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Don't Be Afraid. Be Proud of Who You Are.

Name: Gary Roberts
Email: jg86@hotmail.com
Date: 17 Aug 2000
Time: 22:39:26

Story

I was giving a presentation to a group of people who were not disabled. I was well into my speech focusing on the technical and professional issues that one hears at such meetings. Looking out at the audience, I saw they appeared to be coming along with me. I was ready to give myself a high five for a job well done.

Then I remembered a conversation with a friend after such a meeting when I quizzed him about the speaker. He said, "I don't remember anything. I was not listening." I learned a long time ago that one can have perfectly good hearing and be deaf to what is happening around you. People are too polite to interrupt or get up and leave; they put on their mask and suffer through it.

I stopped in my tracks and called out to the audience, "Are you with me? Can you hear me out there? Are you listening?" The audience shifted and some of them pulled themselves straight in their chairs and leaned toward me. Here I was -- a deaf man who had not heard his speech in 30 some odd years talking to an audience of several hundred. This is not unusual for me, but today I decided to engage the audience for the first time, and it seemed to pay dividends. I scolded them as one would scold a child and they responded a little sullenly, but they sat up and seemed to listen.

My perceptive as a person with a disability is that more is expected of us then is expected of the nondisabled. If you are deaf, you are expected to sit and watch and interpreter for hours at a time without looking away. If you are in a wheelchair, you are expected to be more patient then the average person. You are long suffering, heroic and, yes, pitiful.

I have, over the years, challenged audiences by telling them that I don't really like the non disabled. They make the rules I live by. They have a narrow range of rules and expectations for people with disabilities within which we are supposed to function.

One of the rules is that we can't be unpleasant.We have to praise ever effort of the nondisabled to be of assistance to us. In other words, the slave is to kiss his or her master's hand while being beaten by the other one. Some time ago, I was with a friend in a retail store and she was buying a gift for her boyfriend. She was talking to the sales person about what he liked and did not like. Suddenly a woman came over and stood looking at my friend and said, "Why do you want a boy friend for -- in your condition you can't do anything for him. My friend recoiled in hurt and fought back angry tears but did not say anything back to the woman.

Later, she was expressing her anger and hurt openly to me. I asked her, "Why didn't you tell that woman where to get off.

She said, "Well, I just can't; that is not my way."

There are people today with disabilities who practice confrontation and scream and curse at the nondisabled. Is this effective? Will it work? Sometimes I don't think so because the nondisabled hold us in such contempt as adults.Where it may work is that the seed of pride will grow and set some of us free.

Remember, don't be afraid; be Proud to be who you are.

Copyright © 2000 Gary Roberts. All rights reserved.

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