Wednesday, July 15, 2009

A disassociated minority

Many minorities a person is born in to. The disabled is one of the few expectations, you may be the only disabled in your family, church, school, job. When isolated like this it makes learning about a disabled path a very hard thing to do, and make one feel like they are stuck. When we do associate with others with disabilities it tends to be by type, the people with Cerebral Palsy joins Cerebral Palsy groups, Blind Joins blind groups, Deaf joins Deaf groups. We tend to associate with those that have our own needs. The main need we have is acceptance of our disability. And realize those with our type our disabled our needs may be closer associated with those with a different disability.

Scott Macintyre’s fans say 'American Idol's' first blind finalist doesn't need the pity vote, New York Daily News, 3/11/09. "When I saw the first show, I loved it - I wanted to be the first deaf person to do the race." Luke Adams Amazing Race 14. As a person with a disability I was proud to see to disabilities on the top reality shows in the spring of 2009. But with our minority when we see these stories its promoting the blind and deaf success, but does not move the disabled as a group forward. I highlighted these two but even promoting ourselves we say look at what people with our (disability) can do.

We as a population need to come together as the Disabled and not the blind, deaf, Cerebral Palsy and so on. In doing this we bring power and numbers to the table. As a different disabled groups we may have different health, and medical needs. However, as a group we have the same needs to help us achieve the American Dream.

1 comment:

  1. I never thought about the isolation of having a disability versus being a minority in ethnicity or class. And excellent point about needs maybe being more similar amongst person with other disabilities! We are so quick to rally behind appearances instead of taking time to go deeper and find more meaningful and effective connections. Great start to an important and progressive blog, Rob!

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