Ableism

After the reading and discussions, a point that keeps crossing my mind is how everyone has disabilities. When thinking about "disabled" people, my mind always shifted toward physically handicapped people. I realized then just how much I saw some people as "others" and so I decided to try and examine some of the reason I was thinking this way. I realized that a lot of it had to do with my schooling experience. I remember in elementary school everyone was in the same classroom, but then in middle school I didn't ever really get to see a few kids anymore. In high school you'd see those missing faces once in a while, but it was as if they were kind of sheltered. I feel like separation isn't bad so long as they aren't fully cut off from the rest of the people. Everyone needs to see and recognize difference to be able to accept it. Another thing that was enlightening was thinking about the fact that there are so many different disabilities, many of which that go unnoticed. There are so many different things that can hinder a person from functioning, so no one really needs to be labeled as "other." That in itself is a disability. I remember Alex mentioned ignorance as a disability in class. I think that's something we all struggle with. It's really funny though, since we think ignorance is such a bad thing but we instill it in our young minds every day. I think what needs to be dealt with is the fear that people have of the other. We don't realize that "other" things are what help our world develop and grow. Some of the craziest ideas and schemes turned out to be ground breaking and mind altering laws of nature. To really progress we need to move forward with open minds, not minds looking to fulfill some certain structure.