Lisa Kissel’s article “Disability Is Us” and Steve Lopez’s book The Soloist both give us an
idea about what it’s like to be disabled and the emotions that one goes through living in a
society that makes the disability harder. Kissel argues that we should all be treated equally,
whether we’re disabled or not. Lopez explains his story with a mentally ill homeless man
who he met by coincidence but then later developed a friendship with. Both Kissel and
Lopez’s stories give the readers ideas about what the disabled have deal with in our
society.
Lisa Kissel first talks about her disabled older brother in her article, how he is “different”
from her. What stood out to me in the first paragraph is when Kissel says that she never
identified her brother as different because of the brother’s disability until she learned from
others that he was. She asks questions like, “Why do you choose to see my brother as
different?,” which I think is unique and innocent for her to think this way. Later she says
that she learned that difference comes in different forms, whether it is racial or a gender
difference, and is enforced by society. She talks more about her experience with seeing
how disabled people get discriminated against, and not just disabled people, but also
people of color and also seeing sexism in society. Kissel’s message is that disabled people
shouldn’t be looked at as inferior, and it is the society that is disabled for teaching us to