Growing Awareness of Disabilities and Empowerment

The growth in the advocacy about looking at those with impairments as merely people who do the same things but in a different manner grows. Acceptance of the advocacy grows at a slower pace. Perhaps this is due to the fact that we look at the body of the individual and only see what we have accepted as normal in our "traditional," normal environment.

How ironic it is, then, when we encounter someone with a disability that cannot be seen. The asthmatic, those with heart conditions, arthritis, or low vision. Those are disabilities -- to the extent the individual does not do things in the same "traditional" way as the major proportion of the world population. And if they do not reveal their condition, they simply blend in and are expected to perform at the same pace and in the same manner as everyone else.

But we're slow to do outreach to those with impairments. Some argue that the cost of having a person with an impairment in the office will be excessive because of modifications that are required or that they will not be able to operate as fast as others and thereby slow the pace of the entire team. Still others will argue that so much support personnel will be necessary that it will be too costly to hire a person with an empairment. I guess adaptive equipment and its annually dramatic affordability doesn't count.

The Chinese ballet has made a profound statement about disabilities. In fact, they have gone so far as to include an amputee in their troupe. He is not the comedic oddity, nor the pathetic supporting personnel. The dance is a duet, a romantic duet. The statement the male lead makes in his performance is, "I can be a man for you. I can carry you, support you, lift you up when you need support, lead you when you are lost, care for you, love you."

The female lead is initially afraid of the attraction she feels for this very handsome man. In fact, both of them show their fear of the attraction. Overcoming all of the obvious objections leads to their discoveries of the man who can dance the ballet with or without his crutch. The crutch at one point seemed to be a stage prop (of necessity). But when the lead essentially tossed it aside to perform part of his dance, we realized this is a strong man who simply does things a little differently from the rest of us.

This is also true in the workforce. This is true in the management echelons. Persons with disabilities are not cast asides, people who were good yesterday with all of their abilities intact as we are accustomed to seeing and using them. Persons with disabilities are vital individuals who, because of the accommodations they need to adapt, make life better for all of us.

"What adaptive devices?" you may be wondering. Talking devices are adaptations for the blind. But they assist everyone else. Take, for example, the technology that allows immediate translation of a live council meeting as onscreen text. Automatic doors are another adaptation with universal utility because they allow entrance when our hands are full yet are adaptations for those who do not have the ability to open doors for theirselves for a myriad of reasons. These are merely two of the pedestrian accommodations the general population uses, accommodations that became mainstream but had their birth in accommodating those with impairments. Are they impairments?