Being a new disability advocate,
I find myself continually plugged into various publications. One publication I
get news from is the American Association of People with Disabilities.
Every week they put out a handy newsletter entitled Disability Weekly.
In a recent issue in a segment
called In the News, they had a story about a mom who wrote a
somewhat controversial piece. Her piece was entitled My Child with a
Disability is not My Hero. As the title suggests, Miss Sarah Sweatt
Orsborn asserts that disabled people but disabled children are not heroes. At
first glance, even I, the non-politically correct writer, that I was taken
aback. However, after looking further into Miss Orsborn's premise, I have to
say I agree with her.
The premise of the article is quite
simple. Orsborn suggests that the term can be more harmful than
positive. From my perspective, as a disabled person, I cannot help
but agree. Every time I hear "Oh, you're so amazing," or
something of the like, I cringe. This occurs even when I listen to it from my
own family. How can I be fantastic for doing such everyday tasks such as
getting up in the morning and going to school? Every time someone comments on
these lines, I feel like it diminishes me as a person.
I am not saying that complimenting
someone for his or her accomplishments is a negative thing. I am realistic and
understand that we all have egos that need a little inflating now and then. The
point that Miss Orsborn and I are trying to make is that complementing somebody
is fine but merely complimenting them because of the obstacles they face
diminishes their self-worth and the work they have accomplished. Let me put it another
way; it is like saying that we did not expect you to set the bar so high for
yourself because you have this infliction. That not only causes a problem
individually, but it results in a group problem.
What is that group problem? Disabled
people as a whole have always expected less of themselves because society, in
general, expects less of them. If we begin this second-class citizen in the
doctor nation at an early age, it is no wonder disabled people set the bar so
low for them. I am a 27-year-old person with cerebral palsy who just
graduated with my master's in education. However, I did not graduate with teacher
certification, even though I had a 4.0 cumulative grade point average in the
program. So why am I not a certified teacher, one may ask?
Simply put, I listened to society
when they set the bar so low for me. Some at my school thought it was so
amazing that I was getting my masters, but they saw me as too disabled to teach
in a classroom. Even though it was not said directly, this was an example of
the hero complex. It's so amazing that I got so far; they did not expect me to
go any further and were unwilling to invest in me to help me do so. I should
have done not settle for such low standards, but I did, and I have learned from
it. It has helped me develop my voice as a disability advocate. It has also
taught me that as good intentioned as parents are, or even family members are
when they say to a disabled child, look how much you have accomplished with
what you have had to go through, this has to stop.
Based on their accomplishment, judge
their achievement, don't put a star beside it with a little footnote that said
he or she had a disability too. Changes in culture and society do not start in
Washington in the political arena. They begin with everyday people. If disabled
people and those who support them want to change the way disability is
perceived in this country, we have to start with ourselves. It is time that disabled
people's expectations are just as high as everyone else's because we may have
visible or not visible obstacles, but that doesn't make us any more or less of
a person.
