Happy Halloween! Today, people will be dressing up in their favorite costumes to go to Halloween parties, and parents will be taking their children around to different houses trick-or treating to get some candy. If you are a last-minute kind of person and don’t have a costume, you might think that sitting in a wheelchair pretending to be disabled is a good last-minute idea because it’s easy and requires almost no effort. Is pretending to be disabled a good Halloween costume? No, absolutely not, and I wouldn’t even dress up as a disabled person for Halloween and I have a disability, because although it may seem harmless, it is considered a highly offensive costume that sends the wrong kind of message, even though you may have good intentions. It is harmful to the disabled community when you dress up as a disabled person because it promotes messages we don’t want to promote and contributes to disability stigma. Why shouldn’t we dress up as a disabled person for Halloween? In this post, I am going to talk about why I would never pretend to be disabled on Halloween, even though I am disabled and could accurately represent the disabled community.
It reinforces the idea that disability is scary- On Halloween people are dressing up in their scariest costumes and when you pretend to be disabled it reinforces the idea that disability is scary and is something we should all fear. People already are scared of becoming disabled because of how the media portrays disabled people and you are only contributing to that problem when your scary costume is a disabled person. The unknowns of disability can be scary, but we shouldn’t be teaching people to fear disability because it’s a reality for so many but instead, we need to be teaching people to fear ableism and the lack of accessibility because barriers are the reason disabled people struggle so much. Anyone can become disabled, and it is hard to live in an inaccessible world because disabled people sometimes lack support, and you are not helping when you make people fear disability more than they already do. People need to know that you can live well with a disability, and you are promoting the complete opposite of that when your scary costume is a disabled person.
Disability is not a costume- My disability is permanent, and I don’t get to decide I don’t want to be disabled today, and I struggle whether I feel like dealing with challenges or not. When you dress up as a disabled person, it promotes the idea that disability is something you can turn on and off, which is simply not true because it doesn’t matter how hard life gets, I can’t change my disability. People already think that everyone who doesn’t look disabled is a faker, and you are only contributing to that problem when you wear a costume and make people think that you are only disabled when you want to be, because a lot of people already think that. Dressing up as a disabled person for Halloween can be very offensive because disability is not a costume, and it dismisses the challenges of a disability.
Some people may think you are making fun of them- When a non-disabled person dresses up and pretends to be disabled, a lot of the time, they are not thinking about the harms of that costume and have good intentions, but you can mean well and still promote the wrong kind of message that hurts a disabled person’s feelings. The challenge of a disability is hard, and we should be supporting disabled people through the hard times, but you are not going to be doing that when you pretend to be crippled, and a lot of people may think you are making fun of them, which is not okay for anyone to do, whether you have a disability or not. Pretending to walk with crutches might seem like a harmless costume, and you may be doing it because you look up to a disabled person, but I am not going to see it that way and will probably think you are making fun of my challenges.
Assistive devices are for people with real disabilities- If you wanted to get a pair of crutches or a wheelchair for your Halloween costume, you could probably go up to a local charity and get one, but people without disabilities should not be doing that because people donate assistive devices to help other disabled people. Some disabled people struggle with paying for assistive devices because not all insurances cover them, and you might need to go to a charity to get a used one to be able to live life. When you go up to a local charity and get a wheelchair, you are only going to use it once, it hurts disabled people because it’s wasting resources, and you could be the reason someone with a legitimate disability is stuck in their home because they couldn’t get an assistive device. Assistive devices are for people with real disabilities, and you should not be trying to get one because you need something for your costume, and it’s a waste of resources. It is already hard enough for disabled people to get necessary medical equipment, and you are only making it more difficult when you use assistive devices you don’t need.
There are a lot of good Halloween costumes that you can use that are not offensive but dressing up as a disabled person is not one of them. You might have good intentions and do it and mean it in a flattering way, but the reality is disabled people will not see it that way and will probably think you are making fun of them. As a disabled person, I wouldn’t even pretend to be disabled for Halloween because you can easily misrepresent a disability and contribute to disability stigma if you don’t know what you are doing. Disabled people can use their assistive devices to help make their costumes even better, but I would never tell people that my disability is my costume and if I were going to use my crutches for a Halloween costume, it would be something completely unrelated. Please don’t dress up as a disabled person for Halloween and choose literally anything else, because although it may be an easy costume, it’s also a very offensive costume that will hurt a lot of disabled people and you will probably be a disabled person’s next tweet. What are you dressing up as for Halloween? If you liked this post, please leave a comment below and share it with your friends.
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