Discover Top Posts Tagged with #ability awareness

I'm wasted on cross country. We CPs are natural sprinters.

#ability awareness #humor #cerebral palsy #lotr #nerdlife

My well-meaning friends with high expectations: You should work out more, it will make you feel better.

Me with chronic pain: Exercise gives me more energy, but I'm still miserable. So I feel like I can complain better, faster, and more emphatically.

#mood #disability life #ability awareness

Stop Fearing Disability

Today is International Persons with Disabilities Day (UN), and it’s been a long time since my last blog post, so I thought it would be fitting to share some thoughts I’ve had for quite some time now.

As a social work student, I have been inundated with messages of ofthe importance of diversity, “cultural competency”, and social equality for the past six years of my life. Given this, you would think my courses would have covered various populations who experience marginaliization due to race, ethnicity, culture, class, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, and disability. However, the term “diversity”has seemed to encompass race and culture (with some reference to the LGBTQ community at times) and typically only addresses class in conjunction with race. Very rarely has disability or ability come into conversation without me bringing it up myself, and if it does, it is in the context of mental illness. Just recently, a friend Identifying as a racialized woman living with a disability shared that she feels overwhelmed with the focus placed on race within the classroom and as though the intersectionality of having a disability is completely ignored. Now, I am not trying to advocate that any of these groups are more important or marginalized than the others, but I do strongly feel it is almost impossible for a social worker to never serve at least one individual living with some type of disability. So why is this topic not included in our curriculum?

Recently, I had the opportunity to participate in a Deliberative Dialogue with many insightful Individuals. One such person, Dr. Peter Rosenbaum, happened to bring up this question of mine. He asked, “Why do we not discuss matters of disability more often and openly?”In the same breath, he provided this simple answer, people are afraid of becoming disabled themselves. This made so much sense to me since anyone can develop or acquire a “disabling” condition at any point in their lifetime. With the exception of class, this cannot be said of any other marginalized group of people. Regardless,I am not content with this answer because it highlights an even bigger problem.

Why are people so afraid of acquiring a disability? Put simply, many have the perception that our lives are not worth living. Who could ever be happy being unable to dress themselves, communicate verbally, or understand social conventions? Honestly, millions of people. So many of us around the world live with such limitations (and way more) and we are happier and more fulfilled than many “able-bodied” people i know.This being said, there are plenty of individuals with disabilities who are not happy, but I believe this has much more to do with the conditions in which they live and their personal perspectives than their limitations. For those who identify with this group of people, and those of us who are content but still have really bad days because of disabling social conditions such as physical, technological, financial, and attitudinal barriers; quality of life could be improved greatly if the rest of society would just Just engage in conversations about disability with us. Imagine how much ignorance and discrimination could be eradicated through simple conversations and knowledge sharing.

I don’t want to speak for anyone else, but I am a very happy person who is leading an extremely meaningful and fulfilling life. Yes, I need help with many tasks most people take for granted, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. I have met so many amazing people and developed invaluable friendships, and these wouldn’t be in my life if I hadn’t needed help with something. So stop being afraid and start talking regardless of your background or area of study. You won’t only improve the lives of those of us with disabilities, but you could be saving yourself from a lot of pain and turmoil in the future.

#InternationalPersonsWithDisabilitiexDay #disability #ability awareness #disability positive #education

Ignorance knows no age: the diversity of slurs meant to shame diversity.

Today I was walking to the bus, enjoying the beautiful weather, and interacting with all the likeminded people doing the same. About 10 minutes down the road I hear bikes coming up behind me, so I concede the sidewalk momentarily for the greenery. Cyclists one and two pass me with thank yous. The third and youngest cyclist, about 14 or 15 in my estimation, passes me and looks back. I’m about to say have a good day when he speaks out: “You retarded?”

I must not have heard him clearly, because that would be archaic, so “Come again?” I respond.

“You retarded?” This time the question is unmistakable.

“Excuse you!” is all I say, expecting to kill the ignorant exchange…

“You retarded?” Third time is the charm At this point I have been walking the line between educator/role model and angry human being for what seems like hours but has only really been 3-4 seconds. There are choices we all sift through in imperceptibly small infinities: silence is one, being foul another, being informative the last. I don’t know when I decide to speak but I am aware that there is not much time before this boy crests the limit of the expanse he spreads before us, unable to hear me, so I must have made up my mind. “No, I am not. I have cerebral palsy. Retarded is a slur.”

I am surprised that I chose the informative route. I am surprised and yet not at the response: “you retarded.” It is not a question this time, it is a statement, sealed in its “authority” with a one finger salute.

I ride the bus now with a silent reel of film playing in loop that elicits a smile from me that none of the other passengers discern: moving aside for the boy only to stick a tree branch into his wheel, watching him eat dirt. But it plays to a mismatched soundtrack of my hopes.

“I pray to God that someone enters this boys life. Someone with authority. Someone who becomes his entire world, only to tell him that he behaves like an ignorant fool in the words that he uses to express himself, and that the world will treat him that way, without remorse or chances. I hope that this straightens him. Or otherwise I pray that God has already put someone in his life. Someone strong, like his mama, that (controversially to some) will lay him out with a passion before someone he meets on the street or the sidewalk, who wouldn’t think twice about him, laid him out.”

Strangely, both the film and the soundtrack are inadequate and dissatisfying in my mind. Both scenarios are out of my hands.

So I resolve that for this nameless, pitiless, mindless 14-year old boy that probably lives near me, that I will email the principal of the local middle school and organize an ability awareness presentation. And if I pick him out of the crowd, he will be the first person I offer a wheelchair and a basketball to and say “how about some one-on-one?”

#ability #ability awareness #disability #slurs #education #awareness #r-word #mine