In the new Netflix show Raising Dion, two children with disabilities develop a friendship while navigating an inaccessible world. Dion is a Black child with ADHD and chronic asthma that transferred to a new school with a small Black community. Esperanza is a hilarious wheelchair user and artist who knows the ongoings at school and tries to build friendships where she can.
Through the relationship between Esperanza and Dion, the show destabilizes and challenges the typical representation of disability while also encouraging nuance, accountability and change. It reveals the possibility of friendship, accessibility and integrity in a world that requires both characters to be invisible and always out of place, and urges its viewers to change along with them.
Initially, Dion minimizes his friendship with Esperanza because he wants to be part of the cool crowd—both at his new school and with his old friend group. Dion tries to get the new kids to like him, and when that doesn’t work he tries to get his old friends to like him. At one point, he even lies to some of them—claiming that his mother made him invite Esperanza to his birthday party—to avoid being associated with her.
But over the course of the season, Dion’s friendship with Esperanza deepens and they become best friends. Esperanza also becomes the only other person who knows about Dion’s superpowers (outside of Dion’s mother Nicole and his godfather Pat).
When a teacher recognizes conflict in his classroom, he assigns another kid, Johnathan, to join Esperanza and Dion for the science fair, much to their chagrin. But after Dion develops a life-threatening fever, he is taken to the hospital and subsequently kidnapped by BIONA, a biotechnical firm that his deceased father worked at who has taken notice of his powers. While Dion is out of commission, Esperanza and Johnathan are forced to work on the science project alone and eventually begin to bond.
When Dion returns and notices the shift in dynamics between him and Esperanza, he feels left out and threatened by the possibility of losing her friendship. In an attempt to win his friend back, Dion leads Esperanza into an empty classroom and lifts her up out of her wheelchair with his powers under the suggestion that he can make her fly.
But Dion doesn’t ask Esperanza for permission or check to see if flying is one of her goals. He doesn’t force Esperanza to fly out of her wheelchair for her own good, he uses his powers to one-up Johnathan, who’s not even in the room, ultimately turning his friend’s disability into a prop/magic trick. Dion’s actions shift the nature of his relationship with Esperanza’s from one of belonging, accessibility and care to one that is centered around transaction, performance and possession.
Throughout the show, Esperanza calls Dion out on his ableism and encourages him to do better while navigating his own disabilities. When Esperanza first visits his room, she points out that the pillow fort he made is not accessible and he makes adjustments so that she’s able to enter it comfortably in her chair. After establishing that Esperanza would like assistance with opening doors, Dion does it without “making it weird” (A common saying that they have together). But when Esperanza appears to build a friendship with Johnathan, Dion reduces and disregards her agency.
After this incident, Dion has attracted the attention of a mysterious storm that has been killing people with superpowers. His mother, Nicole, takes him to a cabin for safety, fearing for his life and hers. Though they are in grave danger, Dion can’t get his mind off of what he did to Esperanza the following day.
Nicole tries to comfort her son by telling him Esperanza will forgive him, but Dion’s not convinced. He tries contacting Esperanza several times to apologize and she doesn’t respond. Finally, when Nicole shares a story about how his godfather Pat didn’t respect her wishes when she shared that she didn’t want to be in a relationship with him, things click for Dion.
“I think I didn’t respect Esperanza’s boundaries. I lifted her up out of her chair with magic. I thought she’d like it.”
“Well, did she ever talk about wanting to get out of her chair?” Nicole responds.
“No, but Jonathan is good at drawing like she is, and they play Zelda, but she was my friend first.”
Dion’s solution to re-animate his friendship with Esperanza came from a place of naivete and ableism, not unfamiliar from his previous behavior of distancing himself from her. The reason he pushed for that distance had a lot to do with the shame he felt navigating his own disabilities (and how his peers might perceive them). In both cases, Dion made the false assumption that disability was a thing to be fixed.
Once he speaks to Nicole, Dion realizes he’s engaging Esperanza just as his godfather Pat was to his mom, and that predatory behavior is nothing to idolize or mimic. Dion commits to using his powers to teleport back to the science fair and, more importantly, back to Esperanza, even though he knows the storm is after him.
He arrives just in time to apologize to Esperanza for being jealous of her and Johnathan and to show up for their team to present at the science fair. And when the Storm finally arrives to get Dion, Esperanza and Johnathan show up for him to help him fight it off. Their lives quite literally are saved by being in relationship with each other.
As a chronically ill person with an invisible disability, I’ve participated in and internalized ableism to the extent that when I am unable to “perform” a task, instead of extending care to myself I instead engage in self-punishment. But the show reminds us that perceiving disability as something that needs to be fixed or punished away is always unhelpful.
Taking accountability and admitting the harm we’ve committed against others is always worth the risk of shattering our fabricated personas. When we’re called to show up in more principled ways, it transforms our relationships and we become more honest and accessible people. We become softer. Raising Dion gives us a refreshing perspective on the ways children are able to build and imagine up dynamic and nuanced relationships that move towards freedom.
Suggested Readings:
Sami Schalk, Bodyminds Reimagined 2018.
Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice 2018.
Nalo Hopkinson, The New Moons Arms 2007.
Amber Butts is a writer, organizer, grief worker and educator from Oakland, CA who believes that Black folk are already whole. Her work centers Black children, Black mamas and Black elders. It asks big and small questions about how we move towards actualizing spaces that center tenderness, nuance and joy while living in a world reliant on our terror.
Amber comes from a long line of hairdressers, storytellers and loud women from The South. She likes cheese, comic books and sings off-key.
