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ORIGINAL: MistressDarkArt

quote:

ORIGINAL: DesFIP

The difference between someone temporarily having a broken arm and someone permanently in a wheelchair is that the disabled are looked past. People don't make eye contact with them.

Part of it is our own squeamishness, then there's the natural uncomfortableness of not knowing what to say, similar to speaking to a newly bereaved.

As a result, they are marginalized. When someone who is totally ignored, when even sales clerks turn to the accompanying friend to ask what size and don't acknowledge a request by a chair bound person, then to have someone like Lookie come up and talk and ask their help improving the accessibility advice is empowering.

I see where the disconnect is between my statement, Lookie's, and yours. I'm neither squeamish nor uncomfortable around disabled people. 18 years in student health care and 25 years of working with dementia patients and developmentally disabled adults may have something to do with that. I don't ignore or marginalize disabled people; I extend the same courtesy that I would to anyone including keeping my nose out of their business.

I choose to lower rent to and essentially foster a developmentally disabled adult because she would be homeless if I didn't. I sure as hell never asked my tenant 'hey, why do you act like an eleven year old when you're 49? Were you born that way or did you have a brain injury?'

Just like I wouldn't walk up to someone I didn't know and ask, 'hey, are you wearing a wig or is that your real hair?' or 'is that a birthmark all over your face or scars from a chemical spill?' I sure as hell wouldn't ask, 'hey, how'd you get in that chair, bub?'

Beyond hello and the same warm smile I give most everyone, it's really none of my business. If after that, someone wants to explain their circumstances, fine. I respect their decision to pursue that conversation or not, but I don't want to make them uncomfortable by starting it.

And btw, it's quite likely I'll be dancing in a sling into my foreseeable future. I might as well just get an embroidered t-shirt like LGH suggests so folks can read my story instead of me getting pushed to tell it 250 times in a 3-hour dance evening.

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ORIGINAL: angelikaJ


In John Hockenberry's memoir: Moving Violations, he writes about how being in a wheelchair made him invisible.

I think that the simple hello and warm smile can go a long way toward reducing that invisibility.

And it isn't intrusive.

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ORIGINAL: Rawni

That is when I would say... I am eighty six years old, but look young for my age. I guess you can understand disabilities you cannot see... as you look like you have a brain... but clearly what you say proves that you don't. Wanna ride?

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ORIGINAL: DesFIP

The difference between someone temporarily having a broken arm and someone permanently in a wheelchair is that the disabled are looked past. People don't make eye contact with them.

Part of it is our own squeamishness, then there's the natural uncomfortableness of not knowing what to say, similar to speaking to a newly bereaved.

As a result, they are marginalized. When someone who is totally ignored, when even sales clerks turn to the accompanying friend to ask what size and don't acknowledge a request by a chair bound person, then to have someone like Lookie come up and talk and ask their help improving the accessibility advice is empowering.

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ORIGINAL: LittleGirlHeart

a custom embroidered t shirt, stating something like say for example I am deaf, get my attention before talking to me.

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ORIGINAL: ElectraGlide

I have no problem with people parking in Handicap spots that need them, its the people that do not need them that park in them and deprive handicap people of the parking spot. When some putz by him or herself with no one else in the car parks there and runs in and out of the store like a Boston Marathon runner it irks me.