Biden’s inclusion of "disability" in his victory speech is monumental – Business Insider – Business Insider

At the tender age of 13, my eyes grew misty on the night that President Barack Obama was elected the first Black president of the United States. Growing up in a predominately white suburban town, I had yet to add the term "person of color" to my vocabulary.

I had yet to realize that I, a daughter of Korean-American immigrants, belong in such a group it would take me another seven years to finally realize that Asian Americans are, indeed, considered people of color. Nonetheless, even as a nave teenager, I could still recognize the magnitude of President Obama's achievement.

Not only was I one of the few Asian Americans in my K-12 school, I was also the only kid with a physical disability in my classes. I have cerebral palsy, which affects my speech and mobility; I've used a wheelchair for most of my life. So, I truly resonated with the significance of then-newly elected President Obama being in a position where no one who looked like him had been before.

However, it would take another 12 years for me to feel seen by the highest office in the land. On November 7, President-elect Joe Biden mentioned the word "disability" in his victory speech, which was only the second time in modern history (with available transcripts of election night speeches) that a president or president-elect has acknowledged this community specifically in a victory speech (apart from President Obama in both 2008 and 2012):

"We must make the promise of the country real for everybody, no matter their race, their ethnicity, their faith, their identity, or their disability."

Even CNN host Jake Tapper acknowledged Biden's inclusion of the word. But this moment did not come easily or quickly, and credit is due to all the people on the ground who made it happen.

In 2016, like millions of others, I watched as President Donald Trump won the presidency. I was an aspiring journalist at that time, and after witnessing Trump openly mock a broadcast reporter with a disability, my outlook on the four years to come was grim.

Nevertheless, I forged ahead I completed my master's program at Columbia Journalism School and never looked back. In my nearly three years of being a diversity and inclusion journalist, I experienced firsthand the vast underrepresentation of the disability community both in media and inside the industry itself. And I've made it my lifelong goal to amplify their voices through my work.

People with disabilities constitute the nation's largest minority group, making up nearly 26% or 61 million Americans ages 18 and older. And unlike any other minority group, disability transcends across all identities: gender, race, socioeconomic class, religion, nationality, and sexuality. So, every issue and policy affects people with disabilities often to greater extents than other minority groups. Especially in 2020, the problems at center stage are disproportionately affecting people with disabilities: from healthcare to coronavirus to access to education and unemployment.

Frustrated with the lack of representation, disability rights advocates Gregg Beratan, Andrew Pulrang, and Alice Wong founded the #CripTheVote social media movement. The movement aims to activate and engage disabled people on policies and practices essential to the disability community. It is grounded in online conversations encouraging individual and collective action in the face of inequality, ableism, and oppression in all forms.

Over the four years of Trump's presidency, he seems to take every opportunity to harm the disability community. For example, his administration made the already-tumultuous Social Security Disability Insurance application even more complicated, denied visas and green cards to immigrants with disabilities who need government assistance, and attempted to cut budgets for special education. Not to mention that repealing the Affordable Care Act, which the Trump administration has attempted, would make millions of Americans with disabilities lose access to affordable health insurance. Needless to say, it's been a fearful and stressful couple of years for the disability community.

Which is why Biden's inclusion of our community in his victory speech was the light at the end of the tunnel we desperately needed. While the acknowledgment lasted for a split second in his whole speech, it made Americans with disabilities including myself feel seen in such a significant way. Throughout history, especially for the past four years, people with disabilities have been forced to set the bar very low. However, Biden's inclusion of our community in his speech has offered us a glimmer of hope and recognition that we have been looking for all along. He has even designated a specific disability-inclusion component in his COVID-19 relief plans and laid out a detailed plan to ensure the advancement of people with disabilities in all sectors of life.

Throughout his presidential campaign, Biden has been open about his own speech disability and shamelessly embraced and accepted his son Hunter's addiction and mental health issues. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was the only US president who used a wheelchair, but he deliberately hid his disability paralysis from polio from the public. It took until 2020, but it is so refreshing to finally have a president who both acknowledges the disability community and is honest with his own disability. I am hopeful that because of this, Biden will include people with disabilities in his policy development and the overall presidential term.

Sarah Kim is a freelance journalist and writer with cerebral palsy. Her work focuses on diversity, equity, and inclusion, and she has written for TIME, Betches, Teen Vogue, Glamour, I Weigh, Forbes, Greatist, and more. Links to her work can be found at http://www.beingsarahkim.com.

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Biden's inclusion of "disability" in his victory speech is monumental - Business Insider - Business Insider