Originally posted by francis:
The list Xuxan has made is very accurate in my experience. My wife has MS so I've become intensely involved in the life of the disabled.
People often tell my wife how "brave" she is, & tell me how heroic I am for staying with her, for not divorcing her. I stay with her for the same reason any spouse stays with their spouse, because I love her.
I tell people that the difference between me & a disabled person can be one micro-second. That all it takes for a cranial blood vessel to break, or to get clobbered by a vehicle, or get thrown off a horse, or trip and fall, etc.
One event that occured in a matter of seconds is often the difference between a disabled and non-disabled person,
So, there's nothing inherently wrong with my wife because she has a disability, she's not being punished, she's not a brave kid, it's just a result of the uncertainty & perils of life on earth.
Yet, people still see the disabled in terms of all the myths Xuxan has listed, as if there's something exotic or damned about a disabled person.

Originally posted by StarlightAngel:
"people with disabilies should be viewed as object lessons about the triumph of the human spirit."

Originally posted by Xuxan:

1. "Disabled" is "disabled" all the way down: if you have one disability, people think you have a lot more. If you are in a chair, you are probably deaf and cognitively disabled, too! [MJ note: decades ago Beatrice Wright called this "the spread effect."]

2. The angry or selfish cripple syndrome: disabled people are angry at the world; they are selfish, too, wanting more than their fair share of everything.

* If you are disabled you are poor and dependent upon the government for financial support.

* People with disabilities go around suing everyone who makes them mad. An offshoot of the "uppity crip" myth.
* We're asexual.

* We're nonsexual.

* If you have a disability, you're incapable of handling your own affairs or living your own life or making your own decisions.
* People with disabilities must be protected.
.[/QB]

Originally posted by MrSoul:

Quote:

Originally posted by StarlightAngel:
"people with disabilies should be viewed as object lessons about the triumph of the human spirit."

Agree with everything on your list, except this.

What's wrong with that? And why not? I tend to think of any "adversity" that way, not just disability... i.e. being born dirt-poor and starting a successful business or becoming educated, overcoming child abuse/bad childhoods, immigrants who struggled to get here, addiction recovery, blah blah blah. I call it the Oprah specialty dept. I like those stories, and I admit I get something from them all.

Why do you think it's bad if applied to someone with a disability?

Originally posted by walkin and rollin:
Pointing out Lance Armstrong's exploits isn't going to motivate me because we will never be in the same league.

Besides Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder was one of the few Motown stars to contest the label's factory-like operation methods: artists, songwriters, and producers were usually kept in specialized collectives with little or no overlap, and artists had no creative control. Wonder argued with Berry Gordy over creative control a number of times. As a compromise, Motown released an album under the name "Eivets Rednow" (Stevie Wonder backwards). Arguments continued and, Wonder allowed his Motown contract to expire, and he left the label on his twenty-first birthday in 1971.