Room G26

This is an excerpt from an assignment I did a few years ago. The project discusses the dynamics of physical space and disability, and set the tone for how I have viewed the power of communication ever since.

Room G26

I walk into Room G26 of the Annenberg School for Communication on August 26th, 2019. It’s the first class on the first day of my freshman year at USC. I arrive early so my aide and I can sort out any snafus before someone sees us. I have been told by my disability services specialist that everything has already been set up, the classroom has been checked for potential issues, and there’s no reason I should be worried, other than the typical freshman jitters. I don’t believe him.

When we arrive, I plan on entering the classroom alone. However, when my aide opens the door (it’s too heavy otherwise), I realize there’s no way to handle the slope leading to the bottom of the room alone, not to mention the absence of an accessible table that I was promised would be waiting for me. Hesitantly, I ask my aide to guide me down, as, from experience, I know that my arm will break if I attempt it myself. I don’t need another issue to solve today.

I meet my new professor, who is apologetic, kind, and helpful. He shakes my aide’s hand before he does mine. He offers to call someone for the table, and I quickly remark how I can make it work without one today. I am embarrassed at the fact that I am already needing extra attention from him more so than I am upset at the situation. We secure a makeshift table and I’m excited for class to start. My high school teachers taught me to speak up and make my voice heard because that’s how you learn. So I raise my hand. But the area where the accessible seating is, in relation to the professor and where he stands, plus the disadvantage of my short arms, makes it almost impossible for him to see me. I take a deep breath. It’s fine. I am so excited to be here.

Things develop a sense of normalcy and weeks pass. We discuss the dimensions of race, gender, class, and sexuality in society, and the various movements people negatively impacted by their identities have created as a response. We discuss the power dynamics of spaces, and how we need to start in this very classroom with being inclusive and notice the history of how these spaces came to be, and who they are for. We talk about the 3rd floor and the 1950s movie posters of white male superheroes that line its walls. What does that say about who was seen as desirable during that time at Annenberg? I am fascinated, and I anxiously wait to get to the portion of the class where we talk about the impact of disability in spaces such as Annenberg. Yet, lecture after lecture, it is never coming up. I’ve always known how different my experience in the classroom, as well as out of it, is from my fellow classmates. But I had never thought about what it said about the institution I was in.

There is a trash can in front of the elevator button, and I am unable to reach across it. I am late for class because I am stuck in the restroom, waiting for someone to come along and open the door so I can exit. I injure myself halfway through the lecture and leave to take care of myself. When I return, I notice the sign-in sheet has already made it back to the bottom of the lecture hall. I don’t have the energy to ask someone to help me down the slope after class where the paper lies. I am marked absent that day.

Day after day, I sit there and start to get frustrated. I see hypocrisy and exclusion in the conversations but I am scared to say something because I don’t want to be that girl in the wheelchair talking about how she’s the girl in the wheelchair. I already draw attention, and I don’t need more. And I don’t think it’s my job to educate people. But then I remember that I made it to this classroom.

That day, as I entered the campus for the first time, I sat at the intersection of Royal Street and Jefferson Boulevard. To the right, I see the Shrine Auditorium. In the front, there is a statue of a Shriner holding a sick child, smiling. It just so happens that the doctors at Shriners Hospital are the ones who saved my life 18 years ago. They are the ones who have splinted every bone, taught me how to take every step, and made me strong enough for college to even be a possibility. To the left, I see the school of my dreams, the place I, and so many other people, have worked tirelessly to get me to.

I can’t help but see the symbolism. How the organization on the right, which was home to so many tears and pain and lessons over the years is the reason the place on the left is possible. And how the buildings on the left (USC) will give me the tools to learn how to further help make change, and help places like Shriners. I think about how I made it. Yet, if I want to be a professor at Annenberg one day, I won’t be able to teach in G26. I won’t be able to physically make it up on the stage. It is not a space that was created for me. It was created for the able-bodied, just as Annenberg was once only intended for the white, male superheroes of tomorrow.

My name is Rachel Roitman. I am 18 years old. There are many things to know about me. I am a daughter, a sister, a student, a friend. I also go about the world in the body of a four-year-old, with bones like glass, scars that tell more stories than my words ever will, and a wheelchair that has traveled more miles than any skateboard I’ve ever seen going down Trousdale Parkway. I was born with the most severe form of brittle bone disease, Osteogenesis Imperfecta, usually lethal shortly after birth. I have broken over 350 bones, most fractures occurring as a result of normal activities: eating an oatmeal cookie (broken jaw), hiccups (fractured hip), putting ketchup on a hot dog (shattered wrist), and so on. Life itself is hazardous for me, leading me to have a unique relationship with spaces, as both my body and the world, have never been set up for me to thrive in.

Yet, I’ve made it here, through all these obstacles. I’ve never held myself back, and I hope Annenberg won’t either. I don’t think it will. But it needs to do better.