Stuttering isn’t shameful; advocates wrestle with how President Biden’s speech impediment is portrayed
Updated Feb 22, 2021;
Posted Feb 22, 2021
Aimee Sterk, left, laughs while she and her son Theo, 4, sit for a portrait in Jenison, on Wednesday, February 17, 2021. (Mike Mulholland | MLive.com)
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When negative comments are made about President Joe Biden’s stutter, it puts the ableism that people with disabilities, like Aimee Sterk and her son Theo, face everyday on a national scale.
Biden’s stutter has often been a point of criticism by political opponents who equate his disability with cognitive decline or dementia.
“It equates disability with being less than, and that a person with a disability can’t or shouldn’t be president or hold any position or job,” said Aimee Sterk, a program manager at the Michigan Disability Rights Coalition, who also has has mental and physical disabilities. “So, it is to me, it’s harmful to equate that his stutt