Bay Area disability rights activist receives MacArthur fellowship
San Francisco-based writer, editor and disability justice activist Alice Wong was recognized by the MacArthur Foundation this week with one of its prestigious fellowships for her work on increasing representation of people with disabilities. Wong, 50, was born with spinal muscular atrophy, where nerves in the brain and spinal cord break down, causing progressive weakness and atrophy in the muscles. As a disability rights advocate, she uses storytelling across various media platforms to share her own experiences and broadcast other people’s stories to reveal how ableist attitudes, policies and practices marginalize people with disabilities. “The systemic ableism that I and millions of us face every day tells us that we don’t matter, that our lives are too expensive and not worth saving,” Wong said in a video introducing herself as a 2024 MacArthur Fellow. “I want to change the way people think about disability from something one-dimensional and negative to something more complex and nuanced. “There’s such diversity, joy and abundance in the lived disabled experience. We are multitudes.” San Francisco-based writer, editor, and disability justice activist Alice Wong was recognized by the MacArthur Foundation
