knowing myself
It's funny how discrimination can sneak up on you. I consider myself an sensitive, loving person. I think I value people with all levels of mental and physical functionality. But then every once in a while I startle myself with knee jerk reactions. I'll realize that I'm uncomfortable with the idea of a "normal" person being marrried to someone who is mentally handicapped, or a brain-injured woman raising her kids alone. Being ashamed of these thoughts and feelings don't make them go away. It will take more work and more grace for our society to be able to really accept and include everyone. To stop thinking of others as being less than ourselves.
posted by s.o.e. @ 7/13/2006 11:04:00 AM
5 Comments:
Well said Lisa...seems to me that "imitatio Christi" is still the surest path to genuine inclusiveness. -steve
When I read this I thought of the adage, "Keep an open mind, but not so open your brain falls out." While it is possible that a person with mild brain damage makes a perfect parent with no support, or that a mentally challenged person and a non-mentally challenged person can have a healthy relationship, experience and instinct tell us there are other possibilities (or probabilities). Heck, a non-mentally challenged person frequently struggles as a single parent, and a person with brain damage faces even greater odds (or, more bluntly, has lower odds of success). A mentally challenged person and a non-mentally challenged person may love each other and have a great relationship, but there is also a greater divide of power, and we intuitively recognise the greater likelihood abuse.
The degree to which these things are true depends directly on how severe the impediment is, but there's no reason to try to hide the fact that you see the difference. Discriminate means "to distinguish by discerning or exposing differences," and some differences are, after all, important. If you were to start discriminating based on something irrational and trivial, say the skin colour of your volunteer applicants, I would say take some time to think about where that negative feeling is coming from, and try to make a correction. You're not doing that. Mental challenges are not trivial things, they are practical differences that affect function. (You don't choose a person with a vision impairment to be your designated driver.)
I'm not saying that we should treat people with mental challenges or the people who love them badly: I think the opposite, but pretending there is no difference doesn't further our understanding or increase our ability to support or help.
PS. Please, please say this was a typo: "Being ashamed of these thoughts and feelings don't make them go away."
to Tara,
The longer I blog, the worse my grammar gets. I think there is a disease that spreads through the internet and dissolves all education in the language arts from the brain.
And in regards to your first comment, you are absolutely correct. Each person is different, and we all have limits. It's important to see others as individuals and not blindly lump them together to be treated with mechanical indifference. But no matter what their differences, every person has value and needs to be given dignity.
I guess I wasn't using strong enough words (trying too hard to be politically correct) when I described the feelings that were bothering me. I was alarmed by my feelings of distaste with more than a little superiority and pity mixed in.
Re: But no matter what their differences, every person has value and needs to be given dignity:
Now there's a point on which we are in complete agreement!
Post a Comment
<< Home