I’m white. What I’m getting at is that other minorities most likely also experience subtly dehumanising attitudes, so I’m not going to generalise this to all able-bodied people. I’m just saying that the disabled aren’t the only ones to cop this.
I’ll add that it was an imprecise way of making my point. It’s just that if you’ve never been part of a minority group or had a loved one who is a minority, it’s very hard to imagine just how much it affects your experience of the world.
I’m not one to dwell on this, but occasionally I get brutally reminded of the fact that I’m perceived as separate from the majority, and sometimes it’s hard being the “other”. Telling someone to just “suck it up” is easy when you’re part of said majority.
One of these days, when I’m in one of my more, um, comical moods, I will have a completely different response to these seemingly inexplicable offers of help I receive. The next time I’m simply sitting in my wheelchair, doing absolutely nothing but reading a magazine, and someone comes up wondering if I need some help, I’m going to take them up on their offer. 
I’m just gonna look up, smile a gigantic smile, fold my arms across my chest and say, “Yes, yes I do! You have a sharp eye there.” And then I say, “Ok, I’m ready…go.”
I’d very intrigued as to what might happen. I’ve always wondered these thoughts but I’ve never actually tested it out. 
Thanks for responding. I don’t understand this comment or how it relates to your previous one. You seem to indicate that you’re white, and occasionally the source of “inspiration” yet you seem to be taking the stance that white people don’t undersatand what it’s like to suffer discrimination?
Again, I’m not trying to bait you or get all up in your bidness 
but I’m having a hard time understaning where you’re coming from.
Have you been drinking again? You are the one calling me ignorant. Ambivalent merely assumed that I was unfamiliar with him. Just because I don’t post much doesn’t mean that I don’t read. As of Long Ago I’ve had him marked as Unreasonably Angry Wheelchair Guy - and now he’s back to it again. Yes it’s probably unfair, but I don’t keep track on people here. I still think he’s unreasonably angry about people he meets and who are clueless but wish him no harm.
Now you’re just flirting.
I pray to Allah/God/Dog/Og every day that He may make me as witty as you.
Say yes, yes I do. I need $1000.
No, nowadays asssholes are more likely to comment that you know he’s a fine upstanding person because he doesn’t dress ‘like a thug or a rapper’ - which of couse is the same exact shit.
I fail to understand how it is MY damn fault that someone treats me like a child or an innocent or a weakling or an incompetent and I get upset about it, especially if I am polite in the moment and only venting after the fact. All you sanctimonious assholes better hope you never have any obvious physical ailments for long periods of time, or live in a place where your specific gender or ‘racial’ group gets patronized as a matter of course. Not wishing harm on anyone, but if you deal with this shit on the regular and NEVER let it get under your skin, either you’re better than Gandhi or I need what you’re smoking.
Good god almighty.
White majority can be deceiving in some ways. I’m Jewish and I don’t feel so majority sometimes. The local school district is majority Christian and i have to constantly make efforts not to have it turned into a bastion of Christianity. At one point a few years ago they gave kids off Holy Thursday and Good Friday. Then had them come back for two days that happened to be Passover. Then gave them off Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. When I dared make a fuss in real life and on Facebook I was basically told to shut the fuck up. One even accused me of being bigoted against Christians which is ludicrous as I married someone who isn’t Jewish. Each year I get off Christmas when I don’t want it and then have to beg off Yom Kippur. And I’m not even particularly religious. My eldest gets treated like the local Jewish freak by some of the kids around here. One or two have even taunted her about how it must suck to be Jewish because she didn’t get any Christmas presents or have fun at Easter. I have come to realize that a significant number of people around here seem to think of me as Lavender the Jew Who Isn’t Really One of Us which is again freaking weird as I’m not that observant. I don’t even keep a kosher home.
At this point I just want a secular society. I thought I’d found one here in suburban NJ but apparently not. I understand the point of the OP but I think most people just don’t have much experience with wheelchairs and don’t want to be a jerk around people using them. We’re just not quite sure how to react. I think it’s like that with some of my neighbors and their views of the Jews.
Everyone has their own cross to bear. But yes, if you’re part of the “normal majority”, odds are you don’t understand what it’s like to actually experience daily reminders of how you’re different and separate from the rest of the population. It very subtly shapes your personality and sense of identity–I didn’t even realise it until I really stopped to think about it a few years ago.
I’ve been married for about six months now, and my wife, who is both white and able-bodied, is starting to see what it’s like from the inside, and it’s quite an eye-opener for her. She has always been someone with great empathy, but nothing beats seeing it day-to-day. Imagining something and living it are two different things.
(Incidentally, I was advised to date disabled women because “able-bodied women don’t date disabled men”. That’s one example of how you’re ghettoised–by being told to stick to “your own kind”.)
Lobot, I’m very interested in this conversation we’re having, but stop making me pull teeth. So, now you’ve hinted that you have a disability. Am I supposed to know this? Or what it is? Don’t be cryptic, dude.
Yeah, sorry about that. It was shorthand for “The cultural majority” who are normally straight, Anglo Saxon, Christian, middleclass and able-bodied. But it’s really just anyone in the middle of the bell-curve.
That’s clearly your strong suite. I recommend you stick with it.
Sorry, yes. I have a form of muscular dystrophy and have had it since birth.
Yours too. We can form a club.
“No, you are,” is your best comeback? Good lord, that’s pathetic.
You do see that that is a whole different freakin’ kettle of fish than “the white majority” no? Not to be nit picky, but there’s a whole lot of us that are classified as “white” yet it’s about all we share with the other criteria you listed.
Yes, and I also sometimes get annoyed at claims that white people have it easy when that ignores a whole host of other factors beyond race. So I hope I’ve explained myself.
“Your good side is that you don’t post much” is your brilliant insult? The best you can muster? And you call ME pathetic?
Thou scullion of Babylon, thou wheelwright of Macedonia, thou beer-brewer of Jerusalem, thou goat-flayer of Alexandria, thou swineherd of Egypt, both the Greater and the Lesser, thou sow of Armenia, thou goat of Tartary, thou hangman of Kamenetz, thou evildoer of Podoliansk, thou grandson of the Devil himself, thou great silly oaf of all the world and of the netherworld and, before our God, a blockhead, a swine’s snout, a mare’s arse, a butcher’s cur, an unbaptized brow, May the Devil take thee! That is what the Kozaks have to say to thee, thou basest-born of runts! Unfit art thou to lord it over true Christians!*
*This is possibly from the letter from the cossacs to the sultan of the Ottoman Empire in the 1600’s.
So I’m not supposed to open doors for people in wheelchairs because that belittles them? Tomorrow I’ll tell my wife, “You’re on your own, honey. It’s for the good of your self-esteem. No, no, I know what a pain in the ass it is, but someday you’ll thank me.”