I fear that someday the uncrippled majority will get fed up and snap. One of them will say aloud, “Fuck cripples! I’m sick of catering to them!” And millions of others will feel awash in that sense of relief that occurs when someone says something you’ve been feeling but were afraid to express. And they will take it as permission to declare themselves similarly. And that will open the floodgates for a torrent of cripple backlash.
This moment of fed-upness is likely to occur at an airport. Tensions are already high at airports. When I’m in the plane pre-boarding line, I see resentment in the eyes of many of the corralled verts (which is short for verticals, which is slang for people who can walk.) Their look says, “How come he gets to get on the plane before me? So what if he’s had it rough. I’ve had it rough, too. My father was a drunk.” So they think the announcement should be amended to say, “Ladies and gentleman, first we will pre-board passengers with special needs and those whose fathers were drunks.” But if that was allowed to happen, then the next guy will say, “Hey, what about me? I’ve had it rough, too. I was bullied in middle school.” So the announcement would be amended yet again and pretty soon we’ve defeated the purpose of pre-boarding.
A lot of verts also look like they’re seethingly jealous when an airport worker wearing a vest brings a standing cripple a wheelchair and then pushes that cripple all over the terminal. And it makes me think that maybe cripples who are out to shatter every stigma associated with using a wheelchair need to ease up a little. Because I think the main thing stopping these verts from demanding airport wheelchair rides is that they think it’s uncool to be seen sitting in a wheelchair. So maybe stigma ain’t all bad. Maybe it doesn’t always work against us.
But here’s something that would cause the uncrippled majority to snap for sure. What if there was a pre-unboarding? What if we they were expected to wait patiently while cripples get off the plane before them the same way we expect them to wait patiently while cripples get on the plane before them? “Ladies and gentlemen, please remain in your seats with your seatbelts fastened for about 20 or 30 minutes while an airport worker wearing a vest hauls the cripples off the plane first.” Sheeeeeeeeeeit! No way that’s gonna happen. As soon as that hatch door opens, verts hustle off that plane like somebody set off tear gas. That poor airport worker wearing a vest would get trampled.
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