NW Quimby & 16th, Twitter tedder42

Last week in the earliest fingers of the falsest of dawns, on what did we decide? Monday, July 7th? There once was a man. This man was equipped with a lovely shade of salmon and mango (you know, to match the dawn, or ironically. . . my website layout) rattle cans and very emphatically wrote a clear statement on a sharrow and in the bike lane between NW 16th – NW 20th and NW Quimby – Raleigh. This declaration, whether in rage at the lack of equal rights afforded to certain individuals with invisible disabilities, outrage at cyclist indifference or senseless hooliganism, we will never know. The words he etched: “FUCK YOU AND YOUR EPILEPTIC LIGHTS.”

People noticed. A few commuters took photos of it and tweeted to Jonathan Maus who subsequently wrote about it on his very popular Portland area bike news and online resource site: BikePortland. You can read the original article here. And as with any internet or news article, there came the comments. . . and the commentators. I generally stay away from such things, but I was called out in the article specifically for my article that I wrote back in January 2013 called “All Lit Up” regarding this very subject. If this paragraph sounds familiar, that’s because it should. You’re not going senile and there’s not a glitch in the Matrix. I stole it almost directly from an article I wrote a few days ago called, “All Lit Up: Redux” which is a twinsie article to this one. Speaking of the Matrix, Hugo Weaving has epilepsy!

What really stood out to me is the misinformation and judgement that people were throwing around in the BikePortland comments – I really, really hate to use this word, but it was a kind of NIMBYism that I was kind of shocked to see. When it comes to people with visible and intellectual disabilities such as wheel chair users, amputees, low-visibility, or perhaps someone on the Autism spectrum; the public will generally attempt to make considerations for their condition to make facilities more accessible. But sitting disabilities and invisible disabilities tend to be open to dismissive and sometimes angry resentment.

So what about those invisible disabilities? Bare with me because this is old, but a ‘1994-1995 Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) found that 26 million Americans (almost 1 in 10) were considered to have a severe disability, while only 1.8 million used a wheelchair and 5.2 million used a cane, crutches or walker (Americans with Disabilities 94-95). In other words, 74% of Americans who live with a severe disability do not use such devices. Therefore, a disability cannot be determined solely on whether or not a person uses assistive equipment.‘ (source)

And that’s just talking about severely disabled. Disability is defined by the ADA as ‘a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities of such individual.’ (source) According to the ADA, to be considered disabled: ‘impairment that substantially limits one major life activity need not limit other major life activities in order to be considered a disability. . .an impairment that is episodic or in remission is a disability if it would substantially limit a major life activity when active.‘ Thus people who are HIV+, suffering from PTSD, dyslexia or from drug/alcohol addiction can be considered disabled.

But enough about defining disability in general. Let’s talk about epilepsy!

SCIENCE!