Tuesday, 7 July 2015

Labels

Second rant in a day - but I am so disheartened I have to write it down.  I will keep this short and brief.

I am a person with a disability, actually a number of disabilities, but first and foremost I am a PERSON.  I am not a label, a disease, and condition, a 'reasonable adjustment', I am me.  So I walk, very badly with a stick, I have depression on top.  Does that make me any less of a person?  Should that mean I am treated differently?  Should employing me give an employer 'brownie points'?

The answer should be NO to all those questions - I naively hoped and believed that society had turned the corner on disability issues, only to be disabused of these ideals by someone's idea of 'helping the disabled'.

I don't want to be helped, treated differently, treated more favourably, than anyone else, I just want a level playing field.

In these days of terror and oppression anything that makes you different makes you a target.  I am not just talking about the terrible things happening in the Middle East, but anywhere that people are made to feel inferior because of who they are, what they think, or how they live.

Today I have a headache so don't want to fight anymore - Tomorrow may be different.  Perhaps tomorrow they will realise that I am JUST a person.

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