By William G. Stothers
We all want to be accepted. Nothing is worse than to be on the outside watching others playing or working together. The image of a person standing out in the cold with his or her face pressed against a frosty window watching a group of friends inside a bright, warm living or dining room is an old one, yet it still holds power.
I feel that way, and I also feel that way about this magazine. I want it to be liked and accepted by everybody. The truth, of course, is that this magazine may not be for everyone. But I still don't like the feeling of being rejected.
Recently I received a letter from a person complaining about a story concerning gay people living and working in a world that doesn't accept them. The letter writer, a self-described born-again Christian, could not condone such articles.
She also believes that we espouse a resistance to assimilation into mainstream culture, and that we urge people to be proud of their disabilities, proud to be different and proud of their heritage. "Are you kidding?" she wrote. "All my life I've tried to assimilate into the mainstream culture. At age 38, I'm still trying to function in a world that doesn't fully accept or want me. I'm not proud to be disabled; it's not a condition I'd wish on anyone. I have as much right to be here as anyone else, but that's because I'm human, not because I'm disabled. I'm very much an activist, but I fight to get into the candy store, not to start a competing one across the street."
No, we are not against assimilation. We don't want to carve out someplace the size of Arizona to establish a wild and woolly Crip Nation. (Hmm. Maybe that is something to think about þ for a sci-fi movie of the week.) Quite the opposite. We want it all. We want the mainstream culture to embrace us. But we want to be accepted as who we are, people who have a disability.
I am not proud of my disability; it is not a condition I would wish on anyone else, either. In fact, it is often a great pain in the butt, literally and figuratively. Anyone with a disability knows the frustration and aggravation of running into barriers in the built environment, as well as the physical limitations in dealing with mundane matters such as carving that Sunday dinner roast.
Having said that, however, I am proud of who I am. And my disability is an essential part of my being. I cope damn well with those barriers and household chores. My problem-solving skills have been honed by years of experience.
Disability is also something þ the experience of a disabling condition þ that I share with millions of other people. It is in that sharing that I also find something to be proud of. As a group, people with disabilities display a remarkable ability to find ways to meet our needs and achieve our goals.
Those goals including getting into the candy store. I am not concerned much that the world does not accept or want me. I've got to make my own place and space. That goes for everybody þ including people with disabilities. The world will accept us when we push our way in and let them know that we're here and we're not going to go away. We'll get there with a lot of personal effort as well as group work. Together, we can make a significant push.
But there is another crucial aspect to acceptance. Before we can ask -- or demand -- acceptance from the world and other people, we have to accept ourselves. Many people with disabilities don't; and I'm not sure my letter-writer does either.
In my early years of living with a disability, I was on decidedly hostile terms with my situation, i.e., my vision of my self. Not liking my disabled self, hating to be disabled and so different from my non-disabled peers, I wallowed in self-pity. I longed to be like my peers. I never wanted to play sports in high school, but I sure wanted to be one of the crowd. I never was. Like Groucho Marx once said, I would never join a club that would have me as a member.
Many years and struggle passed before I decided that I wanted to join the club and that it deserved to have me. I would like everyone else to join, too, including the person who wrote me that letter mentioned above. The more diversity the better. But some of us will always be different, will always choose a different road. That's okay. Nobody has to put their cold faces against the window of the candy store. It's open for all.
William G. Stothers is editor of MAINSTREAM.
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