A couple of things are happening in the recent controversies about the use of ableist lyrics in popular music. One is the inherent and systemic ableism in our culture that normalizes the use of language that stigmatizes people with disabilities. Another is the way that the response to these recent uses of ableist language are seen through the lens of race.
Over the past couple of months, Lizzo and Beyoncé were both called out for their use of a word that is considered a slur in the disability community that refers to people with spastic paralysis or cerebral palsy. Both artists quickly took the correction and removed and replaced the offending word from their songs. More recently, the band Big Time Rush was trending on Twitter as fans were excited about a previously unreleased song that was leaked to an online platform, titled "Paralyzed." Black disabled activists pointed out the stark contrast in the response from white disabled activists who criticized two Black women artists, compared to what they saw as a lack of outrage for a group of white men who were engaging in the same kind of offense.
"With Big Time Rush, I'm not glad that this has happened in this moment, but I'm glad that people are having to face the double standard. We've been saying that it's been a double standard for the past two months now, but now we're seeing it in real time with white people misusing disability language and being unapologetic about it," said Vilissa Thompson, a licensed master social worker with a degree in psychology, and the creator of Ramp Your Voice, a blog and organization that centers the experiences of disabled people, especially Black women, girls and femmes.
