Helen Keller was severely impaired by an undiagnosed illness that caused her to go blind and deaf at the age of 19 months old. Despite her debilitating disabilities and a lack of resources available at the time, Keller would go on to become a champion of the deaf and blind by fundraising millions of dollars for those who are disabled. She became a successful writer, publishing 12 books, and would go around the country raising awareness of the plight of the disabled and fight for women’s suffrage.
Keller, who graduated from Radcliffe College, which is now Harvard University, co-founded the American Civil Liberties Union and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor that an American can achieve. Despite all of her achievements and accolades against all odds, Keller was declared to be “just another privileged white person” in a Time magazine article.
The article, titled “Co-Founding the ACLU, Fighting for Labor Rights and Other Helen Keller Accomplishments Students Don’t Learn in School,” highlighted Keller’s many accomplishments, but also included a belittling denigration of Keller.
However, to some Black disability rights activists, like Anita Cameron, Helen Keller is not radical at all, ‘just another, despite disabilities, privileged white person,” and yet another example of history telling the story of privileged white Americans.
The quote was said by Anita Cameron, a self-described “fierce Black autistic lesbian” and member of the American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today organization, according to her Twitter profile, which has a “Black Disabled Lives Matter” banner.- READ MORE
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