What is beauty? If you live in Los Angeles or anywhere near Hollywood as I do, beauty is described as medium to tall, thin (or skinny), naturally or artificially buxom, blue-eyed, and most often blond. Well, needless to say, that ain’t me! I’m Black, short, and let’s say… “over a certain age”, but hey, my mom thinks I’m beautiful!
In every race, culture, and background, beauty is described in very different ways. If you are a member of the visibly disabled community where it is multi-cultural, crosses all class and income lines, and is one of the largest underrepresented groups on the planet, beauty is somewhat undefined. In the last decade or two, this has been changing!
Those of us who choose to take the time and effort to be beautiful, do so because it feels good for us as individuals. As we move one day at a time into the future, where 80-year-olds look 60, 50 is the new 30 and disabled people are models, actors, speakers etc. Although I admit that we have a long way to go for equality in Hollywood, the job market, accessibility, heck in general, I remain hopeful and optimistic. despite the fact that many of us live with caregivers, depression, constant pain, public ridicule, and ignorance etc, below are just a few examples of what disability looks like today:
Jillian Mercado, Model
Nick Vujicic, Motivational Speaker & Activist
Push Girls Motto: “If you can’t STAND UP, STAND OUT!”
ME!, Blogger, Coach, Motivational Speaker & Advocate
No matter what you think about disability, you can not deny that disability today doesn’t look like the 1950’s grandmother figure. We are proud, we are beautiful, and like it or not WE ARE HERE!
To ALL of my CreativelyAble peeps worldwide no matter your challenge(s), I say… WORK IT!
Love, Light & Beauty!
Cr8Ab
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