Dedicated to Saylor Graham and all those affected by the Silver Rail Elementary shooting
Another day in America, another mass shooting.
I was sickened to open my news app yesterday and read that a teenage gunman in Bend, Oregon opened fire on a mixed age special education class, killing three young boys and a 25-year-old educator, while injuring another teacher and elementary school student.
No child should ever face gun violence, especially not in a classroom. But the targeting of a classroom for children with disabilities stirred in me yet a deeper layer of anger and dread. As a now grown person who is dependent on others to move, I know what it means to carry the weight of such vulnerability. Throughout my years in a mainstream school environment, my “safety plans” were vague at best and I recall feeling like an afterthought to be considered after my nondisabled peers had fled. The tiny band of fellow disabled students and I still laugh (and groan) about the year we waited in an upstairs “safe room” during the annual emergency drill only to be asked by the fire chief with complete seriousness “why you kids haven’t evacuated yet.” *Sad trombone noise*
Another time, when an unplanned fire alarm went off, I was nonchalantly told they wanted to get the other kids out and “wait to make sure the fire was real” before anyone would come for me. Soon, fire and tornado drills were joined by lockdown drills, the mark of communities marred and traumatized by the specter of gun-related terror.
As lockdown drills became a fixture in an increasingly chaotic and frankly dystopian society, I remember being awkwardly plopped in a hallway during junior high as I considered that should real danger visit, there would be no crouching in the closet for me.
Although these emergency preparedness discussions were always peppered with the snarky dark humor I still use as armor, I tacitly understood from early childhood that barring a miracle, in a real disaster, I would probably die. My joke about keeping s’more supplies nearby if we burned up waiting for fire rescue only got me so far.
In college and graduate school, even on an extremely accessible campus with a large disabled population, the standard “active shooter defense” strategy felt hollow. Dramatized videos encouraged us to “Run, Hide, Fight” when most of my friends and I could do none of the above. One such training encouraged the use of belts and bottles for self-defense, while I exasperatedly pointed out that I can’t even put on my own socks, never mind build a makeshift weapon.
There is no running—I cannot walk.
There is no hiding—I rely on a 450-pound wheelchair festooned with colorful buttons and boasting a persistent squeak.
There is no fighting—I cannot even hold many of the items recommended to fight off an attacker.
For me, there is only hoping that if the worst occurred, a twist of fate would spare me.
After all, the very fact that I survived my traumatic birth and reached adulthood in a profoundly ableist world is already what the late disabled activist Harriet McBryde Johnson calls an “accident of nature—" a stubborn, and darkly hilarious rebuttal to Darwin’s theory.
When I gaze into the faces of the disabled children killed or injured in the carnage, I see myself and so many others I love. I can imagine the soft buzz and click of their wheelchairs, and the way those familiar sounds that make my heart sing would betray us if we had to stay quiet and hide from an armed assailant.
I have thought about how hard it would be, in practice, to “pick me up and run” and how even the mere sound of a gun would provoke the neurological storm of my startle reflex in addition to pure, unadulterated fear.
I do not expect a home health aide, a nurse, a teacher, or a bystander to sacrifice themselves for me when they have families and futures of their own.
Yet I know the willingness of others to shield me would be my only chance at survival.
Among the critically injured is 7-year-old Saylor Graham, a bright-eyed child in a wheelchair whose photo feels to me like that of an old friend. The disability community is like that. I often feel deeply connected to disabled peers I’ve never met, because I know we share threads of the same struggles and joys.
The durable pink rubber glasses perched on Saylor’s nose unlock a trove of memories featuring my own mother searching for glasses that wouldn’t break if I fell or they plummeted to the floor. I bet Saylor’s mom chose them with the same tenderness and perched her in her wheelchair just as mine has for decades. I suspect it’s a choreography we share without ever having met to rehearse the steps.
There is no universe in which a child should peer through those pink rubber glasses and see a spray of bullets.
The scenario is heartbreaking and unfathomable for any child, disabled or not, and non-disabled children are just as deserving of the utmost protection.
Yet, Thursday’s events shattered me in such a unique and profound way because the choice to fight back as a disabled person or even run for cover relies so much on others. When I saw that little girl’s innocent face, the depth of my own vulnerability was laid bare.
Many in the community object to the labeling of people with disabilities as vulnerable—often because they believe the lie that vulnerable means weak. To me, vulnerability has nothing to do with weakness and instead means "most likely to face the worst consequences of power structures that have long devalued bodies and minds that cannot conform."
By that definition, my vulnerability is undeniable, and a nightmare like the one inflicted upon Silver Rail Elementary holds a special horror.
Kids like Saylor linger in my mind with stunning vividness.
In the weeks to come, many will offer their thoughts and prayers.
Yes, pray for this child and the entire community changed by bloodshed.
But as the adage goes, “when you pray, pray with your feet.”
Vote for those who will choose children over guns.
Every time bullets rain on our schools (because yes, it’s as American as apple pie), a headline will proclaim, “This is Not Who We Are.”
But this week, as Saylor fights for her life, I’m forced to conclude that this is who we are until we decide otherwise.
#BanAssaultWeapons #GunControlNow #KidsOverGuns
