Letter To Paralympaired People

In Nancy Mairs’ article for The New York Times, “Disability”, published in 1987, she expresses her distaste with the media's representation of handicapped people. Mairs, who struggled with multiple sclerosis herself, clearly and sharply conveys this disgust by stating, “I’m not, for instance, Ms. MS, a walking, talking embodiment of a chronic incurable degenerative disease.” (Mairs 13), and that she is actually, “the advertisers’ dream: Ms. Great American Consumer. And yet the advertisers, who determine nowadays who will get represented publicly and who will not, deny the existence of me and my kind absolutely”(Mairs 14). Mairs is greatly upset that disabled people are defined by their disabilities and, therefore, are underrepresented in public media. This might lead to one asking themselves, but why are they? And the answer, according to Mairs, is quite simple, “To depict disabled people in the ordinary activities of daily life is to admit that there is something ordinary about disability itself, that it may enter anybody’s life”(Mairs 14). Mairs concludes by pointing out how this effacement could have dangerous consequences for both disabled people and, as she called everyone else, TAPs (Temporarily Abled Persons) alike. Treating disabilities as an abnormal characteristic (as opposed to viewing them “as a normal characteristic, one that complicates but does not ruin human existence” (Mairs 15)) can cause one of these repercussions, as it makes the

In her essay “On Being a Cripple”, Nancy Mairs presents her audience with an honest inside view of her life and perspective as a cripple, a word she openly uses to define herself. She brings her world to us by discussing a wide variety of things including language, family, and humor, and how these all relate to her life. Through various stories and insights, she allows her readers to gain an understanding and acceptance of people with disabilities. She examines the public’s view of the disabled, as well as the views they have of themselves, and compares them to her own. She makes it clear that she is not to be defined solely by her disability. In discussing honestly her views, as well as

The Medical Model regards disability as an individual problem. It promotes a traditional view of disability, that it is something to be ‘cured’, even though many conditions have no cure. The problem is seen as the disabled person and their impairment, not society, and the solution is seen as adapting the disabled person to fit the non-disabled world, often through medical intervention. Control resides firmly with professionals; choices for the individual are limited to the options provided and approved by the 'helping' expert.

According to the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, a disabled person “has a physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on his ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities. ” Around 11 million people in the UK are living with a limiting long term illness, impairment or disability with less than half employed. With developing technology,

Unspeakable Conversations by Harriet McBryde Johnson is an article about her experience visiting Princeton University to exchange views and challenge Peter Singer, a professor who strongly believes that all disabled people, like herself, are “better off” not been born at all. The article provides an insight into Johnson’s life as a disabled person. She takes the readers on a journey that explores both sides of her own and Singer’s contrasting beliefs. She protests the prevalent stigma and prejudice of disabled people and gives voice to this marginalized community. Johnson challenges stereotypes of disability, uses her a personal experience to better understand the world and help others, and attempts to directly address oppression by arguing against Professor Singer’s theory and assemble a group of diverse and like-minded people for social change.

If you saw a person in the mall in a wheelchair, would you judge them? Or would you look at them like they are a normal human-being? People who have a disability whether they are physically disabled, mentally disabled, or learning disabled, are still themselves. Nancy Mairs was forty-three year old woman with multiple sclerosis. She wrote an essay, “Disability”, that explained her views of her physical disability.

as initiatives such as ‘Our Health Our Care Our Say’, ‘Putting People First’ and ‘Valuing People’ are changing how we look at disability and making people aware that all disabled people have the right to take a full part in society.

All they want is to take part of society as a normal individual. The disability-movement has fought for the disabilities rights throughout the years and has achieved goals such as accommodation of architectural infrastructures to serve better people who are physical impairments. The public policies have been great accomplishments because it has helped people with disabilities to be part of society. The disability-movement points out the healthcare finance policies have taken freedom away from the disability community, “ Health-care financing policies force disabled people into Institutions and nursing homes rather than funding independent living. Income-maintenance and public health-insurance policies include “disincentives” that penalize disabled individuals for trying to work productively.”(p.4). The government has done a great job on protecting disabled individuals’ rights. However, the health-care system has isolated this group even more by restricting the level of productivity that they have within the system, as a result this medical model marginalizes this group of people and this program available for this community does not fully address their issues.

Considering the Para in Paralympics stands for "equal to," after watching the videos, what kind of training do you think Paralympians go through? From the presentation, what is the sport you would have been most interested to watch from the London 2012 games? Explain your answers. (1-2 paragraphs)

Every disabled person wants the same things as a non-disabled person, sadly we just have to work harder for it; and often the hardest thing for a disabled person to get from someone is respect. Over the past few weeks I felt humiliated and under a great deal of pressure as a result. As a registered disable person I don’t want to be admired, revered or set on some kind of pedestal. And given some kind of misguided god-like status; or treated with kid-gloves I just want to be respected. Respected to the same level as someone who does not have my problems, subconsciously we all pay to certain level of respect to the people we meet; even if it’s someone we have never met before. It’s a deficit thing to describe, but if you walk into Starbucks and order a coffee; you have decided on the flavour and the size of the cup perhaps. All these are personal decisions; you would not expect a stranger to come up to you and said: are you sure you want that coffee? Wouldn’t you either a cup of tea? – Of course, this is something that not be well received. I suppose the question is, looking at the situations described would anyone accept these abuses as justified disabled or otherwise. Earlier I asked you to discount my disability as a factor and that is important because whenever confronted with unfortunate situations like this I ask myself one

I think this case calls into question much larger questions that can be discussed adequately in this setting, such as what should be the aim of interventions for a severely cognitively disabled person: a life that is as close to ‘normal’ as possible, a life with the most pleasure as possible, or something else. As such, it is difficult to evaluate how to determine what constitutes a patient’s quality of life in this situation outside of the obvious requirements of having basic physical needs met. Additionally, I believe many of the prevailing issues surrounding this case are not the ethical ones but involve the failure of our society to care for people with disabilities. I believe many off the concerns addressed in this case could be removed from

Paralysis is the loss of muscle movement in the body. Our bones need activity from the muscles to keep them strong. Paralysis affecting the lower limb is called paraplegia. The decrease in muscular activity leads to bone loss. Eventually leading to osteoporosis where you begin to lose minerals and calcium from the bones. The bones tissue begins thinning causing the bone to become thin and

Less than 200,00 people get paraplegia a year. Paraplegia is when damage to the spinal occurs, it restricts control of the legs. When one is struck with paraplegia, it causes damage to multiple places, but thankfully there are ways to treat it as well as many people who are willing to tell their stories.

Pardue states that ‘The sporting performances of Paralympian’s at The Paralympic Games are deemed to have the potential to heighten awareness and knowledge of Paralympic sport as well

Opposite from Hwakins, Cory and Crowe study this article written by Schantz and Gilbert raised a question to whether the Paralympic movement and Paralympic Games really contribute to the emancipation and empowerment of people with disabilities. This article compared the history of Paralympic sports and noted the benefits of sport activities in the improvement of the veteran’s psychological attitudes and social life; however, it also argued that competitions for people with physical disabilities often resembled “freak” shows rather than serious sporting events. Keeping in mind that a lot of physical active program’s goal is to provide the social isolation and social support for those who feel lesser human beings because of their disabilities. Existing negative perspective of disabled people strongly influence person’s self-confidence in order to get out of yourself and experience the world like the rest of society. The article also compared Olympics and Paralympics and exposed dissimilarities of the two events and argued that originally these two worldwide events were supposed to have similar success. The social media coverage issue was also addressed and argued that the Paralympics were often portraying disabled people unrealistically and stereotypically. This article is a great source for my research because it examines existing issues in society that are present in discriminating disabled sport participants. It addresses an issue of how valuable Paralympic evens are if