soon. 

 

The same disabilities that if I am honest, will snatch more friends from me one day.

 

I truly believe that my friends were, and are, completely whole in their disabled bodies. 

 

Their disabilities helped make them who they are and helped bring us together. Yet, the complications of life in their perfect, beautiful, disabled bodies took them away too. 

 

How do I make sense of that?

 

The quick answer is I don’t. 

 

It’s a brutal paradox with which I will wrestle for the rest of my life.

 

And it will never feel fair that my disability allows a “normal life expectancy” while others do not.

 

It’s so easy to forget that the oxygen machines, the tracheostomies, the cough assist devices that fit seamlessly into a raucous get-together of disabled friends are also symbols of bodily fragility, and sometimes, of impending loss. 

 

As much as I view technology like ventilators as tools, not constraints, it is undeniably jarring to see a person you eat lunch alongside, laugh with, text with, the one you saw rolling home from the college bars in your 20s, bearing a new, visible marker of a weakening body.

 

And as much as I preach sincere disability pride, as much as I truly believe prejudice to be our biggest barrier (the social model of disability), there are some things, horrible things, that the social model cannot explain or fix.

 

Burying a young person is one of them.

 

I will also say this. 

 

Well-meaning non-disabled people, when wheelchair users die, like to imagine us magically able-bodied in the afterlife, with comments like “At least they can walk now!”

 

While everyone’s feelings vary on such comments, even within the community, to me, they feel like a dismissal of these people, who most often lived a full life both because of, and in spite of, the ways disability shaped them.

 

To make a disability that molded a life disappear in death feels like a disservice to all of us.

 

To view disability through the lens of suffering, without also looking through the lens of joy, is to paint an incomplete picture.

 

Without looking through the lens of joy, how can you see it all?

 

The clever wheelchair jokes.

 

The unique magic of lazy days at summer camp for disabled kids, building a world that is just ours.

 

The courage it takes to navigate a patchwork care system. 

 

The fierce insistence that disabled people belong absolutely everywhere.

 

How can you see all?

 

You can’t—because suffering and joy often weave themselves together.

 

My beloved friends, colleagues, and community members deserve to be remembered in their entirety; disabilities included.

 

I will shout the worth of their lives until my last breath. 

 

But no matter how full and beautiful a life, death always stings.

 

No platitudes can alchemize the loss of my friends into something that doesn’t hurt.

 

Alexis, Wilfred, Niya, Dan, Philip, Amber, Christopher, Matthew, David, and so many others whose light is now scattered everywhere… I love you.

 

The hardest part of this disabled life, harder than any broken wheelchair, or rude social service worker, or prying ableist question, has been losing you.

 

But the best part of this disabled life, without question, has been knowing you. 

 

And when we meet again, I believe my wheelchair is coming with me, if only in some soul form that is probably…okay… definitely, not covered by insurance. 

 

Even with this great, gaping grief as the price, I would choose to know you in any and every lifetime.

 

There is no me without you.

 

And thank God for that.

 

 

In Memory of David Kirby: 1990-2024

My favorite way to use my writing skills is to let them be an instrument of love. So today, I write to honor the memory of my friend David Kirby. 

 

David and I met in 2011 at the University of Illinois, where we both lived in the Beckwith program for young adults with physical disabilities who have high care needs. 

 

When I arrived, I knew not a single person and it was truly terrifying. Not only was I navigating a brand-new place, but I was also relying on a team of caregivers who until that moment, were perfect strangers.

 

From the get-go, David was kind, funny, and gentle, always stopping to say hello. 

 

Whenever I said, “How are you, David?” he’d smile and say, “Ohhhhh not bad!” no matter how hectic the day was.

 

During the first week of freshman year, he volunteered to rescue me when I got hopelessly lost in a far-flung corner of campus on the way home from Insomnia Cookies. 

 

I’ve never been so happy to hear the whir of a wheelchair and see a familiar face. 

 

I’m sure it was tempting, but he never teased me about my less than stellar navigational skills nor did he mention the incident again.

 

I hope one day I will see him in Heaven and once more tell him, “Thank God you’re here.”

 

He was a shining example of living a full and fruitful life with a disability, not in spite of it. 

 

His life with Duchenne muscular dystrophy was filled with challenges, but it was also filled with humor, hope, and adventure.

 

I admire the peace David exuded in being exactly who he was, and I strive to make room for that peace in my own heart.

 

We in the disability community tend to recoil at the mention of “courage.”

 

Rightfully, we don’t want a badge of bravery for breathing.

 

But the truth is, it does take a certain kind of courage to live joyfully in a world that routinely discounts disabled people.

 

It takes courage to entrust your body and your most basic needs to others.

 

It takes courage to navigate a deeply ableist society and still say “yes, I am whole.”

 

So, if I may say it, David was as courageous as they come. 

 

On my last day of undergrad, I hugged David goodbye and through tears, said, “You’re a wonderful man, Dave Kirby.”

 

As I say goodbye today in a way I wish I didn’t have to, my parting words are just the same. 

 

You’re a wonderful man, Dave Kirby.

 

I promise to live a good life in your honor and for you, I will build a better world.

 

I miss you. 

 

I love you. 

 

Rest in peace.

 

 

Me seated in a powerchair between my friend David and his sister Megan who is also my friend. David is also seated in a wheelchair, wearing a ventilator mask under his nose. Megan is standing beside me. All are smiling in the dorm corridor. 2015.