The Anti-Ableist Manifesto: Smashing Stereotypes, Forging Change, and Building a Disability-Inclusive World by Tiffany Yu. This was a solid read, but I felt old and sad while reading. Old because I’d never have dreamt of showing Yu’s boldness around my disabilities; sad because considering disability activism and accommodations during Trump II is depressing.
The structure of the book is solid: short chapters with bullet points and questions for reflection. I’ll need to reread it slowly to answer the chapter questions. Yu communicated her values and goals and the steps to achieve them clearly. At the same time, the book has a millennial vibe about disability accommodation: proactive, identity-based, and assuming good faith in dealing with employers, businesses, and government, an assumption I don’t share. Some of this comes up explicitly in her chapters on working with disabilities. Yu’s optimism about improving workplaces doesn’t jibe with my experience. Her experience with government in California is also different to what I’d expect in Texas.
Part of our difference is generational, but also I’m reading the book in 2025. It was published before the election, which not only changed federal government but also confirmed a cultural change hostile to DEIA. President Trump is openly eugenicist and HHS Secretary Kennedy plans to solve chronic illness and other health problems by “reparenting” patients in organic work farms. Within the context of the manifesto, it makes sense that Yu barely mentioned the eugenic discrimination in triage of COVID patients. Yet the widespread acceptance of discrimination against the disabled during COVID both parallels and foreshadows the open bigotry of the current Republican administration.
A book that addressed those issues wouldn’t be Yu’s manifesto, though I’d read a book by Yu that addresses continued advocacy and community with other marginalized groups in a 2025 context. All of her advice is good and similar to that I’ve read for and by other marginalized groups. It’s just going to be harder to follow now than it would have been when Yu wrote it.
Part of the discomfort I felt while reading Yu’s book was internalized ableism and the feeling that I don’t do enough advocacy for myself or around disability in general. I’m glad Yu got over those feelings. Her book points the way to a world where disability doesn’t evoke shame and anger because the conditions that lead to them have changed for the better or been eliminated completely.