According to my friends, I am a twenty-six-year-old male who is funny, charming,
and intelligent. Apart from these traits, I do have one that makes me stand out
from the crowd. I have a disability. It is known as cerebral palsy. This is not
a life-threatening disability, but it does limit my movements and other
activities in my life. I am currently going for a master’s degree in education
and hold two bachelor’s degrees, one in history and one in the theater. By many
people’s standards, I would be considered well on my way. However, there are
still obstacles I must overcome.
As I’ve stated before, in 1990, a piece of legislation was introduced known as
the Americans with Disabilities Act. This Act attempted to eliminate as many
barriers to inclusion in society for people with disabilities as possible. It
specifically focused on five areas, which included making it easier for people
to seek public education, making it easier for people to get into public
buildings, improving communication opportunities, improving access to the job
market for people with disabilities, and the broad-sweeping term “miscellaneous
provisions” 1. Because of this Act,
life for persons with disabilities has improved tremendously. However, federal
legislation cannot influence one aspect of life, that of social interaction and
acceptance.
From an early age, a child is interested. Babies explore their environment,
testing and prodding the world they have been born into. Humans are not born
with any preconceived notions about one another; I believe that they develop
them based on the environment and society they are raised in. In my twenty-six
years in this great country, I have never been judged by a five-year-old. It is
more often their parents that do the judging. The five-year-old is merely curious
when he or she may ask their parents, “Mommy or Daddy, why is that person in a
wheelchair? What is wrong with them?” These questions do not bother me. The
parents respond that baffle me. Several months ago, I was at a local mall when
the same situation occurred, and I distinctly could hear a parent react to the
same question with the following, “Honey, be quiet. Don’t ask that. That’s
rude.” Is it rude? Or, as my friend said to me and as I truly believe, have we
as a society become so comfortable walking on eggshells that we are afraid to
ask questions because we might offend someone?
In my head, I would much prefer the parent’s response to the child’s question
to have gone as follows, “I don’t know, why don’t you go ask him?” The ability
to question is what makes us human. It is how we learn. But we are taught from
such a young age not to question and not know that bias and fear of difference
are ingrained in us by the time we develop into young people and adults. This
thought can be seen on my college campus.
I currently go to a school in the Northwestern part of PA, and it is a reasonably
good school. But, it is here where the idea that society has become so
politically correct that it would rather be ignorant than knowledgeable has
been reinforced. There are three key areas which disturb me. The first of which
can occur when I am merely rolling around on campus with friends. It’s gotten
to the point where we make a game out of counting how many people stare at us.
Let me explain first by saying, typically, I hang around with females. Not due
to any other reason, except I tend to get along with them better. Most of my
friends are “friends.” There are only two or three that I would like to date,
but somehow everyone who sees me with any of my friends either looks at us like,
“Aww, I feel so bad for that young man and what an incredible person that girl
is for helping him.” Or “I wonder, are they dating?” Forgive me for being so
blunt. It got so wrong when my friend and I counted thirty people staring at us
in two hours. Maybe I missed the memo, and maybe staring is the new en-vogue
thing, but I don’t recall staring at every other person I roll by as if they
were something I have seen before.
The second thing that bothers me has to do with communicating with people daily.
Most of the people I interact with can tell that I'm reasonably intelligent
within the first few minutes of our conversation. I do not go around quoting
the dictionary, but I do have a large vocabulary. I say most can tell that I'm reasonably
intelligent. The people that make me want to pull my hair out are those people
that make me feel as if I am mentally challenged just because I am in a chair.
My favorite example of this occurs nearly every time I go out to a restaurant.
Let me set the scene: I sit there with a group of friends or my family holding
a conversation and looking over what I want to eat when the waiter or waitress
comes by to take everyone's order. They will go around the table, and when it
is my turn, they tend to look at the person next to me for my order instead of
me. If that does not happen, they tend to raise their voice and say the
following, “well, what would you like, dear” (in a booming voice). I am not
deaf. I do have terrible vision and, by my admission, am a really bad driver
and run into more objects than I care to admit, but not being able to hear is
not a flaw of mine. Indeed, some say that I hear way too well. When someone
speaks at me like I am completely deaf, I am often tempted to respond with a
snotty unsuspected comment. I’ve only done this once or twice, but let’s say it
catches them off guard. Every time one of these exchanges occurs, I am baffled
and more and more frustrated with society. Just because someone has a physical
disability does not mean they are deaf and mentally deficient. The above two
examples are annoying and frustrating when you are disabled; however, they pale
compared to my third pet peeve.
I am sure others can relate to me when I say that family and love are human
desires regardless of physical appearance or ability. I, as a disabled
individual, am no different. I am twenty-six, pretty successful academically
and intellectually, making people laugh, and I have a decent personality. The
one thing I don’t have is someone to look past my disability and love me for
me. Some who may read this might say not everyone in their twenties finds
someone, and with that, I fully agree; however, it is magnified ten-fold when
you are in a wheelchair or have a disability. Not only does it seem one gets
snubbed on the relationship front, but also many of the most common social
interactions, the able-bodied community, from my perspective, does not know how
to or feel comfortable with integrating the disabled community. A key example
will be if I ask someone to go and do something. They will often give me a
cursory sure, we definitely should, but then inevitably, they will blow me off
for some reason or another. Don’t get me wrong. I understand that this is a
problem related to my generation and the able-bodied community interaction with
disabled individuals. But I am sure if you ask other individuals with
disabilities, you will find that it tends to happen a great deal more
frequently to individuals with disabilities than their able-bodied
counterparts.
In the same vein, whenever an individual happens to catch my eye on a romantic
level, more often than not, I am rejected and not for your typical reasons. The
most common sense I get is, “you’re a great guy, but I can’t date you because
you’re in a wheelchair.” Not only is that reason baffling to me, but it is also
infuriating. I can’t tell you how many girls I played an emotional therapist or
boyfriend in my life. Still, as soon as I want actually to pursue something on
a romantic level, they finally realize, “Oh, wait for a second, he’s in a
chair.”
All my rantings may have come off as complaining. However, I hope they haven’t
because my purpose in writing this article is to bring to light an issue that
many people are aware of but choose to ignore or make light of. Society in the
twenty-first century is no different than it was in earlier times. Yes, we are
now not dealing with bus boycotts or million man marchers, but it is clear that
we are still fighting a silent battle. The disabled community and people who
are outside your typical WASP America, in general, are fighting a war against
difference. The disabled community’s voice was heard loud and clear in 1990,
but it is about time our voice was heard once again.
Footnotes:
1.
http://www.bu.edu/cpr/reasaccom/whatlaws-adaact.html
