4 ms·

I've experienced this as well - albeit in a slightly modified form, but one more people can relate to. I work with a friend of mine who has a non-profit to rep

• waqf 10y ago
  I understand that people not being able to look you in the eye makes you feel extremely disrespected. But I don't think it helps anyone for you to jump from there to assuming that what's going on inside their head is "[I don't] respect [this person] as a human being". To be clear, I think other things you mention, like not getting out of your way, are evidence of that. But eye contact? Probably anxiety from an unfamiliar social situation.
  • untog 10y ago
    > But eye contact? Probably anxiety from an unfamiliar social situation. I'd hesitate to tell the OP they are wrong when they are the ones that experienced this situation and not you. If they noticed this being a lot more common when they were in the chair than when they were out of it, that implies that the change is in them, not in the other party's base level of social anxiety. And if they are more socially anxious around people in chairs than those who are not, that is absolutely a problem to be addressed, not to be waved away as "oh, social anxiety is what it is".
    • waqf 10y ago
      > If they noticed this being a lot more common when they were in the chair than when they were out of it, that implies that the change is in them, not in the other party's base level of social anxiety. And if they are more socially anxious around people in chairs than those who are not, that is absolutely a problem to be addressed, not to be waved away as "oh, social anxiety is what it is". I agree with both of these statements. I took care to word my comment not to imply otherwise, but apologies if I was still unclear.
      • cr0sh 10y ago
        One thing to realize, is that these people - all of us - were at an event called Abilities Expo: For those people (not all of them, mind you, but way more than I expected) to have social anxiety around those in chairs really says something - the mix of people at that event included people from all walks of life - from those in chairs, and their families, to salespeople presenting and hawking all manner of products (I was floored at what it cost to specially customize automobiles for those in chairs to drive), to caregivers and others. These are all people who -should- be comfortable (and accommodating) around those with less mobility, so the lack of eye contact was surprising. I do apologize and agree, though, that my conclusion as to what they might be thinking is unfounded; I obviously can't know what they were really thinking or why.
  • lostcolony 10y ago
    'But I don't think it helps anyone for you to jump from there to assuming that what's going on inside their head is "[I don't] respect [this person] as a human being".' Probably true. However, that's also applicable to most other forms of discrimination. A police officer responding with greater force to a black person than they would to white person is probably not thinking "I don't respect this person as a human being", but nevertheless, their actions and thought processes are different, and are legitimately -not- treating the person as, well, a full person, but as some sort of 'other' that does not demand the same respect, the same courtesy, etc. Eye contact is part of that; if they offer eye contact to able bodied people, the fact that they don't to the disabled, irrespective of the explicit thoughts going through their head, is indicative of them viewing the disabled as an 'other' that does not necessitate that same courtesy.
• moron4hire 10y ago
  This is something I've been similarly realizing about the sidewalks in my neighborhood now that I have a baby I need to push around in a stroller. My neighborhood is kind of hipsterish and a lot of people think urban residential districts are good places to grow agriculture. They build these gigantic, unkempt gardens in their front yards (I call these people "front-yard farm fanciers" for this reason, because alliterations are allegedly always accurate).[0] At first, it was just annoying to have to step out into the street to get around fallen sunflower plants, or the clouds of insects that fruit and vegetable plants attract, because of course these sorts of people also don't believe in insecticides. With a stroller, I'm less mobile than walking on my own, but I suspect I'm more mobile than a person in a wheelchair. There have been places that have been challenging for me. Telephone poles in the middle of the sidewalk, flanked on one side by cars and the other side with stratchy or thorny (or smelly! Flowers are sexual organs!) plants. The sidewalk is cut into two, 6-inch wide strips. It makes me extremely self-conscious and anxious about my work in Virtual Reality and how I have absolutely zero realistic plan for accessibility yet. In a way, our current state of VR being very early is a good opportunity to really rethink accessibility and start taking a more serious, more pervasive approach to it. VR is itself an accessibility feature, just much further on the "physically standard" end of the spectrum than standard desktop computers. I've been trying to make a framework that makes gracefully degrading from full room-scale VR down all the way to mouse-and-keyboard/FPS-style play, or even touch-panned mobile work. But it's a lot of work and the night is dark and full of terrors. [0] You can tell the people who are just starting out for the first time, when they have more than one tomato plant. One place had 10 tomato plants in their front yard. The only way to use that many tomatoes is to start a side business in canning tomato sauce!
  • Johnny555 10y ago
    I'd like to live in a neighborhood where my biggest obstacle on the sidewalk is a fallen sunflower plant, and not the pile of human excrement in the middle of the sidewalk, not the homeowner that decided as long as his car is not sticking out into the street, it's ok to park half in his driveway and half in the sidewalk, and that there's actually a complete sidewalk, it doesn't suddenly end for a block because for whatever reason, that undeveloped property was never required to build a sidewalk. My parents grew a lot of tomatoes... I want to say we had at least 12 plants in a row in the garden - summer was tomato season, tomato sandwiches, fried green tomatoes, we shared and traded with neighbors for whatever was growing in their garden, and mom canned what we couldn't eat immediately so we had them all winter. As a new parent, I'm surprised you're not more tolerant of these "save the world" hipsters since they are reducing their impact today to save the world for your child(ren).
• drzaiusapelord 10y ago
  >we experienced on a constant basis people not watching out for us, stepping in our way of travel, not respecting us as human beings This seems like an exaggeration. How does this differ from your daily life? Are people wonderfully warm to you randomly and for no reason? This seems like the norm here to me. Most of us are stuck in our heads and in our own little worlds and miss a lot of whats going around outside of us. That doesn't make us bad people. Personally, I find it difficult to engage people with handicaps or other obvious health issues. I don't want them to feel like I'm gawking or staring. So I look away. Perhaps that's why people weren't looking you in the eye as much. Perhaps us flawed people don't see you as 'not human' but we just don't want to offend you or make a spectacle out of you. Also those new-ish electric scooters are almost whisper quiet. I've been at the grocery store many times where I blocked someone like this. I literally cannot hear them come up behind me like I would, say, a woman's high heeled shoe on tile. I'm sorry but you'll need to speak up if I'm in your way. I'm not psychic. I think you might be projecting a narrative here that fits your personal politics, but may not really be true at all. Its easy to generalize random people out in public as assholes, but I think the idea that there's this agreement that we all should be rude to wheelchair bound people is ridiculous. If anything I see strangers trip over themselves to open doors for them and such. I see strangers ask to help blind people cross the street here in Chicago fairly often and very often on public trans. I see a lot altruism with the disabled in general. I think perhaps you should consider alternate theories to explain what you think you're perceiving.
  • cr0sh 10y ago
    To address your points: I wouldn't say that in my day-to-day life people are "wonderfully warm" to me randomly - but they do acknowledge me as a person, they see that I am there, and they aren't anxious (or whatever) to look at me. But in a chair - at an Expo dedicated to products for the differently-abled of all places - things were different. Maybe what you say might be the reason - but again, many of these people were caregivers and salespeople for companies marketing products to people with chairs and needs. In the course of working with my friend, and meeting with people who have different abilities and needs, many have impressed upon me how they themselves are perceived as lesser than able-bodied individuals. Many had this perspective after being in an accident or having come into a condition that necessitated the use of a chair later in life, so they knew how they were treated before by others, and how they are now treated. In fact, that's how my friend came to be doing what he does; his brother came down with a condition, literally in the prime of his life. My friend saw how people treated him, and wanted to do something to alleviate this - so he turned to customizing chairs, and did so for his brother, and found that people would then talk -to- him - not around him. It was like the "cool chair" was an icebreaker or something; it eventually led to the non-profit, but making custom chairs is his real passion. These people are more offended - and disappointed - by other not making eye contact, or talking with them - as if they aren't there. Many just want to be seen and acknowledged, like we all do. Regarding the quietness of scooters and chairs - yes, they are insanely quiet, and in normal day-to-day situations, that can be a problem even for people who wouldn't think or dream of being a problem for those in the chairs. Perfectly understandable, but it is something that needs to have greater awareness made about. Much like there are campaigns for "watch for motorcyclists" - we need the same kind of awareness for those in these quiet chairs. My friend and I have experimented with mods to make chairs more "visible" or "audible", but we are also at odds with the manufacturers of these chairs at times (some of the things we'd like to do are near to impossible because we can't get access to the chair's "internals" - for good reason, ultimately). Finally, I agree that not everyone, or even most people, is out to be "assholes" to those in chairs. But again, remember that I experienced all of this at an Abilities Expo - one place where I would think people would be -more- accommodating, not at the regular base-level, or less. Furthermore, I still can't discount the experiences of those who actually use these chairs on a day-to-day basis. While I acknowledge that alternate theories are possible and likely in many cases, I still think there is a widespread, perhaps unconscious "something" that causes people to act differently around those who are using such mobility devices.