Disabilities Blog 6

Last week’s class covered additional material from the previous class on the challenges that African Americans faced. I had forgotten that we were supposed to finish the remainder of the sections from the reading so I felt a bit behind. Dr. Hoffman gave everyone an opportunity to collect information on our topic again, which was really nice for me, as I had forgotten my notes. I have to say that so far for me African American struggles has been my favorite section for the reason that Dr. Hoffman introduced material that exposed a different perception of African history . What I enjoyed the most during the debate was that everyone proposed a question towards the end of each section and that was stimulating and thought-provoking.  Figuring out proposals or questions that may solve a dilemma or at least propose a change is educating and encouraging because you are forced to think of solutions that maybe no one has thought of or even questioned. I think it’s an excellent way to add additional thinking after each weeks reading.

 

I selected this image because often times we forget to recognize that respecting diversity and saying you approve and understand others also should include people with disabilities. There was a statement used by the author of What do disabilities have to do with diversity?, that said, “historically people with disabilities either have been categorized by the type of disability and thus been thought to have nothing in common with people who have other disabilities or worse yet ha not even been acknowledge as participating members of our society”. This is true for most people that have been abused by society regarding their disability because they don’t know where they belong even today in this generation. I worked with children that had developmental disabilities for almost five years and often times they discriminated them as much or more than minority groups. Some of the youth that I worked with were mentally stable but physically incapable and when I would take them out for trips or to grocery stores they would tell me how uncomfortable they felt. I think schools should expose young children to others that face conditions that make them different to avoid discrimination. Or even create community programs in schools that gives extra credit for those who participate in activities or community work with disabled children and adults. By doing this hopefully future generations will improve on how they view and respect those who suffer illnesses that disables them mentally and physically.  We have made improvements on how society treats other ethnic groups hopefully we can all work on bettering how everyone treats and thinks of disabled children and adults. Protesting for media to advertise characters with disabilities will also help  improve this awareness. It will also help those who think that because they have disabilities they don’t have beauty.