The author's implicit complaint seems to be that the face of disability advocacy is decreasingly the poor, helpless wretch who cannot care for themself, cannot

The author's implicit complaint seems to be that the face of disability advocacy is decreasingly the poor, helpless wretch who cannot care for themself, cannot live independently, cannot communicate with others, must be advocated for because they themself cannot advocate on their own, cannot really be helped much at all, and thus can only be pitied from a distance; and increasingly independent and semi-independent people who can care for themself fully or partially, are fully capable of communicating and advocating for themself, can tell when they're being condescended to, don't like it, and can tell you about it, and who can be helped with some understanding on the part of others and with accommodations like breaks, alternate schedules, clearer language, accessibility features, and other possibly-inconvenient-but-ultimately-reasonable requests. > How do you keep the schizophrenic and the schizoaffective and the bipolar and the borderline and the violent and the self-harming and the catatonic and the permanently deluded at the forefront of the culture? He wants this to be the face of the culture, the only face. Denying that anyone who can go to a college ought to be considered by anyone at all. I think the last point in my comparison is the most pertinent. The helpless wretch cannot be helped; they can be pitied, or locked up for their own safety, or their caretakers can be supported, but you don't really have to do anything for them. The less-disabled, they can ask you to do things that you can't reasonably deny. They can ask you to fix your website's screenreader support, and you can't just tell them you won't without looking rude. They can ask for lighter workload, and it likely wouldn't cause as many problems as bosses insist it would. They can ask you for a break, and depending on the setting, you may owe it to them. And they can tell you that it's horrifically offensive to assume that just because they have a disability that they're too stupid to make decisions for themself. It sure was easier when this movement was represented by people who could never possibly ask you to do anything, or who you could easily ignore if they did, wasn't it?