Morrison’s Space: A DeafBlind Activist

July 9, 2026

By Morrison

Every year, organizations and agencies prepare to celebrate Disability Pride Month and the anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). These observances are meant to honor disability culture, recognize civil rights victories, and acknowledge the ongoing work required to make access real. Yet despite the intention, a familiar pattern continues to unfold: non‑disabled leaders often deliver the keynote remarks, opening statements, or welcome messages at disability‑centered events. Even more concerning, many of these leaders ask disabled employees or employees that work with people with disabilities (PWDs) to provide lists of “issues to mention” or “topics to highlight” so they can speak with authority about disability experience.

This practice is not allyship. It is a continuation of the very inequities Disability Pride Month seeks to challenge.

A useful way to understand this dynamic is to look at how other communities handle identity‑based observances. During Women’s History Month, men do not take the stage to speak on behalf of women; they support women’s leadership and amplify women’s voices. During Black History Month, white people do not deliver the keynote about Black experience; they step back so Black leaders can speak to their own history, culture, and ongoing struggle for racial equity. During Pride Month, straight people do not narrate LGBTQIA+ experience; they make space for queer and trans people to lead. And during Deaf Awareness Month, hearing people do not speak on behalf of Deaf communities; Deaf people themselves shape the message. These examples are widely understood and accepted because they honor the principle that communities should speak for themselves. Disability Pride Month and ADA commemorations deserve the same respect. When non‑disabled people take the microphone at disability‑centered events, it breaks with this shared understanding and reinforces the very exclusion these observances are meant to challenge.

When non‑disabled people take the stage at disability‑centered events, they inadvertently position themselves as narrators of disability experience. This reinforces a long history of disabled people being spoken for rather than listened to. It also shifts attention away from the voices that should be centered, those with lived experience navigating access barriers, discrimination, and systemic ableism. Disabled people do not need intermediaries. They need platforms.

The harm deepens when disabled employees (or employees that work with PWDs) are asked to supply talking points. What is framed as “seeking input” often becomes extractive. Disabled staff, consumers, and community are expected to provide the substance, the stories, and the emotional labor, while someone else delivers the message and receives the recognition. Their lived experience becomes content rather than leadership. This dynamic is not only disrespectful; it is a misuse of disabled expertise. Disabled people are experts in disability. Non‑disabled people are not. Expertise cannot be borrowed through notes or secondhand stories.

For disabled employees, this pattern feels like being spoken over, even when they are the ones doing the work behind the scenes. It feels like being visible only as consultants, not as leaders. It feels like being asked to educate without being empowered. And it feels like being responsible for improving the organization’s public image while the organization avoids confronting its own access failures. These experiences are not abstract, they shape workplace culture, trust, and retention.

This issue becomes even more pronounced during Disability Pride Month and ADA anniversaries because these observances are not generic diversity holidays. They are rooted in disability rights activism, community pride, and decades of struggle led by disabled people themselves. When non‑disabled leaders dominate the microphone, they unintentionally reenact the historical exclusion of disabled voices from public discourse, even during events meant to honor those voices. It is a contradiction that disabled employees notice immediately.

There is a better way forward, and it begins with centering disabled voices. Keynotes, opening remarks, public statements, and presentations at disability‑centered events should be delivered by disabled people with lived experience. This is not a symbolic gesture; it is a structural correction. If disabled employees are asked to speak, they should be compensated and credited as speakers, not treated as volunteers or “representatives.” Their expertise deserves recognition and remuneration.

Non‑disabled allies still have an important role, but it is not to speak on behalf of disabled people. Allies can support logistics (when asked for by PWDs), introduce speakers, but they should not be the voice of disability. And if a leader needs disabled people to tell them what to say, that is proof they should not be the one saying it.

Imagine an ADA anniversary event where the welcome is delivered by a disabled leader, the keynote is shaped and delivered by disabled community members, and the agenda reflects the priorities of disabled staff. Imagine an event where the stories shared belong to the people who lived them, and where the organization commits to addressing access barriers, not just acknowledging them and using them as a posterboard. That is what authentic disability inclusion looks like. That is disability pride. That is disability justice.

Non‑disabled people do not need to (and should not) speak for disabled people. They need to create space, shift power, and step aside so disabled people can speak for themselves. Anything less is a continuation of the inequities Disability Pride Month and the ADA were created to confront.