BERKELEY, Calif. – In a stunning revelation, campus sophomore and self-proclaimed social justice warrior Abel Isty discovered that disabled people are, in fact, present on campus.
“I was so blind to it before,” said Isty, whose 20/20 vision failed to perceive his visually impaired history classmate. “I swear, I’ve walked from Sproul Plaza to Moffit so many times, but I never noticed the stenciled handicap symbol on the ground until today when I was looking down to post my weekly black square on Instagram. Now that I know they exist, I’m going to fight for the rights of special needs—wait no, handicapable—or is it differently-abled?—students.”
Newly-visible disability activists were less than impressed by this epiphany.
“Yeah, as if this able-bodied savior who just learned the definition of ‘disabled’ is a win. What we need is for campus admin to recognize the unique accessibility issues created by COVID-19 and enforce a mode of instruction that will protect the most vulnerable of us from catching it and dying,” said ASUC Disabled Students Committee member Riya Kapoor in response to Isty’s pledge, before adding, “I know this is a really long shot, but it would also be nice to be assigned a DSP specialist! You know, so I can have someone help advocate for me when professors stare right through me as though I were a transparent plasma.”
Disregarding this, Isty outlined a list of improvements that he would support for the disabled community on campus.
“They need ramps, right? And elevators?” asked Isty. “I mean, everyone knows that the only handicapable people are wheelchair users. And those are the only things that wheelchair users need. In fact, if it’s so straightforward, I don’t know why it hasn’t happened already. I can see it now: a bunch of disability social justice warriors calling ourselves the ‘Rolling Quads’—that has a nice ring to it—and running around Berkeley liberating wheelchair users with curb cuts.”
At press time, Isty was witnessed attempting to recruit students for the Rolling Quads despite being informed that it had indeed already been created in the 1960s and that ramps and elevators already exist in most of UC Berkeley’s buildings.