I'm with Stupid

People are so funny.
I was at the Rehabilitation Institute this afternoon for a Peer Volunteer in-service meeting, and after we got done viewing the videos and worksheets Carrie, our volunteer coordinator, put together for us, she opened up the meeting to see what we'd been up to over the past months, in terms of how our visits were going, what was bugging us, etc.

I was going to bring up a new experience with hidden disabilities, and then, a fellow volunteer, "Mr. G," I'll call him, said that he thought there should be handicapped parking spots only for people in wheelchairs, because he "never sees anyone with a disability at Target."

Gasp. This from my own "community!"

Now maybe the meaning behind his statement is legitimate. Maybe he feels as if he can't find a spot and doesn't see many other people using wheelchairs to get around. I can understand that. But that does NOT mean that every "upright" citizen is a non-disabled individual. Just because some of us in the disabled community don't look it doesn't mean there aren't issues there.

I was so pissed. I don't ever park in those spots, realizing that someone else with a far greater disability than my vision problems or seizure-tasticness might need the spot, but the fact of the matter is that he was being just as discriminatory and ignorant as any of the people who prevented the ADA from becoming a reality decades ago. In that moment, he was one of the people who he had just berated moments ago.

I'm putting together a presentation to orient people to the idea of hidden disabilities and educate them on avoiding situations exactly like this one, so this whole discussion totally surprised me. We had been talking about the 18th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act being signed into law on July 26, 1990, and how shocking it is that only for 18 years have the disabled been "given" their right to equality. And then there he sat, generalizing, in saying that my ability to get around without obvious distress meant I couldn't park in that spot, should I need to. I would never assume what a day in his chair is like, so how could he even make that sort of statement, about what a day inside another's eyes or ears or mental cognition could be?

I'm having a hard time putting this presentation together, mostly because I don't know where to begin in terms of disability education, I don't want to be redundant, and I also don't know who to target as an audience.

I was thinking it would be those people who are completely ignorant to the idea of any disability, but now I see that I'm going to have to include those who already know what discrimination is like. Having spent some time mulling it over this afternoon, now instead of still being entirely fired up over it (although a little peevey still, yes), I've come to the conclusion that no matter how far anyone struggling for equal rights has come, there are always more people to reach. Even within the front lines, as it turns out.