There’s another thing that Down Syndrome people have
over cripples like me. At least everybody’s not putting together cripple awareness
simulations where people who don’t have Down Syndrome pretend like they do for
a day. For that I am also envious.
It’s common to see cripple awareness simulations where the
mayor or somebody rides around in a wheelchair for a day just so they can feel
the cripple experience from the inside. And a local news crew follows the mayor
around as he/she struggles to push the wheelchair down a broken up sidewalk or to
open the heavy doors at the entrance of City Hall. Or sometimes it a blind
awareness simulation and the mayor is blindfolded. And at the end of the day
the mayor always says what an enlightening experience it was. And the mayor
scores points with the voters because everybody likes empathy in their elected
officials.
The problem with these simulations is that they really don’t
teach anybody much about what it’s like to be crippled. It takes a helluva lot
more than one day to learn that. It’s as silly as trying to become a gourmet
chef in one day. It takes years of practice to get good at cooking, just like it
takes years of practice to get good at being crippled. If you want to know what
it’s like to be an amputee, chopping your leg off is just the beginning. Then
you’ve got to go around like that for a couple years before you can start to
figure it all out.
But there aren’t simulations for every type of crippledness.
Like for instance, I’ve never seen a paranoid schizophrenia awareness
simulation. I don’t know how you would pull that one off. Maybe the mayor would
wear headphones and listen to recordings of disembodied voices for a day. (It’s
looks like I could sure use some paranoid schizophrenia awareness training).
And likewise, I’ve never seen a Down Syndrome awareness
simulation. I don’t know how you would pull that one off either. Maybe
the mayor would wear a mask for a day that makes them look like a Down Syndrome
person? But that would have the opposite effect on voters. That’s the kind of
thing that can get a mayor impeached, like running around in black face.
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