The disability rant we all need to hear

Paralympian Karni Liddell has been forced to accept the misguided well wishes strangers feel the need to give her, simply because she’s in a wheelchair. But there’s something Karni wants us to know, writes Kylie Lang.

It’s the rant we all need to read.

When Karni Liddell — TV presenter, single mum and former Australian Paralympian — took to social media this week to vent frustration at being patronised, yet again, for being in a wheelchair, I thought, ‘You go, girlfriend’.

Liddell is one of these funny, smart and sassy women who refuse to let disability define her.

If only able-bodied others would support her in this.

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Instead, Liddell, 40, battles to be viewed as an equal, rather than “less than” due to the muscle wastage that has been with her since she was a baby.

Rockhampton-born Liddell has muscular dystrophy, a neuromuscular, genetic disorder which causes progressive deterioration of muscle strength and function.

Her parents were told she would not live past her teens and that exercise was the enemy.

Instead, they encouraged their daughter to walk, cycle and swim as a way of staying mobile, independent and mentally strong.

It worked.

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At age 14, Liddell broke a swimming world record. At 17, she won a bronze medal at the 1996 Paralympic Games in Atlanta, and in 2000 captained the Australian team in Sydney, and pocketed another bronze.

Feisty and determined, she’s achieved in the cutthroat field of broadcasting too (she is a presenter on Channel 7’s The Great Day Out), and two years ago gave birth to her son Kai (despite people wondering how on earth that would work, you know, with the wheelchair and all).

Despite being a Paralympian and TV presenter, Karni Liddell still has to deal with strangers thinking that she needs to be “cured” or “healed”. Picture: AAP/Richard Walker

As you can see from this brief wrap, Liddell is a person who just gets on with life — and she doesn’t mind being the centre of attention, as long as it’s not because of her disability.

On Wednesday night, she posted this message on Instagram, accompanied by a photograph of her looking sultry in a low-cut halter top:

“I need your attention so I’ve resorted to following #instainfluencer rules: must show #boobs #sunset or a #baby. So here goes. Today I was reminded why I love #onlineshopping as a random approached us at a shopping centre (and) reminded me again that so many people still perceive people like me with pity and not with the dignity and respect I deserve.”

“As we were getting coffee the stranger stopped me by putting his hand out for a shake and said, ‘Can I ask you a question?’. I refused his shake. This may seem rude to you, unless you’ve spent (your) life navigating it in a wheelchair, which comes with a side of decades of people feeling the urge, and as if it’s their right, to ask or tell me what they MUST know about my #disability and their opinions on my life.

“His question: ‘Can I please pray for you to be cured?’ #groundhogday

“Before I tell you my response I’ll tell you about the first time this happened to me. I was 9 and it was World Expo 88 and three strangers knelt down beside my #wheelchair and put their hands on my legs and told me they were going to pray for me to be cured as I’d obviously sinned in my past life.”

Media presenter and tennis champion Dylan Alcott used his Logie win to remind people to see past disability. Picture: Chris Hyde/Getty

“They gave me the Good News Bible, which I read ‘religiously’ every night. I wish I could cry for that little girl tonight, but I’m too tired and busy to cry, and maybe I’ve cried too many tears over other people’s reactions.

“I’m bloody tired of the fight to change society’s naive assumptions about us as it’s been 31 years (in a wheelchair) of hearing randoms tell me and my mates with disabilities that we are “less than”, and being part of their, ‘well, there’s always someone worse off’ narratives.

“I’m not that person, so please delete me out of that story. My life is magnificent and would be even better if it wasn’t for misinformed, condescending (people) like him today!

“I hope he prays for people with disabilities to start getting jobs because they are the best candidates.”

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As for Liddell’s response to the ignorant bystander? Let’s just say she dropped the “F bomb”.

The rant reminds of the acceptance speech of tennis champ Dylan Alcott when he won Most Popular New Talent at the Logie Awards two weeks ago.

“There are four and a half million people, like me, with a disability,” Alcott said, “so … please give them an opportunity too because there’s a lot of bloody talented people out there.”

Alcott said he used to hate having a disability, one reason being that people in wheelchairs were only seen on TV if they featured in road safety commercials in which their “life was over” after a drink-driving accident.

“And I was like, ‘that’s not my life’,” he said. “I wanted to get a job on TV because I love sharing stories but also to show that people with disability can be talented, funny, humorous, just normal people enjoying their lives.”

Karni Liddell takes the same view, and frankly, so should we all, regardless of the industry or the setting.

Kylie Lang is the associate editor of The Courier-Mail.