^^ Dated 02/07/2017
^^ Current thread.
Were these the same event Ambivalid? Because they sound identical to me…
Wheelchairs dude. Wheelchairs. They need much more room to pass that just a regular able bodied person.
Yep. Lol. I simply forgot I had made that thread. I made this one because the subject came up in discussion in my real life and I wanted to extend it here. Not a big deal, is it? I simply forgot.
I should have done my due diligence prior to starting this one. Mea culpa.
Yeah, I get that, come on, I’m not a moron 
I’m just trying to understand what you are saying. A guy pulls open a door, you can’t get in a single door or what? If he’s standing and pulling the door open, how is he in the way?
If it’s a push door, then the person goes in first and then pulls the door open.
If people don’t do this, then I would agree with your anger at morons who don’t know how to open doors.
Nah, no biggie. I was just curious as to whether it had happened TWICE with exactly the same scenario.
I wouldn’t put it past the possible. hahaha
What you don’t understand is that what wheelchair users (and other handicapped people go through) is orders of magnitude worse than what you experience.
It’s also a tip of the iceberg thing. People who think you are incompetent for something as basic as opening a door, or you knowing whether or not you are even capable of opening a door, are likely to think you are incompetent in other areas. That affects a LOT of other stuff - employment, whether or not they’re rent to you, whether or not medical personnel listen to you or tell you everything you need to know or treat you fairly.
Basically, you are suffering from a lack of empathy. You seem unable to see this from another person’s perspective sufficiently to comprehend that their life experience is very, very different from yours.
C’mon Broomstick, does it have to degenerate into a competition as to who is the most hard done-by? :dubious:
Yes, we’ve heard a number of times that Ambi has issues with being ignored in his requests. And quite a few other posters have chimed in with their instances of the same.
But you seem to be just confirming the ‘lesser status’ of people with disabilities with your comments, by selecting them out for special consideration here. Is that the agenda you really want to push?
Not a wheelchair user, but having both helped people going in and out with everything from wheelchairs to walkers to scooters to canes to crutches … in all of those instances the person using a mobility aid needs more clearance than someone able-bodied. Which is fine if the door-holder understands that and makes allowances for the needed clearance, but a lot of people don’t know or don’t comprehend that. So while they are holding the door they are also partially blocking the door, which makes going through it more difficult.
This is particularly bad for the wheelchair/door combo because it’s not uncommon for there to be little clearance anyway - wheelchairs are wider than people sitting in them. So… you already have a door with minimal clearance and then some “helpful” dork is partially blocking it with his body… No, it’s not easier.
Most doorways are large enough so both the door holder and door user can stand in the entrance, even if in some circumstances it’s a bit tight. The average door is not wide enough to allow this to happen with a wheelchair in the mix. Or many walkers or scooters.
If I got any of that wrong I’m sure a chair user will correct me.
I think you have totally mis-read my posts.
People with disabilities suffer from discrimination and prejudice, just like any other minorities. What Manson is doing is doing is invalidating someone else’s perceptions - oh, it’s can’t be that bad! I don’t experience it, so it doesn’t happen! - that sort of thing. It’s like men who don’t get why women don’t want wolf-whistles and lewd comments as they walk down the street, or who don’t understand why sexual harassment is bad.
Ambivalid doesn’t want “special” consideration, he wants equal consideration, to be treated as a competent adult. He’s not getting it. When he complains about it, he’s told that his perceptions are wrong. I think they call that “gas lighting”. Or something close to it.
As an “old(er)” person, I have no doubt whatsoever that I would be looked at adversely if I was looking for work. Don’t know about rent. Medical personnel treat me (and presumably other “regular” people) with high-handed disregard, I don’t think every handicapped person can claim they are “different” in that regard.
It doesn’t have to be “worse” than everybody else to be valid. Being disregarded and subjected to rudeness is something to complain about, whether you are handicapped or “fully functional”. That others may or may not have experienced the same thing really doesn’t change how it feels (although I think that it could be helpful to realise that others have to put up with “stuff” too and that you aren’t alone or singled out). Old(er) people and immigrants can also get treated like morons regardless of their abilities.
And I think you’ve mis-read Manson1972’s posts. From my reading, he hasn’t challenged that bad things have happened to Ambivalid, just the reactions that Ambi has spoken about here in this very thread.
IOW, lots of folks, disabled, minorities, women (pick a group) get to deal with all sorts of shit sometimes on a daily basis. But losing YOUR shit every time it happens, especially when the perp of the ‘shit’ might not know any better, or is acting in good faith or what the hell ever can end up making YOU look like the idiot instead of the ‘perp’.
But your posts are giving Ambi free reign, just BECAUSE he has a disability. Isn’t that a sort-of reverse discrimination?
I see no reason to think Amivalid is “losing his shit” every time this happens. He’s coming here to vent, but when he does - griping on an anonymous message board instead of screeching in real life - he gets told he’s losing his shit. He’s not. He’s bitching where it’s not going to hurt anyone and I for one see nothing wrong with using the internet as an outlet for frustration.
No, I’m not giving him free rein - there have been times I’ve told him he’s out of line. But it is a fact that disabled folks get MORE of this treatment and they get it MORE OFTEN, than able-bodied people. Just as black folks have more issues with the police, women have more issues with sexual harassment, and so on and so forth. It’s enough of a difference that no, I don’t think the average able-bodied person really understands. That’s my belief based on being married to someone disabled for decades, where I got to see this shit up close and personal.
Part of the “angry guy in wheelchair” phenomena is that a formerly able-bodied person is now having to deal with this aggravation AND with people saying “no big deal” AND people saying “suck it up - we all have problems”. Sure, we all have problems, but we don’t all have that particular problem. And it’s constant. There is no escape. There is no mobility aid or prosthesis or other gizmo to fix the constant unconscious bias that infantalizes and relegates to second-class status disabled people.
Nor are many others. Look young for your age? You’ll be bossed around because you “don’t know anything yet”. Look old? You’ve lost your marbles and need to condescended to. Female? you need a man to “step in”. Foreign? You can’t be trusted, you can’t even speak the language properly… Maybe you are not being treated well just because the other person is a complete dickhead.
Saying that there are others who aren’t treated as competent adults isn’t minimising what Ambi has to put up with on a daily basis. It’s just trying to add some perspective.
While we can’t control (or always control) how other people behave towards us, we can try to control our reactions to these annoyances, and knowing that you are not the only one being singled out may help not to let it get to you so much.
In your position the first time, I’d probably have felt mildly annoyed. The four hundredth time, yeah, pretty hacked off.
It’s courteous to ask someone if they need a hand if it looks like they might need it - this isn’t just related to people with a disability, but anyone e.g. someone wrestling a pram and an armload of stuff - but if they say “No thanks, I got it”, it’s pretty dismissive and condescending to carry right on over the top of them and tell them that no, they really do need help and you’re going to give it to them, by god.
There are times when people don’t know that they need help, but some dude using a wheelchair has probably got pretty significant experience dealing with, I don’t know, doors and sidewalks and things, so if he said he’s got it and doesn’t need a hand, he probably knows what he’s talking about.
For a little thing, I wouldn’t make an issue of it. A line of people getting on the bus, and the guy in front of me lets me go first. Is it because he thinks I’m a disabled old lady, or because he noticed my bus pass and he’s paying cash, which takes longer? Who knows?
OTOH, if a strange man offers me a ride in his car on a cold day and I say “No, thanks” and he tries to turn that no into a yes, I am going to tell him off in no uncertain terms.
(a) I think that’s a moderately well-poisoning analogy. However offensive the actions of the guy who opened the door were, they aren’t even in the same category as rape or unwanted sexual contact
(b) There’s also an important distinction between “can I do X to help you?” “no” (does X anyhow); vs “can I do X to help you?” “no” “are you sure?”. There are certainly cases where courtesy calls for persistence-beyond-an-initial-no (although the situation in the OP is not one of them).
I see it as a difference in degree, not in kind. The idea that it’s fair game to override someone’s wishes, or to bully or cajole them into physical compliance, that we secretly want it, these are all the same.
But in the process of adding some perspective, you end up implying that disabled people are wrong for feeling like they are subjected to certain micro-aggressions that others generally are not. I think that’s wrong.
I’m a black woman and I know I’m routinely underestimated compared to others. But I’m not going to act as if my experience with discrimination should be compared and contrasted with Ambivalid’s. Mainly because I have no idea what it’s like to be in his shoes; his day-to-day experiences probably differ wildly from mine and it would be arrogant for me to assume otherwise.
I’ve never encountered the scenario in the OP. I’ve had men who have held the door for me at the expense of my own convenience, but I’ve never had a guy insist on holding the door for me even though I’ve explicitly said no and explained why. That said, if something like this happened to me, it is unlikely that I would take it as personally as Ambivalid did…not because I have all this “perspective” that you’re talking about but because I have able-bodied privilege. That privilege means that I’m not constantly having to prove to myself and others that I’m self-sufficient, a regular dude, and mentally competent. I’m not constantly having to deal with feeling invisible or dismissed or marginalized. I’m not constantly having to deal with other people’s pity and the unnecessary overtures they make because of this emotion.
It seems to me that everyone who is taking Ambivalid to task are judging his reaction from a privileged point-of-view. In terms of perspective, they are pretty much only seeing things from their own, and not empathizing with someone who has to live with this kind of benevolent rudeness all the time.
I agree. It all boils down to taking a cavalier attitude towards other people’s boundaries in the service of getting what you want. While it’s true that the person who pushes cookies on someone else is less scary and threatening than the person who pushes sex, both are guilty of prioritizing their own interests over someone else’s. Folks need to see this behavior for what it is instead of rationalizing it as “no big deal”.