Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body

Taussig considers her discomfort with kindness: Many people claim to not see her disability, which they think is kind but feels like “erasure.” This kindness, she argues, is because people view disability as negative; by contrast, positive traits like beauty are not ignored. To Taussig, kindness ranges from useful to degrading. Once, when she was putting her wheelchair in her car, a man offered help that she did not need. He thought she would fall, and she reassured him that she was fine. Society tells people to be kind to people with disabilities, which gives them a sense of goodness. Taussig illustrates the self-serving nature of kindness with a story about a woman who helped a deaf, blind man on a flight, which was shared on the internet through photos focused on the woman. A later interview with the man ignored accessibility issues and instead emphasized the woman’s kindness. Stories like these overlook the real issues that people with disabilities face by centering those without disabilities.

In high school, Taussig went on a youth trip with Sam to St. Louis. They toured some caves, and she became fatigued. Sam offered to carry her, an offer she usually accepted, but this time, she declined.