"Carnagey, Bill" wrote in part:
> Most of my friends don't think of me as a middle-aged, blonde headed male.
> But, when trying to describe me to some one else, they may say, "he's that
> guy over there with the blonde hair."
There is a difference between pointing someone out in a crowd by visual cues
and remembering an aspect of an individual's characteristics to relate what is
perceived to be a related story/situation for discussion. The former could be
a description based solely upon what the person speaking is seeing at that
moment and not, necessarily having anything to do with one's definition of that
individual (conscious or unconscious). The latter is directly related to how
one defines an individual because of the ability to call up that
image/definition as it relates to the subject matter. If one truly did not
think of the individual in that specific context or "as such" then one would
not be able to form a relationship between the subject matter and the
individual. For example, one has left and right, and quite possibly,
ambidextrous friends. And one, given everyday experiences, would have seen
this behavior in action and, hence, know the characteristic dominant hand.
Yet, I'm fairly sure most, if not all, the members of this list would be hard
pressed to name five left handed friends or right handed friends or
ambidextrous friends because, although we may have seen this characteristic and
have it logged somewhere in our memory banks, it is not considered a
stigmatizing characteristic and, therefore, we are not trained to note it and
label people as such -- consciously or unconsciously.
> I would not want to be known as an "LD guy" just for the sake of
> labeling me. On the other hand, if we were discussing LD, I would not be
> offended if one were to say, "there is this guy, Bill, who works with some
> students on campus who have a LD; he has a LD himself and this is what he
> thinks about effective computer accommodations for some individuals with
> certain types of LD."
Like it or not, right or wrong, due to socialization, to anyone who knows
you're LD, you are either consciously or unconsciously labeled in their minds
as the "LD guy" because that is probably the one characteristic in your
portfolio of characteristics that is labeled "wrong" by society. And like it
or not, right or wrong, that's what society says matters. It matters how "off"
an individual is from society's categories of correctness, society's "norm"
(which is anything but normal) and one is trained to note any and all
deviations from this "norm" to be called upon at a later date. Further, and
again, there is a difference between talking to someone about computer
accommodations and relating what an individual had said about computer
accommodations that one knows and drumming up an image of a friend, not to
discuss anything they've said, or experiences they've had but to defend a
completely unrelated experience of one's own that has nothing to do with the
individual being trotted out except for their using a wheelchair, due to
disability, and you know them and you used a wheelchair once, due to a need for
a grade (hardly voluntary or necessary). And somehow this one time putting on
of black face has made it possible for you to do your job better and be friends
with this guy? Either you need Marge Schott's phone number (everyone needs a
friend they can relate to) or you're selling yourself short by thinking this
one time bs "experiment" did anything that a five year old's logic, a touch of
acceptance and respect of and for difference, and little knowledge, from books,
on the subject of regulations could have given you -- without all the nasty
side effects.
>
> Yet, what about the ones (however few they may be) that truly are affected
> with a more positive and/or sensitive view toward disability?
They would still be the same without the simulation if they were taught how to
think in a manner that encouraged many solutions to one problem -- i.e. the
problem: the door is ten feet from the ground, solution 1: build a ramp,
solution 2 build and elevator, solution 3 build an escalator, solution 4 build
steps . . . . In fact, I would argue that they would be better off because not
only would they not have been steeped in the stereotypes that invariably plague
simulations -- all blind people are total, all paraplegics use wheelchairs,
etc. -- they would have been taught something truly useful -- like how to
create solutions to life's problems.
--
Carolyn
check out, "Passing, Invisibility and Other Psychotic Stuff" at
http://www.tell-us-your-story.com/_disc68r/00000003.htm
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