Moccasin Wear Patterns
Nov. 11th, 2009 01:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nyykiMy regular ride to school told me about something rather disturbing yesterday.
C is a young woman who is in the Occupational Therapy program at TWU. She's also blind. One of her "friends," a young woman who hasn't worked more than a part time job in her tentire life, visited C recently, and tried to convince C to give up her SSI and SSDI to go work at Denton State School for $1400/month. C has some rather expensive meds, so this action would potentially jeopardize her Medicaid. This "friend" got C all upset by implying that she wasn't pulling her share of the societal freight as a blind person, and that she needed to get off "Welfare" and become a productive member of society.
First off, there is a difference between SSI and SSDI and Welfare. A lot of people are trying to push Social SEcurity into the welfare camp, and this is both mean spirited and duplicitous. Welfare includes things like WIC, TANF, Food Stamps, and yes, even PeEll TGrants.
Second, it's a sign of a severe lack of information to lump blind people into the same category as other disabilities. It always amazes me how employers will pop for a $3000 set of wheelchair ramps but won't cover the expense of $800 screen reader software, but this is all too common. There are fundamental differences between mobility, auditory, visual, and neurological disabilites, and there's very little parallel experience involved in these. And for some reason blindness tends to meet the largest societal resistance. I've heard this from rehab professionals, social workers, disability advocates, and even public servants and bureaucrats.
The old saying about walking a mile in someone else's moccasins before passing judgment seems to have dropped out of our collective consciousness. And this "By your own Bootstraps" myth so popular with macho and egotistical or uncaring folks doesn't help matters. It's possible to take independence and individualism too far, and I'm seeing more and more of it lately.
And this is even more surprising with how our current economic and employment environment is right now. I've been told by someone drawing unemployment that I need to find a job. As if a "job" is some kind of holy grail anyway. I guess this person can't accept my plans to make money writing, composing, and running a recording studio. (Don't worry, friends, this person had a very brief transit through my life and is now no longer a part of it)
I see a lot of this as someone trying to foist their values off on others. I still can't understand why people expect others to believe the same things they do -- what part of diversity is hard to understand here, much less grok? Anyone who wants to tell me what I sould do, need to do, or ought to do is cordially invited to STFU. Need, should, and ought are judgment words, and I'm enough of a collection of non-standard beliefs that I'm not interested in any free advice.
C is a young woman who is in the Occupational Therapy program at TWU. She's also blind. One of her "friends," a young woman who hasn't worked more than a part time job in her tentire life, visited C recently, and tried to convince C to give up her SSI and SSDI to go work at Denton State School for $1400/month. C has some rather expensive meds, so this action would potentially jeopardize her Medicaid. This "friend" got C all upset by implying that she wasn't pulling her share of the societal freight as a blind person, and that she needed to get off "Welfare" and become a productive member of society.
First off, there is a difference between SSI and SSDI and Welfare. A lot of people are trying to push Social SEcurity into the welfare camp, and this is both mean spirited and duplicitous. Welfare includes things like WIC, TANF, Food Stamps, and yes, even PeEll TGrants.
Second, it's a sign of a severe lack of information to lump blind people into the same category as other disabilities. It always amazes me how employers will pop for a $3000 set of wheelchair ramps but won't cover the expense of $800 screen reader software, but this is all too common. There are fundamental differences between mobility, auditory, visual, and neurological disabilites, and there's very little parallel experience involved in these. And for some reason blindness tends to meet the largest societal resistance. I've heard this from rehab professionals, social workers, disability advocates, and even public servants and bureaucrats.
The old saying about walking a mile in someone else's moccasins before passing judgment seems to have dropped out of our collective consciousness. And this "By your own Bootstraps" myth so popular with macho and egotistical or uncaring folks doesn't help matters. It's possible to take independence and individualism too far, and I'm seeing more and more of it lately.
And this is even more surprising with how our current economic and employment environment is right now. I've been told by someone drawing unemployment that I need to find a job. As if a "job" is some kind of holy grail anyway. I guess this person can't accept my plans to make money writing, composing, and running a recording studio. (Don't worry, friends, this person had a very brief transit through my life and is now no longer a part of it)
I see a lot of this as someone trying to foist their values off on others. I still can't understand why people expect others to believe the same things they do -- what part of diversity is hard to understand here, much less grok? Anyone who wants to tell me what I sould do, need to do, or ought to do is cordially invited to STFU. Need, should, and ought are judgment words, and I'm enough of a collection of non-standard beliefs that I'm not interested in any free advice.
