Mea culpa as well. To the extent I've successfully developed empathy for disabled and marginalized people and some degree of understanding, it's mostly been because my privileged life was interrupted by injury, or something else happened to impact myself personally.
I read this article on HN recently about trying to cultivate these experiences deliberately, I'd be curious what you thought of it. It seems like an interesting idea but I have mixed feelings about cosplaying as a person with a disability I don't actually have.
I've read it...at least part of it and skimmed the rest.
From what I have read -- and this article cites the same stat -- roughly 15 to 20 percent of people self-identify as disabled. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. At least one study found that about 60 percent of people would benefit from better accommodation if you ask them if they have difficulties with X without asking them to self-identify as disabled.
Both the officially disabled and people with milder limitations get really cranky about where to draw that line. People with mild limitations often go out of their way to say they are definitely not disabled and merely have a little trouble with these things and officially disabled jealously guard the label because they need it to have any hope of making their lives work at all and don't want people who can make their lives work without that label horning in on any limited benefits available only to them or diluting what the word means.
It's a really thorny topic.
I had a class from SFSU in Homelessness and Public Policy and it has a similar exercise, like "Spend one day pretending you are homeless. Figure out how to go to the bathroom while carrying everything you own. Figure out how you will get around without a car."
And then I spent nearly six years homeless.
There are plenty of people with actual disabilities who are perfectly capable of telling you what they need if you will only listen to them. If you are unable or unwilling to listen to them and take them seriously without trying to "walk a mile in their shoes," well, sure, go ahead and try it out for a week or whatever if you think that will help you.
But sometimes all it takes is one person willing to say it over and over so you keep it in mind when it's time for you to make coding decisions or whatever. And if/when that happens, it probably won't ever get noticed, acknowledged nor appreciated.
It will promptly be forgotten like when programmers of an old, "useless" language fixed Y2K and the world did not have a global financial meltdown on January 1, 2000. We shrugged, acted like "Someone must have been wrong." and moved on to hand-wringing about the newest bad news.
I am probably the only person on the planet who sometimes goes "Thank God we aren't living in the Y2K Post Apocalypse!"
The internet has made my life as a disabled person vastly more workable. Are there things I wish were even betterer? Sure, there are and we certainly shouldn't be dismissing the completely valid complaints of anyone who can't do x because it's not designed with their needs in mind and there is no means whatsoever to get it done.
I certainly do not dismiss such people.
But perhaps it would help to understand that when they complain about, for example, the internet not working for them, part of what they are telling you is that the internet is vital to their lives and has expanded their life beyond what it likely would have been in decades past. So when it doesn't work, it's like taking away their oxygen or sunshine.
It's hard to do anything well. It's often not appreciated at all nor rewarded. Try to not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
It’s true. But also perhaps more nuanced. Many people see disability as a purely negative experience, something to avoid at all costs, synonymous with illness. But it is a slightly different axis: Both medical and societal in nature. Thus we have the idea that it is not the person who is disabled, but society that disables the person. And separately many people have it as a central part of their identity, something to be proud of. Hence identity first language: “disabled person” vs “person with disability”. I am a person who holds it both as a burden of sorts, but also an identity, and a constantly fluctuating commentary on the ableism in the way we’ve built society. Disability is a complex framework.
It should be noted that not all disabled people or communities like the social model. I despise it, for example. I have MS + visual impairments and society isn't why I'm disabled. I find the social model is adopted more by people for whom accommodations/cures exist and who don't have physical difficulties/pain.
I feel very conflicted when seeing young people who are out of shape. They have the best possible potential for increasing fitness due to fast recovery. An investment that pays massive dividends in a very very short time. A fit body pays back on so many levels it is a paradox why would anyone not be fit.
The world has changed. The built environment has changed. I look at unfit young people and part of what I feel is that they are victims of a broken world getting blamed for what their elders did to them.
Paradox? Declining to experience torture several times a week in perpetuity is not a paradox. I have never ran a mile, not when I was young or today; not all of us have the genes that release happy chemicals from physical exertion.
Yes, I think people sometimes underestimate how much people’s experiences differ. I find weight lifting boring but enjoy running; many people report the opposite and others hate both.
So while the long-term benefits of exercise are well-established, it’s up to the individual whether the benefits outweigh the cost for them personally. And in the context of disability, some of those benefits might not apply or may be counteracted by the exercise exacerbating a chronic condition.
The benefits of exercise are great enough that I would encourage people to try to find an activity they like and accommodates any disabilities. Unfortunately, this isn’t feasible for everyone.
I think that would just be a matter of practice. Many things are uncomfortable/difficult in the beginning, but if you do them enough then they can become rewarding.
Well what's your reason for running? To lose weight? To be healthier? To sleep better? Can you run longer distances? Can you run faster times? Can you compete in races?
I mean if you have run for 5 months and haven't progressed towards any of your goals ... then it seems like your routine needs to be improved. Or maybe you want a different activity that would help you reach your goals.
For most people, if you don't enjoy running just to run, the reward would be the progress towards your goals.
The main point of this article is to inspire a bit more empathy and consideration for those with disabilities. He knows he's privileged, and that the 4/5 people who aren't currently disabled (by Sarah's count) are too; he's trying to help the 4/5 see themselves in the 1/5, too. Doesn't feel constructive to call him out for it
I used to work at a Fortune 500 company. While there, I gave up my car and began walking to work.
A teammate offered to pick me every morning but our schedules were a little different, so she couldn't take me home. There was a program for people ridesharing, some goody-two-shoes, pie-in-the-sky, "Let's promote the idea that people need to drive less" thing and she qualified for a special parking space for ridesharing with me.
And then someone else offered to take me home and also applied to this program and did not get the special parking space she was hoping for. Instead, the first woman lost her special parking privileges.
After that, I stopped participating in all the company programs aimed at rewarding people with cars for driving less by walking, biking, ridesharing, etc. for fear that as someone entirely without a car, no matter what I did, I would somehow be in violation of the rules which were geared towards people who owned cars and by default drove alone.
I happen to be seriously handicapped myself and my condition is congenital. If he is more entitled to give his views on this topic than I am, then something is extremely wrong.
And oblivious to how fortunate you are until it leaves you. And then you get to gripe about "getting old" or whatever and kvetch about what you lost.
Some people never had it. And never will.