Disabled people are tweeting the worst compliments they’ve received
Disabled people are tweeting the worst compliments they’ve received (Picture: @crutches_and_spice)

Ever felt the sting of a backhanded compliment? Perhaps you’ve been told that your English is ‘surprisingly’ good, or that you’re funny… ‘for a woman’.

A new Twitter hashtag, #DisabledCompliments, is highlighting that veiled insults are sometimes a daily reality for people with a disability.

The viral hashtag began when activist Imani Barbarin tweeted a ‘disabled compliment’ she had received.

Her tweets inspired thousands of people to share their own similarly shocking experiences with ableism.

These ranged from harassment, ‘you’re too pretty to be in a wheelchair’, to inexcusable attempts at jokes, such as ‘You’re lucky your leg was amputated, now you don’t have the knee pain I have’.

‘These backhanded statements that make able bodied people feel better but leave me feeling like I’ve been punched,’ Imani told Metro.co.uk.

The Crutches and Spice blogger notes that the hashtag is primarily for community building, instead of being a space to ‘work out guilt’.

‘People have reached out to say that they are going to have to do some deep soul searching, but I’m really not concerned with that,’ she says.

‘The goal of my work is for disabled people to feel like they have more of an opportunity to feel seen and heard and build community with others using similar experiences.’

Even still, some Twitter users have come forward to apologise for their rude comments towards people with a disability.

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