ABSTRACT
This chapter explores a tension that has emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic between viewing disabled people as disposable and considering them as valuable repositories of knowledge. Though one could claim that we have all been disabled by this pandemic, the authors argue that the forms of vulnerability and precarity that attend particular lives are not equivalent. Rationing protocols, hierarchies of value, disproportionate risks, and erroneous assumptions about a diminished quality of life underscore why it is false to claim that “we are all disabled.” While the restrictions on everyday life and the anxieties surrounding risk, vulnerable bodies, and mortality may be new experiences for some able-bodied, healthy persons, they are familiar to many people with disabilities and chronic illnesses. Acknowledging and embracing the unique strategies, creativity, and wisdom that accompany the experience of disability is necessary to challenge the devaluation of disabled lives and assert the importance of disability justice during this pandemic.
