Pressing the handicapped button on the Campus Center wall while strategically negotiating an interview and lunch, a person would never guess that Christopher Dwight Benedict, aka DJ Chris, was pronounced dead at birth.
“My mother died from an aneurism before I was born,” Benedict explained. “The doctors had to perform an emergency caesarean section on her and CPR on me to bring me back to life.”
Benedict,23, is a City College student earning a certificate in Multimedia Arts Technology and Sound Design. He owns a disc jockey business and is a motivational speaker.
He is one of many students who have surpassed the physical and mental limitations of their handicap through determination and the help of The Disabled Student Programs and Services.
As a result of his traumatic ordeal at birth, Benedict suffers from a form of cerebral palsy, that affects his speech and ability to walk. His motorized wheelchair functions as his legs. “Sometimes it’s hard, because other people have two legs and I have wheels,” Benedict said referring to the unaccommodating sidewalks in Santa Barbara.
But DJ Chris is not complaining or frowning. Instead, he is making people dance. “I can play music right on my wheel chair,” Benedict said. He DJ’s dances, graduations, dinner parties and other social functions.
Benedict is well known around campus. “Chris is my dog,” Akil Hill, a City College administrator said. Benedict has a story to tell, and is telling it by being a motivational speaker.
“I am completing a video about my life and doing speeches to show people what it is like to have cerebral palsy,” Benedict said. Benedict is originally from Boise, Idaho. He moved to Santa Barbara to live with his grandparents when he was an infant.
“At the time my father was too overwhelmed to take care of me,” he said. In high school, Benedict enrolled in a transition program that helped him make the move from high school to college.
The transition program connected him with DSPS, The Disabled Student Programs and Services, at City College.
“DSPS has leveled the playing field for me,” Benedict said. He said that he feels DSPS program helped him academically, but there is room for more. He also expressed his desire to see the program do more to accommodate people with physical disabilities.
It is difficult for him to get around campus sometimes, yet he continues to seek out and apply for the services he needs. When discussing the stigma that surrounds the relationship between reaching out for assistance and disabilities, Benedict commented, “you have to risk facing embarrassment. If you don’t risk in life you will regret it.”
Benedict does not see his disability as the defining characteristic that makes him Christopher Dwight Benedict. “I don’t like the word disabled because it stereotypes people,” he said. “I prefer physically challenged or handicapped because everyone has their own limitations.”
His limitations are not stopping him from aspiring to become a sound engineer. “I am living my dream by continuing to do what I am doing,” he said.
“If you have a handicap, I believe that it is for a reason. It’s not by accident,” he said. Benedict says you have to continue to advocate for yourself and others by living your life, just go out and do what you can, Benedict says.
