Let’s be honest. As much as we make of “accepting” our disabilities, don’t we relish those moments when our disabilities momentarily “disappear”? And isn’t that why we make such a fuss about being integrated into the mainstream instead of segregated as a “special” group? We want to blend seamlessly into society. If we stand out, we want to stand out because of a skill, an achievement, or some unique quality, not because we are disabled.

We are not alone. Every minority group is faced with the same dilemma: We want equality and freedom from stereotypical limitations imposed by the mainstream, yet the more we insist on our rights, the more attention we focus on our being a minority. The more we demand, the more we self-segregate ourselves.

President Obama knows this well. For all the hoopla over his being the first African-American president, he has been very careful to downplay his minority status. His extraordinary skill as a politician is his ability to appeal to the broadest possible demographic. Shelby Steele, author and research fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, characterized Obama’s appeal this way in a conversation with Bill Moyers on PBS at the beginning of the 2008 presidential campaign: “Sometimes, Barack Obama is John F. Kennedy. Sometimes, he’s Martin Luther King. Sometimes, he’s Stokely Carmichael in 1968 [radical “black power” figure]. He has these different masks that are tailored to the audience that he’s in front of.”

Steele goes on to explain that Obama, like Oprah Winfrey and Bill Cosby, is non-threatening to whites because he does not engage racial guilt. Rather, he appeals to our idealistic nature. He is a bargainer, says Steele. In effect, Obama says to whites, I will let you off the hook for your shameful history with blacks if you will treat me like a man whose color does not matter. More strident blacks, such as Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, are challengers — their agenda is dependent on holding whites accountable for their past discrimination.

The disability community has much to learn from this model. As a minority group, we also present different faces to the public. Our challenger face is represented by ADAPT, Not Dead Yet, and scattered individuals who have been filing ADA lawsuits by the hundreds. This face says to the mainstream, in effect: You owe us and we demand what is rightfully ours. Our bargainer face is less well-defined, but one manifestation is the growing number of inspirational/motivational speakers who say to their mainstream audiences: I will talk about how I “overcame” my disability — rather than how your discrimination segregates me from the mainstream — if you give me respect in return.

Is one approach better than the other? Are they conflicting, complementary, or both? Perhaps the answer can be found in the transcendent example that Obama has given us: His bargaining power co-exists with an underlying civil rights challenge that is just. And yet, to maximize that power, he chooses not to exploit guilt and instead focuses on a shared future. He is all about moving forward, and he invites everyone to come along.

Does the disability community’s vision for the future include everyone — nondisabled, too — or are we all about getting our slice of the pie?