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Questioning Continuum continued

But my black and gay and Jewish friends refused to go gently into the good blender. They insisted on being exactly what they were (and letting me know exactly what I was!).

I got over the rejection and disillusionment to learn that it wouldn’t kill me to be tense over differences. I even learned that I could be enriched by cultures I didn’t understand, cultures that didn’t exist for my enrichment. I learned that both the world and my own mind were big enough to encompass messy, noisy heterogeneity – that people didn’t cease to exist as human beings because they didn’t resemble me, that I could interact with them without pulling them toward the middle. I could appreciate separate colors without needing them to be my rainbow.

When I was growing up, my father frequently talked about a man that he worked with who came from Japan. He really liked this man. He would visit the guy’s house and then come back and tell us all the ways he was different: the foods he ate, his furnishings, his clothes, the way he counted on an abacus, the way he reasoned about life. My father’s world view was enriched by his association with that friend. His accounts conveyed tremendous respect without ever needing to find ways the man was similar to us.

Respect is a key concept in accepting differentness. Many years ago, I was sitting on a stage with Judy Heumann and an interviewer asked us what we found most disturbing about others’ attitudes toward us. Judy said she most resented their need for us to be nondisabled. I’m ashamed to say I didn’t totally get it then, but I do now. There is a great lack of respect for who I am as a disabled person conveyed by people who either wish I could be normal or who need to see my disability as an unimportant part of me.

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