The Anti-Ableist Manifesto: Smashing Stereotypes, Forging Change, and Building a Disability-Inclusive World

Activist Yu debuts with an insightful guide adapted from her TikTok video series, which she created in 2020 to help others become “better allies to disabled people.” Interweaving her own disability experience into the account—a car accident at age nine paralyzed the author’s arm and led to a PTSD diagnosis many years later—Yu overviews many different aspects of ableism. For example, she explains how framing disabled people as “inspiration” perpetuates “the problematic narrative that we exist merely to... provide lessons” to the nondisabled community; how a so-called “disability tax” requires disabled people to expend more financial resources, time, and energy to simply exist; and how designing “for accessibility” fosters innovation that can benefit society as a whole (voice-activated technology was created for “people with limited mobility or vision disabilities” but has spawned digital assistants like Siri and Alexa). While Yu carefully untangles the ways in which ableism insidiously shapes everything from language and the economy to TV, her most valuable contributions are concrete tips for approaching others’ disabilities with awareness and sensitivity, including scripts for asking people if their access needs are being met without demanding they explain their limitations. Readers will find this to be a sensitive and helpful resource. (Oct.)