When "disability awareness" rings hollow

On 15 October 2025, the Western Cape Network on Disability sent an open letter to Councillor Tami Jackson, calling out her remark during a City of Cape Town Urban Mobility meeting where she expressed shock that Dial-a-Ride users could use the service to visit family or go to the beach. It is now 3 November, and we have received no response. Not from Councillor Jackson, nor from anyone in the City.

As Disability Rights Awareness Month begins, the contrast could not be sharper. Every November, the public narrative fills with glossy slogans about inclusion, photo-ops with officials, and panels about “empowerment”. Yet when disabled people challenge actual discrimination, when we point out ableism at the policy table, there is silence.

Councillor Jackson's comment, unchallenged and neatly recorded in the official minutes, reflects a culture where ableist thinking goes unchecked because it is so normalised. It reveals how comfortably society still views disabled people's social lives, leisure, and autonomy as non-essential luxuries, a mindset that seeps into governance itself.

This month should not be about symbolic awareness or corporate hashtags. It should be about dismantling the very attitudes that make such remarks possible. Awareness without accountability is empty performance. Until decision-makers understand that freedom of movement and the right to community life are constitutional, not optional, we will continue to see discrimination disguised as “budgetary prudence”. And as long as disabled voices aren't included, and no one speaks up in those rooms, that ableism will remain invisible to everyone except those living under it.

Until we see a cultural shift at all levels of our society, Disability Awareness Month will only be about talking — not enacting — inclusion, taking photos, and tokenism.