Catching a Break: Accessibility, Empathy, and COVID-19. (September 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Irwin, Clair E.
• Other Names: Harris Times Annette MarkhamDan guest-editor.; Luka Mary Elizabeth (M.E.) guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: Qualitative inquiry. Volume 27:Number 7(2021)
• Page Start: 798
• Page End: 805
• Publication Date: 2021-09
• Subjects: COVID-19 -- autoethnography -- #insulin4all -- racial justice -- disability; Social sciences -- Methodology -- Periodicals; Social sciences -- Research -- Periodicals; 300.72
• DOI: 10.1177/1077800420967889
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1077-8004

Abstract

By driving U.S. residents to shelter-in-place, COVID-19 forces many to experience restrictions similar to those experienced by people with disabilities. This autoethnographic essay uses my experiences as a White disabled woman to discuss the communal disabling experience of COVID-19. I use rationing insulin and my sorrow over the lives lost from insulin rationing and COVID-19 to critique the U.S. focus on consumerism and its obfuscation of Black Americans. This essay ends by calling us to use the pandemic's disabling experience in empathizing and standing in solidarity with Black Americans, and fighting for racial justice.