> while someone with a placard pulls in and walks in - clearly a cheat
As you've also mentioned, I can't stress this enough - you don't have to look handicapped to have a disability.
Some people with disabilities can walk - but with difficulty. Some people with disabilities can't walk very far. Some people with disabilities can walk most of the time - but sometimes, their legs go out from under them, and why-the-hell-should-we-not-just-give-them-the-handicapped spot?
Both my mother, and my mother-in-law have disabilities. They suffer through them - and if it weren't for my mother-in-law's cane, at first glance, you wouldn't know.
> Do you know what The Disabled community call the rest of us? The Not Yet Disabled
A few years ago I was on crutches for about six months and there's nothing like first-hand experience to realize just how important those accommodations are.
I'm not sure why. If he could perform a better job, he wouldn't have been a grocery store bagger. That he has found himself there strongly suggests that his "handicap" affects his life in such a way as we might expect.
It was a blunt comment but I did not find it disrespectful. Sometimes it is necessary not to beat around the bush as non-disabled people tend to do when dealing with topics to do with disability or accessibility.
>He uses a wheelchair but it’s a prop as he was found out to be able to walk.
I don't know anything about this guy specifically but I just want to point out many wheelchair users have some ability to stand and walk. Merely having the ability to walk doesn't necessarily mean someone's wheelchair is a "prop" or unnecessary.
>By the way, though I hate the clunkiness of terminology like "people with disabilities", I think it's justified in this case. For me, the word "disabled", particularly in the context of employment, has the connotation of being unable to be productive. Some people's disabilities are severe enough that that's true of them, but that's not all of us, not by a long shot. Maybe I'm being over-sensitive about that, but I'm just telling you how I see it, for what it's worth.
*This is not aimed at the OP
I'm just going to go off on a tangent with you here 100%! I hate it when people say that I'm "wheelchair-bound" and I'm TOTALLY oversensitive to it, and I'm probably oversensitive to because the whole world is aggressively designed to make my life difficult. Not intentionally, there (probably) isn't some anti-disabled cabal going around making pavements uneven but when you live in a world that is hostile to you it's very easy to get sensitive to the language people use. Words have meanings. And I don't really care, I think we should band together and bann the word disabled. I think we should disable it.
By the way, the Germans have a great saying, they use "wheelchair driver". Now that I like.
The main point of this article is to inspire a bit more empathy and consideration for those with disabilities. He knows he's privileged, and that the 4/5 people who aren't currently disabled (by Sarah's count) are too; he's trying to help the 4/5 see themselves in the 1/5, too. Doesn't feel constructive to call him out for it
> I'm not pointing out folks with disabilities. I'm talking about perfectly healthy adults who seem to have no sense of awareness around them.
Careful. It's easy to overlook disabilities that may not be immediately externally visible.
I have a friend who's heavily dyslexic. You'd never know it if you ran into her on the street; she's quite successful in her career. Yet she uses voice dictation when sending text messages because it's an order of magnitude less time and cognitive effort for her to write something out that way.
I tend to think the world would be a better place if we were all just a little bit less judgemental of things we see others doing that we can't immediately explain.
Thanks FollowingTheDao, this guy indeed needed the tough love that you provided. Their certainly was "Disability Porn" in his post. I suppose you get a free pass because you are disabled yourself, god forbid if a able bodied person said it.
I don't know the details of this. But I want to emphasise that a lot of disabled people may need to use wheelchairs for most movement, yet still be capable of standing. I hate that people automatically assumed he was a fraudster.
> So I imagine if you have a hidden disability, if you need accommodation, it's in your best interest for people to know that, so they can accommodate you.
In my experience, even if it is made known, people are less forgiving of non-visible disabilities and some that interact with the disabled individual less frequently may even forget that it exists. One may have to actively "display" their disability, even if they'd rather appear to be as normal as possible.
> I'm going to come out and say that this is no different than a person born without arms claiming that they're not disabled, that they're not damaged.
You might want to look at the social model of disability, because there are people who do say this. For example, wheelchair using disability rights campaigners have often said that their wheelchairs are not the problem, but the lack of ramps in shops and workplaces is what causes them to be disabled.
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