If you’re a writer who’s marginalized in one way, please don’t make the mistake of thinking you can’t do harm or appropriate another marginalized experience. If you’re a white disabled person, you can appropriate POC experiences, and it’s not OV. #CripLit #POC #OV

If you’re an able-bodied POC, you can also depict disabled experiences in inaccurate/stigmatizing ways. And the people most harmed by all this are disabled POC. Our marginalizations interact, & our experiences have nuances that need to be told by us to be fully captured.

But inequities in publishing make our voices the least heard. Lee and Low’s reports show only 31% of children’s books are about POC and less than half of those are written BY POC. https://blog.leeandlow.com/2018/05/10/the-diversity-gap-in-childrens-book-publishing-2018/

Only 3.4% of children’s books have a disabled MC, and while we don’t know the exact number, we know only a fraction of these are OV. We also don’t have a statistic for OV disabled POC rep, but obviously it’s far lower. Marginalizations compound. http://ccblogc.blogspot.com/2020/06/the-numbers-are-in-2019-ccbc-diversity.html?m=1

As a disabled Indian American woman, my life has been shaped by ableism as well as South Asian culture and the model minority myth. My family has been overbearing at times, yes, but also very interdependent & supportive in a way individualistic white American culture frowns on.

High Desi immigrant cultural expectations have made me push myself beyond my physical limits at times, but it’s also meant my potential has never been underestimated by my family the way many disabled people have been. Racism & ableism OTOH compounded to keep me out of spaces.

Have a diverse cast! Everyone should! But give disabled POC the space to write our own stories in MCs. It’s the difference between a grainy black and white photo and a digital high resolution colored one. And we deserve to tell and see our own stories in full resolution.