A hashtag started in June 2020 by Canadian disability activist Gabrielle Peters (@mssinenomine), initially to comment on disability critiques of paper straw mandates. #DisabledPeopleToldYou quickly disseminated during the pandemic to flag examples of prescience in the disability community. In a May 2021 article in Forbes (“What Disabled People are Thinking and Feeling about the Pandemic, One Year Later” (alt link)), Andrew Pulrang pointed readers to the hashtag “for a broad sample of how disabled people have reacted to our worst fears of Covid coming true.” Pulrang wrote, “There is a reason why disabled people sometimes half-jokingly refer to ourselves as ‘oracles’ or ‘canaries in the coal mine.’ As disabled people, we often encounter new problems and threats before most people notice them or truly recognize their potential scale….Many of the pandemic’s hardships were already familiar to us. While we were at higher risk, it sometimes felt like we were better equipped to handle the pandemic than people without disabilities.”
— Mara Mills
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