My Gut Reaction to Crip Camp

Watching Crip Camp was an experience. After more than 48 years of living with a physical disability, I still find it uncomfortable, startling, odd, weird . . . and amazing . . . to actually see people like myself on television. And quite literally, I don’t think I’ve ever seen us depicted as we are in this documentary.

I never attended overnight camp. I have a recollection of a counselor letting go of me in a pool during day camp and, for better or worse, I never wanted to go back.

So I can’t claim that watching the documentary about a New York summer camp for people with disabilities in the early 1970s brought me back to my days as a camper. I’m sure that Camp Jened would have been nothing like any camp I would have been attending anyway. I say that both with jealousy and admiration.

The camp appeared to be run by young adults if not teenagers who I assume offered the necessary assistance to those who needed it, though they seemed almost like fellow campers. And that may have been the perfect mix for these campers to experience pushing boundaries in ways I imagine most never had before.

The freedom these people experienced had me awestruck. The images of the campers are what will stay with me. The most memorable image was that of one guy dancing on his knees seemingly with no hesitation or fear about his body or how he looked. It was incredible to see. As with the entire film, there was no special focus by the cameraperson to show his disability or heighten the physical struggle. It was just a camper dancing the way he felt like dancing.

I loved watching a group of campers sitting around talking about how their parents dealt with them in different ways—and sometimes how they were treated differently than their own siblings. It wasn’t just the subject matter that struck me. It was the simple idea of people with disabilities discussing their lives without anyone else being involved. I also loved that people with severe speech disabilities spoke for themselves. I watched as the others quite naturally sat there and deciphered what was said and then asked if they’d gotten it right. I also heard one woman speak about a hierarchy of disability, something I wrote about in my first self-published book.

It was that “yes!” moment for me. That, right there. What she said. She gets it. She understands.

Mostly, though, I saw them. Their bodies. Their overly tight muscles. Faces. Wheelchairs. Crutches. I heard the strange loud laugh some of us have. I saw them trying to be cool. I saw them not trying to be anything but themselves. I saw myself and my friends in them.

That’s what these type of films—not that there are many—bring us, I think, more than anything. At least it’s what they bring me. Yes, it was a history lesson. But damn it’s nice to see yourself on TV or in a film when it’s such a rarity. To see us. To see our experience. Black people say it. Gay people say it. Women still say it. It’s the same thing for people with disabilities . . . and we’re still in the dark ages of it. We need to see us.

I took a chance and tweeted filmmaker Jim LeBrecht, whose experience at Jened is the introduction to Crip Camp, to ask about his motivation for making the documentary. I was thrilled to get a response.

“Crip Camp started out because there was a story that I didn’t want to be lost to time,” LeBrecht replied. “It was about the camp and the exodus of folks from NY to Berkeley. [Co-director] @NicoleNewnham and I hoped to reframe what having a disability means to those with and [without] a disability.”

It was another “yes!” moment for me. First, I love the fact that he took the time to respond to some guy with a blog. It also helped this struggling writer to read those words. Changing the perception of people with disabilities is an effort I hope I’ve contributed to in a small way with my writing, including my character Red in The Birth of Super Crip. Hearing that I may be on the same wavelength as someone like LeBrecht buoys the spirit.

As LeBrecht mentioned, the film eventually catches up with several of the campers from Jened who played key roles in the civil rights movement for people with disabilities, which came to life in Berkeley, California. I watched them protest for their . . . our . . . human rights by stopping traffic and occupying government buildings. Again, it was the images that stayed with me. I’ve always thought that wasn’t our path. That the images of people with disabilities protesting with their bodies would be depicted in ways that only elicited pity and therefore backfire. Yet, here, watching what they truly went through to occupy one building for weeks—yes, weeks—showed a strength, resolve, and dedication, few could imagine.

Their ultimate victory finally came years later when George H. W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act in the summer of 1990. I graduated high school the following June with little knowledge of the struggle others undertook to allow that to take place.

It’s a bit surreal to have been working on this post in a week that our country tries to deal with the death of yet another black man—George Floyd—at the hands of police. I know our struggle is not the same. I’ll leave that comment without elaborating because I don’t have the words right now and I am trying to learn about the experience of black people interacting with police from other voices, but not acknowledging the timing seemed wrong.

I’m glad to have learned more about our history with such impactful storytelling.

Watch Crip Camp on Netflix. Watch it for a well told history lesson. Watch it for images of people with disabilities you might not see elsewhere.