John Fetterman can do for disability what Barack Obama did for race

John Fetterman in 2022 can do for disability what Barack Obama did for race 14 years ago. The U.S. Senate candidate should head to Philadelphia and talk frankly about the struggles that come with living in a body that sometimes fights against itself, but more importantly what it feels like to live in a body like that in a society often unkind to and dismissive of those who do.

I say this as a black man who watched Obama rise to the occasion during relentless attempts to paint him as an angry America-hating black man because of things his pastor the Rev. Jeremiah Wright said, a tactic used against most black politicians that came before Obama. And I say this as someone who has long dealt with a physical difference, the kind that has made life more challenging than my dark skin did even while growing up in the shadow of Jim Crow in the heart of the Deep South.

I speak with a stutter. It became severe after my oldest hero big brother was sent to prison for murder when I was 9 years old. I’m among the minority of kids whose stutter follows us into adulthood. It has affected every fiber of my being. It’s made me question my worth, even more than being black in a society that teaches black kids to worship white slaveowners. It’s made me question my sanity, forced me to wonder if I do myself a disservice by saying I’m disabled, or by referring to myself as someone with a disability, or just a difference. Even when silent, I’m wondering how my stutter will hamper my ability the next time I want to speak. It’s hard to anticipate when it will be routinely tough rather than extremely tough, often the only options the stutter affords me.

Potential companions turned away from me, often only after mocking my speech. Years of enduring kids taunting me with “he’s too dumb to talk” chants were more difficult, but maybe slightly less harsh than the befuddled-contorted faces of strangers who act as though my stutter is torture to them. I’ve missed out on job opportunities, afraid to even try in some cases I so firmly believed that while my race wouldn’t be a barrier my stutter would be. I’ve been turned down for jobs because, I’ve been told, that they couldn’t “envision” me doing the job well because of the way I speak. Teach for America passed on my services when I was leaving college despite how well my background and qualifications aligned with their mission. Few people understand the mechanics of speaking with a stutter, fewer still try to understand. Because they are convinced it is just nervousness or that I’m speaking too fast, maybe unprepared. Because I don’t speak in a cadence that’s familiar or rhythmic in a way that most of us have been conditioned to believe is optimal.

Obama talked about the complexity of race and racism in a country founded on a contradiction, that all men were created equal but that black people were so inferior they belonged in bondage and to forever be treated like chattel, a contradiction that has affected every American structure and tradition in ways understood and not. He talked about the complexity yet necessity of loving imperfect relatives in such a society despite pressures to shun or distill them into caricatures because they sometimes get race wrong or have occasionally veered into racism. That spoke to me as a black man struggling with my racial identity well into adulthood, a struggle birthed in black pride, courage and progress – and black pain and torment. I don’t know if that made a difference in Obama’s historic political victory later that year. I know it made a difference to me and countless others.

I see echoes of my struggle in Fetterman’s even though my difficulties began in a childhood affected by poverty and domestic violence, his after a stroke. He requires accommodations during interviews and speeches to help process information as he heals, a trajectory familiar to millions of Americans. He needed closed captioning technology during his debate with Republican Mehmet Oz for a U.S. Senate seat from Pennsylvania. Without the accommodations, he struggles. With them, he still struggles to speak, like I struggle to speak, but obviously processing information well and has clear responses. And yet, his need for accommodations has become subject to debate and mockery in some quarters. For those who truly understand disability and physical difference, it’s akin to belittling a barber for not being able to do his craft well without a pair of scissors.

That’s why I want Fetterman to do today what Obama did in 2008. Stand behind a podium and confront it head on, not during a debate, just face-to-face with the camera, with no apologies. Explain why he should not be ashamed of his disability – and why those who’ve tried to shame him should be.

This story was originally published October 27, 2022 at 1:26 PM.