Texas v Becerra, "Inspiration Porn" & Kendrick Lamar - If We Truly Inspire You, it's Time to Get to Work (Copy)

What must happen to prevent a disastrous scenario for disabled people — and dismantling the idea of “Inspiration Porn” with the help of Kendrick Lamar.

In 2025, it has begun to feel like disabled people's lives are increasingly at risk. Whether it be through the policies of the Robert F. Kennedy Jr.-led HHS, which is seeking to ban SSRIs and roll back Vaccines, or the not-nearly as widely spread news about the court case Texas v Becerra, a class-action lawsuit led by Texas with 16 other states.

The lawsuit seeks to end the protections of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, which was passed in 1977 and was the precursor to the Americans With Disabilities Act, passed in 1990. Looking at the bigger picture, there is certainly cause for alarm in the disabled community, just as there is for many Americans who find their livelihoods at risk under the current administration.

RFK Jr’s potential ban on SSRIs, which include treatments for fibromyalgia, anxiety, and depression, amongst other things, has garnered a treasure chest of news headlines and social media posts from mainstream outlets. He has falsely claimed these medications can lead to addiction.

The landmark court case could undo over 50 years of protections for disabled people and has mostly been circulated by disability activists among their own communities.

Section 504 protects people with disabilities from discrimination, ensuring equal opportunity access to receive benefits and services. This was the reason why people with disabilities were granted things like IEPs, therapy, ASL interpreters for people who are Deaf and Hard of Hearing, and other services needed to succeed in everyday life from a young age.

The states allege that the existing statute (which includes an update classifying gender dysphoria as a disability), is incorrect, arguing against a case in 1999, which said that persons with mental disabilities have the right to live outside of mental institutions and that the new definition goes against the Americans with Disabilities Act.

While they say that this is a protection of the ADA, they use later points in the lawsuit to say that section 504 is unconstitutional, alleging that it is “untethered to the federal interest in disability” while seeking “Permanent injunctive relief against Defendants enjoining them from enforcing section 504.” It is not a stretch to believe that if Section 504 is repealed or otherwise depleted, then the next thing legislators will go after is the ADA itself.  

And this is where questions must be asked of the general public. Those people you know who feel compelled to tell disabled people that we “Inspire them.” There are 17 states in this lawsuit. Texas, Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, and West Virginia are the states in question, with many people who probably think that these types of comments are well-intentioned.

It’s time for them to actively show how inspiring we are to them, and take a stand to protect our futures, instead of saying this to us in public in the name of doing a good deed.

To that end, when I hear about legislation like this, mixed with what we in the disability community call “inspiration porn”, or fluff stories in the media that depict a disabled person overcoming insurmountable odds, often with the aid of a non-disabled counterpart, to make themselves feel good, I am constantly reminded of a track from Kendrick Lamar’s album Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers entitled “Savior”.

The track is a critique of the people who use the lens of prominent black artists, activists, and athletes, including Lamar himself, to push a public stance of being against racism without doing any of the work themselves to look introspectively into how they can dismantle their own private misgivings about black people, I find my own experiences with people who seek to uplift disabled peoples’ wins and joy for their own gain and watching people we respect, especially our family members, voting for people who would pass legislation that harms us, as a key take away from the track.

While it is important to see the success stories of people with disabilities, it is also important to note that we struggle with the same issues that our non-disabled counterparts do, and in many examples of “inspiration porn”, this is not discussed.

Nor do we have discussions on the importance of helping your disabled neighbors when a camera, a check, or some other incentive is not in front of you. Living with a disability comes with its own trials and tribulations on top of the everyday stressors, and these success stories can be few and far between.

It is as equally important to help disabled people in everyday life as you would any other neighbor, and not just because they are disabled. This is something that comes to mind in the lyric “One protest for you / 365 for me”. 

Unfortunately, as he says in the introduction of the song “Kendrick made you think about it, but he is not your savior / [J. Cole] made you feel empowered, but he is not your savior.” many people only think about disabled people if they are directly impacted by disability within their family, and certainly not when they cast their votes at the ballot box.

However, they will not think twice about coming up to us in their local Walmart and compliment us on how great we’re doing while we exist in public spaces. The biggest example of this is from older people, who lived through a time when the “Ugly Laws” led to the institutionalization and public isolation of disabled people before the Rehab Act and ADA were passed. 

These laws were pressured when the Rehab Act was passed in 1973 but section 504, granting disabled people freedom from discrimination, was not enacted until 1977, before which there were many public demonstrations.

 This included the famous 504 Sit-In, led by the “mother of the disability rights movement” Judy Heumann, amongst others such as Kitty Cone and Mary Jane Owen, who occupied the offices of Health and Human Services in San Francisco. Other demonstrations also began in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., and Seattle, but the ones in D.C. and San Francisco were the most successful, the latter lasting 25 days. Given her death in 2023, it feels especially striking that Heumann is not here to protect what she helped build, and thus it feels like the ones who would mean us harm are moving in steadily as one of our biggest champions can no longer help protect us.

As Lamar says, for some, those who voted for these people feel like they’re “posing as compassionalists” who will say one thing to ease their conscience in public and vote in their own self-interest, without the care it takes to have the forethought for what the ideals held by their chosen candidate can have on communities in dire need of support such as what section 504, and the ADA at large protect, and are “Heroes looking for the villains to help.”

This is by no means to say that we do not need allies. Many of us with disabilities rely on family members or friends to help us live our daily lives, which of course do sometimes include forms of protest.

 The activists spreading the news regarding Texas v. Becerra are asking us along with our caregivers and family and friends, to contact our local legislators demanding they drop out of the case. Like the landmark achievements of the disabled civil rights movement before us, we require aid from outside of our own community.

However, time and again, we have been shown that it is down to us to be self-advocates, despite the well-intentioned people who we “inspire every day” because ultimately, we can rely on no one but ourselves to prove our worthiness as people, even as we are forced to live in a world that makes the minimum amount of effort to allow us the freedom and space to do so.

Kendrick Lamar himself is not perfect, and his art reflects a person who has spent years learning to accept and welcome things he cannot change. Though that in itself speaks to the struggles of those with disabilities, as acceptance of those things, and even change as a concept, is more often than not thrust upon us more than any other group of people in the world.

While it may be well-intentioned, the “inspiration” you get from disabled people must be backed up by your decisions in everyday life, from the way you include us in stories, to ensuring your public spaces are accessible, to the way you vote at the ballot box. 

After all, everyone is one accident away from being disabled themselves and knowing firsthand the struggles that are associated with living as one of us. 

In the face of mounting legislation that seeks to erase us from society, every decision we make must be with this in mind.

DREDF’s page on the legislation can be found here, with a simple explainer of the case and action items, such as ways to contact your local Attorney General to demand they remove your state from the case.

Lyrics from “Savior” copyright Kendrick Lamar, PgLang, Top Dawg Entertainment, and UMG.