Wait, what?

I was just sitting here listening to some moronic tv in the background as I sat here and coughed (I think it's "Extra", I don't know or care, is it really that important what "scandalous celebrity love triangle" is going on this week?). There was a bit on Oprah's "Big Give" show, which is another thing I'm not too keen on because I'm not into taking credit for charity; doesn't sit well with me. I'm glad someone is benefiting, but still.

Yes, I know a lot of people are Oprah fans. I'm not. Moving on.

Whilst promoting this show, the guy raved, "We have people from all backgrounds! We have a former gang member, we have a beauty pageant winner..." (here they alternately showed flashes of two different women, the pageant winner actually wearing a tiara in her street clothes)"...we have a paraplegic..."

As if to prove this, they showed a young woman rolling her wheelchair enthusiastically across some sort of patio.

Now, wait a second.

If the guy had said "We have people from all backgrounds...we have a black woman, we have a white woman...we have an Asian...", no one would have let him get away with that. People would have been screaming racist, accusing him of looking no further than someone's appearance and physicality. They would have delivered philippic after impassioned philippic about how dare he think these people are defined by the color of their skin. There is more to a person than that, doesn't he realize?

And, reflexively, he could defend what he said against this uber-pc world by saying that his statement is completely accurate.

Because there is a black experience. There is a white experience. There is an Asian experience. And there are so many experiences encompassing these, and in between them...as many as there are sentient beings who have ever lived, at the very least. Sure, a person's physicality is an integral part of their life experience.

And that's why "we have a paraplegic" would have been okay, if they'd stuck to elementary school English rules and made all of the sentences match the topic. If the first two examples would have been about something physical that affected the way the first two ladies' lives were led, the same way paraplegia affected the third. Doesn't have to be a "disability". Could have been race, if they were that brave (no chance of that). But make it match.

What about the woman who was a paraplegic? Is she a professional paraplegic? Did she always dream of becoming a paraplegic? Is she still paying off the loans from paraplegic school? I seriously doubt it. She has a life, interests, a family and a career, don't you think? Whatever she's done with her life, I guarantee it's at least as important and mentionable as being a gang member or winning a beauty pageant. Maybe she's done all of the above, and can trump them both. Who knows? We won't, apparently, because the only thing they think we need to know about her is that she's in a damn wheelchair.

The "collect 'em all" mentality is rampant but unspoken. Pick up any Sunday ad insert and you'll see carefully handpicked clusters of children cavorting together. One of each race, and they'll throw in a kid with a set of leg braces every once in a while as a bonus. It's not just kids...look at one of those ads for osteoporosis meds, where a gaggle of women in all colors of the rainbow are out enjoying Wholesome Activities together. How often does this come up, where you have one person of each major racial type, plus one person with a token visible disability, in a given group? Even little kids recognize this as BS. At least, I hope they do, so they're not fodder for manipulation their whole lives. That's what political correctness is, generally, just taking the whole thing to a level that's obnoxiously patronizing.

And for some reason, the racial thing is very carefully swept under the rug. Everyone knows what's happening, like a sudden unpleasant smell in an elevator, but no one wants to mention it. Everyone knows that sometimes there are groups that are all one race and sometimes there are not, but we stick to that optimal unspoken understanding that we have to do this so that everyone knows how openminded we are. Does anyone really care how openminded we are? It's more of an innocent-till-proven-guilty thing, isn't it? But with race, that seems to be what happens.

With disability, though, it still seems to be okay to draw attention to what makes someone different, and that's how this "Extra" guy flipped out the paraplegic comment without even thinking. It's just the mentality, I guess. People hear what's wrong with you and the first thing out of their mouths is how they know someone who wore one of those neck braces/prosthetic limbs, or they have some distant relative with your kind of cancer, and if you're in the right frame of mind it's not a big deal. You might even be able to learn from and help one another. But these are the same people who would never, ever meet someone of a different race and say "Oh, I have a friend who's black (or white, or Chinese and you're Korean, or whatever)." It's somehow safe to act like that with the disabled. I find it funny, in a sad kind of way.

Never did find out anything more about their token paraplegic. I know she can work her wheelchair, at least long enough to get across a ten-foot expanse of concrete. I don't plan on watching the show to find out more. I hope, though, that however much or little merit she really has as a person, they give her a fairer shake than they did in the promo.

Will someone give me a hand off the soapbox? My balance is a little lousy.






Suggested reading: Mark Allen Cam's Disability Interviews