I wouldn’t worry about it - I had a boss who had congenitally deformed hands - just a couple of stumps with claws, really- , and the first time we met I didn’t even notice: just stuck out my hand automatically, she shook, and then I clicked. She told me later that very few people actually did that: most people would register the deformity first and tie themselves in knots wondering about the “right” thing to do, which pissed her off more than if they did or didn’t shake. She was damn dextrous with those couple of stumpy fingers she had, too, although she was an incompetent bitch in every other way.
They are hypotheticals, yes, but they represent the crushing, stupid-making fear of many of us; it isn’t that we want to demean the disabled person, it’s this inward hand-wringing turmoil of “I’ll ask them what they want/but what if they can’t speak/or what if they do speak and I can’t understand and I have to keep saying ‘pardon’/or I end up having to ask that other person what they said/or what if I ask them a question and that other person tells me they obviously can’t respond/or can’t hear me/FuckFuckFuckWhatShouldIDoNext” - having churched that all about in your head, it’s hard to make a sensible choice, even if you have half the data.
churned (not sure where ‘churched’ came from) 
Thanks. If it weren’t for my SO…oh well. g
And I must strongly agree with the no head-patting rule. Oooo, that’s maddening. About one person on the planet can get away with that one with me, and he doesn’t do it in public. It rarely happens, but I did once get in trouble for swearing at a head-patter (who was behind me) who was one of the vice-principals of my first high school. I thought he was a guy I knew who picked on me (in a friendly way) by patting me. He was a friend, and it was a game, so it was okay, he’d pat, I’d swear. Kids. But nope, it was the vice-principal, and somehow I ended up getting lectured for rudeness. I should have lectured him right back, but I was incredibly nonassertive at that age and also didn’t want to get detention. Never mind that my parents would have backed me fully if I’d stood up to him.
Ah, if I only had a time machine.
Hey Carnick: What do you have? I ask because I have Spina Bifida & while I’ve not encountered #s 1, 2 & 7 myself, friends of mine who have CP to the point where it impairs their speech have encountered such behavior. I wonder if it’s a “Well, he doesn’t speak clearly, therefore he must be developmentally disabled” thing.
Originally posted by lizardling:
I dig what you’re saying - it used to chap my ass much more than it does these days. Yes, it’s insulting on the face of it - I agree. It seems like a silly, patronizing thing to say because you & I are, it seems, pretty happy with our lives. OTOH, people who say things like that have probably never had to deal with disability in a daily sense - they don’t see me, for instance, teaching my kids & navigating the classroom just fine or hanging out at a club; they just see me in the supermarket, straining to reach over the deli counter or dropping something that I can’t then pick up.
My point is this: It’s true that everyone has difficulties - the thing is, not everyone is lauded for their indomitable spirits because not everyone’s problems/issues/whatever are visible. Our stuff is right out there for the world to see, so they comment without thinking about whether they ought to or how they should phrase comments.
inkleberry: My closest friend has arthrogryposis - her hand joints are fused & her elbows & shoulders don’t have the typical ‘full range of motion’. When she meet people & they extend their hands to shake, they’ll get thrown a bit when they see that she can’t shake in a typical manner. Most seem a bit thrown, but they recover swiftly. 
As for the other etiquette stuff: I don’t much like the squatting thing, but i understand the good intentions from whence it springs, so it doesn’t really bug me. As for the head-patting thing that someone else mentioned: I can’t believe people would pat the head of an adult! That’s happened to me exactly once, but the chick was three sheets to the wind.
I live in Canada, I worked for almost two years in the medical aids industry, and I’ve never heard of forearm crutches called Canadian crutches before. You learn something every day.
While I’m here, I might as well post my take on this. Working in the medical aids field, almost all of our customers were disabled, and one of the staff members was also in a wheelchair. It’s amazing how quickly you forget about the disability when you treat disabled people like people.
I’ll usually look for a chair or something to sit on, if outside, I’ve even been known to sit on concrete flower planters or something since squatting down is painful to the knees. Is it OK to ask ‘Can we go just over there so we can talk more comfortably?’
It’s not very comfortable to me to be looking down to see someone when I’m talking to them, so I try to make it so everyone is seated.
I think the hardest thing for me is when I’m interviewing people for entrance into my program. Because we repair computers, and we often deal with things like tiny parts (changing drive jumpers and installing memory modules, motherboards, etc) and because we have to carry around computers and monitors, I have to ask people (everyone) if they are capable of manipulating the tiny screws and drive jumpers, as well as being able to lift and carry 30 lbs. Once I had to ask this of a young man in a wheelchair, and he got very upset about it. I felt bad, but there was absolutely nothing I could do, since those abilities are required for graduation from my department and I don’t want to set them up for failure if they’ve got no use at all of their hands. Being in a wheelchair is not a problem, since we can put monitors on a cart or something, but the dexterity is. He eventually picked a different major, but is still angry that he wasn’t accepted in my department.
Is there anything I can do differently so that it’s clear that I’m not just picking on someone for being disabled?
Very enlightening thread. Time that I got it most wrong: not noticing this guy was blind. I was serving in a shop, holding out his change and waiting for him to take it. Because I hadn’t noticed his blindness I thought he was looking at the display and choosing something more. He had a cane but it I couldn’t see it for the counter. Eventually he screamed “Can’t you see I’m blind!” leaving me speechless with mortification. The other girls in the shop told me not to worry because he was always bad tempered but I still shudder at the memory.
Times people have got it wrong for me. I used to have a terrible stammer until well into my twenties. My parents and other adults would refuse to speak for me, my friends would do the talking if I asked them to. I much preferred the latter approach, it was like having a safety net and made me more rather than less willing to try doing it myself. Being forced to speak, knowing I’d be just left to sink in my own incoherence if I couldn’t get the words out, was just horrible.
Well, that is what he and the VA called them.
About the CP and speech thing. My former housemate had a speech impediment. He sounded a lot like the adult in Charlie Brown until I got used to listening to him. To me he was very difficult to understand and at first especially, he sounded stupid, but as I learned to listen to him, I realized that he was not at all stupid. He toutored me in calculus. I do know that he was made fun of and some people assumed that he was not right bright. A couple people questioned what he was doing in college, but the answer would have been better than you. He really taught me not to judge all aspects of intelligence on surface characteristics. I have no idea why he had a speech impediment. I never saw any other evidence of disability; he was a rather good athlete.
I’m exactly five feet tall, and I get that a surprising amount. I have reacted that way, once, to an acquaintance. They commented on my height. I said: “Oh, my god! I am! Jesus, that explains why I can never reach the top shelf in the kitchen! Thank you so much!” etc. It was so wonderful. 
One of my friends from high school uses wheelchair. We were once on a field trip for Spanish class, and at the restaurant where we stopped for dinner, the waitress came up to our table, and blurted out to the guy sitting next to him: “What’s wrong with your friend?” Said friend very calmly replied, “I’m constantly assaulted by rude people who don’t acknowledge my existance.”
At least she had the grace to look very, very humiliated…
I can think of a situation where this happened. My dad had a stroke which left him completely paralyzed on his right side and unable to speak. I took him out to dinner one night and the waitress was very friendly, making a real effort to treat my dad well. When it came time to order, she looked right at him and asked what he wanted. My dad was not used to this, most waitresses tended to avoid looking at him at all, and would ask me what he wanted. My dad said something like, “Arooo ahhg uhhum arooar roro arrao urma arggga ahoowoo araruma…awwww shit” (For some reason “shit” was the only intelligible word he could say, and he NEVER would have used that word before the stroke) The waitress turned white, and didn’t know what to do. My dad seeing her reaction started to tear-up. When she saw he was beginning to cry, she burst into tears, feeling like he thought she was purposely making fun of him. I tried to console her, tell her she did nothing wrong, but she felt terrible. I am sure the next time she saw someone in a wheelchair she thought of my dad, and most likely did not ask that person directly for their order.
Last summer I introduced my husband to a friend of mine who was in a wheelchair due to arthritis. My husband, in an effort to treat him like he would anyone else, shook his hand. My friend winced in pain and let out a few choice four letter words. My husband felt awful. My husband hadn’t considered that shaking his hand would cause him pain. The next time my husband meets someone in a wheelchair, he probably won’t make an effort first to shake their hand. If the person offers their hand first, my husband will most likely give one of those dead fish shakes, and while not meaning too, end up offending them.
I am really glad you started this thread. I think it has been very educational for both sides. Unfortunately it proves there is no one right way to handle these situations. The way one person prefers to be treated can be exactly what pisses the next person off. But I suppose that is true of all people, whether they are handicapped or not.
One friend prefers the term handicapped, one prefers disabled. One calls himself a crip, but if someone else refers to him as that because he does, he gets mad. My friend works with the “physically challenged” and if I use any other term she corrects me.
Because of the years I spent taking care of my dad, I feel I do better than most, in not offending people in wheelchairs, but I still make some people mad. I think discussions like this can be very helpful.
I think to a large degree people act the way they do to you is because they’re afraid they’ll do the wrong thing and piss you off…and apparently they’re right. No one knows until they’re in the position you’re in how to act or what would be the right thing to do, yet they are awkward and feel they need to do something. People aren’t bad, they just don’t know what to do and hearing people in the situation you’re in talk about all the things that people do wrong makes it even worse.
At the same time, I can empathize with the situation you’re in and how you get tired of people doing things that seem odd or insulting to you.
I don’t know what the answer is.
Good answer!
On rare occasions (it hasn’t happened for a couple of years now…yes, please note that I said a couple) they offer me a kid’s menu. I’m going to be 29 later this month. I may look young, but I don’t think I look under twelve. I think the last time that happened was in a very crowded restaurant, but when it’s happened in an uncrowded one, there’s not too much of an excuse. Yes, I’m assuming they see the top of my head and think, “Kid.” If they’d look down and see the boobs, maybe they’d realize “Not a kid.”
They look SO EMBARASSED when they realize their mistake. Usually all it takes is “Excuse me, I’m not a kid,” and they look at me, and then look HORRIFIED. Hee!
I’m willing to forgive a lot of this stuff, but it is nice to complain about it now and again, ya know?
A blind friend of mine got this kind of thing constantly. I’ll call her M. People would say, “Hey M! good to see you…er…good to…um…uhhh…” She’s good humored about it, but it must get annoying. She uses “see” in that context, too. She also “sees” movies and “watches” television. She uses the same idioms as anybody else. Where it got really weird was when people continued to do that sort of thing even after the initial greeting phase of the conversation. Like, if a group of us had been chatting for a while, and someone made a reference to a guy she was seeing, and then corrected herself to say “dating” instead of “seeing.” They were so hyper-aware of M’s blindness that they couldn’t even have a normal conversation with her.
Related to this is that some people also felt that they had to completely eliminate any reference at all to anything visual, leading to some very stilted conversations.
In one case, a group of women went to dinner. A couple of us knew M well, and some others barely knew her. One of us who knew her well complimented her on this stunning necklace she was wearing, mentioning that the color was great on her. And later, someone said something like “She wore a shiny red dress covered with sequins! To her sister’s wedding! Can you believe it?!” And somewhere along the way was a discussion of the relative cuteness of several male mutual friends.
Later on, when we were out of M’s earshot, one of the people that didn’t know her well told us that we shouldn’t have mentioned colors or someone’s looks to a blind person–that by doing so, we were talking about things she couldn’t understand, that it was like speaking in a foreign language in front of her. But she certainly could understand the language, even if it wasn’t “native.” She’d had a lifetime of hearing descriptions of colors. She may not have ever seen the color red, but she knows from context that red is a noticeable color, and that sequins make a dress more noticeable still, so that she knows perfectly well what wearing such a dress signifies. She knows that appearance is one factor that makes a guy attractive, and participated in the conversation, finding humor in the way her perceptions matched or differed from ours. And she liked compliments on her jewelry as much as the next girl. Again, she might not have ever been able to compare a color that looks good on someone to a color that looks bad on someone, but she knows what it means for Og’s sake!
I think one of the major problems is that nobody ever plays practical jokes on the handicapped. For some reason, it’s not allowed. It’s kind of a shame because it’s really fertile territory.
For instance, what I’d like to do is wait until somebody with a motorized wheelchair is sleeping and then install rc equipment in the chair so you can hijack it when they least expect it.
Another idea is to “tag” the wheelchair with advertisements and slogans.
Every time I see one of those joysticks I have the urge to replace it with a novelty item like a dildo.
You can paint flames on the side of a wheelchair.
You can put an annoying “Please fasten your safety belt” light on it.
Put one of those breathalyzer things on it, so they have to blow in it before they drive.
Of course every wheelchair needs an ejection seat activated by a giant red button that says “DO NOT PUSH” where everybody can see it.
If you see a motorized chair in a parking lot, pretend your car battery is dead and ask them if they can jump start you.
Whoopee cushion.
Secretly install a playstation2 on the wheelchair.
How about MTVs “Pimp my ride!”
I suspect being handicapped makes one resourceful, so I imagine the payback for any of these tricks would be a real bitch, but still…
From the OP:
For some reason I’m reminded of Scary Movie 3 where the one guy is hanging from a ledge and the guy with the withered hand reaches out to help him.
“Take my hand!” he cries.
The guy hanging looks at the hand and says “No. that’s ok.”
“No. Take my hand. You’ll fall!”
“Give me your other hand,” the guy replies.
Yeah, but that joystick just calls out to me. “Play with me, twist me, push me!”
Ahh yes. The famous “Kick me” sign installed on the back of the wheelchair, trick. Heh, heh, heh.
You mean you can’t feel that???
HA! This happens to me, and I’m not handicapped.
Well, now that you mention it, I do have three pet peeves.
- When people act like inconsiderate assholes to handicapped people why do the handicapped people often assume that the behavior is directed against them because they are handicapped?
A person with a general problem being an asshole doesn’t need to be saddled with the label of “prejudiced” or “bigoted.” It seems to me that an asshole who was an asshole to everybody except handicapped people would be the bigoted or prejudiced asshole, and that the equal opportunity asshole should be rewarded for his fair-mindedness and consistency.
…not that I’m referring to myself or anything.
2. I have a problem with inconsiderate or unsafe use of the handicapped scooters in public places. I sometimes see multiple people riding them at amusement parks, and since they create a potential danger to pedestrians I would prefer if they were offered on a needs-based system so that they were not employed frivolously and I would also prefer that a user needed a license to operate them.
The sad fact of the matter is that any asshole can grab a scooter at Wal-mart or an amusement park whether they need it or not.
I’m terrified that somebody’s gonna hit my kid with one of these.
- If you need assistance, please ask. I am not psychic. I do not know the specifics of your condition, nor when it is appropriate to offer assistance, nor when to do so would be a demeaning insult. If you don’t give me an indication that assistance would be appreciated I assume that you don’t want it.
In return, if you do ask for assistance I promise to offer it, if I can, promptly and without fanfare.
Personally, I think the most demeaning thing I’ve ever seen able-bodied people do to the handicapped is make a big deal about holding a door or getting something off the shelf for them as if they were a saint for doing it.
For example, every time a run a big marathon, there is the wheelchair race. They start first, because these guys and gals are often very fast. Some though, are not. Usually in the course of a marathon I will pass one or two of these people doing the wheel chair race.
INEVITABLY, the guy in the wheelchair is literally inundated by well-wishers shouting “great job!” or “keep going!” or “You’re doing great!” I mean, practically everybody who passes the guy says something.
I can’t help but feel embarassed. Let the guy race his race. Do you say that to everybody you pass? How do you think it makes him/her feel?
I sort of guess by the look on the face that after 18 miles or so the constant well-wishing feels condescending.
The last thing I’ll say about it is this: At the Marine Corps marathon, I closed on a wheelchair racer as he was going uphill. Now that has to be a bitch. Everybody was passing him. Finally, he crested the hill and could go fast.
Get out of his way, goddammit!
Just my input. A long time ago I dated a guy that is deaf. Most often people would speak to me as soon as they noticed his hearing aids (he wore them to hear loud noises like sirens and me yelling). Usually no offense was intended; it just made conversation (particularly at restaurants) quicker. My guy could read lips but his speech was unclear. He joked that it was like trying to understand someone else’s two year old child. If you’re close to the kid you can figure it out, but otherwise it sounded like jibberish (man, I miss his sense of humor). He was fine with the reactions of others because he understood, as Mangetout pointed out, that others just weren’t sure of appropriate behavior. If one isn’t exposed to differences then s/he may not know what how to respond (squat/don’t squat). Thank you for this thread, Carnick, it’s definitely interesting and a subject I’m passionate about.
Next story. A man and his wife frequent my business. He is physically disabled and has a severe speech impediment. When I first met him I asked him if I could shake his hand. He was thrilled and said please as long as I didn’t squeeze. So I shook his hand. You don’t know unless you ask. How can offense be taken at a genuine inquiry? I fill out his paperwork because he can’t hold a pen much longer than it takes to sign his name. If I speak too fast he asks his wife to translate. If I don’t understand him, I ask his wife to translate. He promised that one day he’ll marry me and we’ll keep his wife as a translator (she had to translate that!). What a guy.
Last story. A walker (me) vs. a wheeler (stranger). I was about ten feet behind a man going into a department store. There were automatic double doors and I caught up to him in the hall between the first and second doors (the second set were broken and weren’t opening automatically). I stood behind him for about ten seconds - hadn’t yet realized the doors weren’t working - when he snarled over his shoulder at me, “Ain’t ya gonna get the door for me?” To which I replied, “Why don’t you get the door for me?” He said, “I’m in a chair.” I said, “And I’m a lady. If I wasn’t behind you would you just sit there until someone else comes along?” The look on his face was priceless as he called me a bitch. I calmly walked around him, squeezed through the door (NOT holding it for him) and told him he was a sorry excuse for a gentleman. Once I figured out those stupid doors weren’t working I would have been happy to open them for him (or if he’d asked me politely). Note: as I was going to the checkout I saw him tooling around by the music section. Don’t know if he managed all by his lonesome to get in or if he actually waited in the hall till someone else opened the door.
My point: a person may be disabled but we all have our problems. I can’t stand people (disabled or not) who feel they are entitled to demand of others things that they can do for themselves. Don’t expect special treatment please (not specifically directed to anyone here). You may be different than me, but you’re not special. You’re a person right? I’ll treat you like a person and not pussyfoot around a disability. (Think that guy was right and I am a bitch?) Oh yeah, I WOULD NOT squat down to speak to someone. I don’t expect a 6’4" person to hunker down for me so why would I do it to someone else?
Oh, I agree. Most days I can take it with more grace and just say “Thank you,” to the well-meaning intention behind the comments and get on with my life. The previous post was written on a day when I was under a lot of work-related stress, so the post came out a lot harsher than it should have been.
I did that once to a man in a wheelchair, I talked to his buddy instead of him. But it wasn’t because he was in a wheelchair, it was because he was cute and I wanted to meet him. So, I went up to the guy he was with and said “what’s your friend’s name, would you introduce me”?
Of all the things you stated in your OP, the one that surprised me the most was the kicking the wheelchair thing. That’s strange, I find it hard to believe people actually DO that.
Well, my parents must have raised me right, or something, because I’m totally astonished that people do stuff like this. Not addressing an adult simply because they’re in a wheelchair? Patting people on the head?! I can’t imagine it being a true *faux pas * to treat someone as a competent adult, even if they’re not, as long as you adjust to the situation when you find out what they are and aren’t capable of.
Maybe I’m influenced by the one person I’ve known who has CP. He was in an early-entry college program with me, and in addition to probably being the smartest out of the entire class, he was also one of the most personable and charming. So just because someone has weird posture and talks funny, I would never make an assumption about their mental faculties!
The only other interactions with disabled people I can recall are two occasions when I was working the cash register at a clothing store, and helped deaf customers. As I recall, one couple had their hearing son help translate between us, and the other person could read lips and wrote down responses for me. It was a bit awkward, because we were required to ask for stuff like name and zip code, and offer to put them on our mailing list and so on, and I kind of felt like they wished I would just stop grilling them and let them pay, but I opted for doing the normal spiel and coping as best we could with the communication barrier.
I agree that an honest inquiry would almost always be appropriate: “Can I shake your hand?” or “I feel like I’m looming over you - what do you say we find a spot where I could sit down?” or the like.
At the medical aids place I worked at where one of my co-workers was in a wheelchair, people did sort of play practical jokes on him. It was mostly roughhousing - like pushing him into something as they went by, or teasing him about being too lazy to walk or something. That might sound kind of mean, but my point is that he was treated like anybody else there; he wasn’t treated as if he was fragile or special; nobody pussy-footed around him. And if he didn’t like being pushed into a wall, he’d just run over your toes next time he went by.