The Problem Of Discrimination Against The Disabled Essay

Everyone is going through a battle that we may not be able to see; however, “American society [is often] unaware or indifferent to the plight of people with disabilities” (Davis, 2013, p. 486). Ableism is one of the most ignored areas of social justice in America. Through my own experiences, I learned that the educational system in particular is not a very knowledgeable, or flexible environment in giving accommodations for students with disabilities. Those who are able-bodied, and do not have invisible disabilities, easily fit the paradigm of an able student in society, i.e., being able to walk to every building, climb stairs to get to class, complete assignments in the allotted time, etc. Our society has socially constructed disability

Ableism is defined as, “the all-encompassing discrimination and exclusion of people living with disabilities” (Adams et al, 461). However, in order to determine if ableism is occurring, then one must first know what constitutes a disability. According to the Americans with Disabilities Act, someone has a disability if they have a considerable handicap that hinders the actions that are important for life, such as “walking, seeing, hearing, learning, speaking, breathing, standing, lifting, or caring for one’s self” (Adams et al, 461). Disabled people make up the largest minority in the world with their estimated population at 650 million people (Adams et al, 461). Of this 650 million people, 360 million people have some sort of disabling

The amount of people who live with disabilities is a controversial number. Depending on what law and diagnostic tools used, a person may have a visible disability, or one that may lie beneath the surface of his or her appearance. Some people believe that the term “disability” is merely a label use to hold back, or prescribe helplessness. Meanwhile, individuals who have been properly diagnosed with disabilities struggle to maintain respect and acceptance every day. In plain language, there is a lot of misunderstanding between people with disabilities and those without. It is firstly important to get everyone on the same page regarding the definition of disability.

“There's nothing more debilitating about a disability than the way people treat you over it.”( Solange Nicole) In today's God abandoning society there are many people voicing about equality. There are feminists, those against racism, those against homophobia, and those opposed to everything. Each group seems to have people standing up for them. Although when it comes to a group of cripples there's not many that can do the standing. Ableism: Discrimination in favor of able-bodied people. While many people don't know that word, or do not believe such a thing exists, there are many things proving that it does. It is easy to get caught up in life and not realize the difficulties people have, especially ones that could be easily fixed, just by

Society can never strive to be “Normal” because it leaves out many people and creates an assumption that anyone who has a disability has something wrong with them. The able-body has to strive to find a way to include people with disabilities because they do not lack anything, because the way society is built has made them have impairments. People need to come together in order to start building the world where it is setup for anyone. Checking your own privileges shows that you have understand how life is set up the way it is and education is key factor to create change in Ableism. Abel-body people have to do their job of creating a world suitable for everyone. Privileges come with responsibility to help people who have disabilities. The responsibility to look out for everyone can bring perceptive on how people should value everything that is given to them and see everyone as being

The article “introducing disability Studies” by Ronald J. Berger was an eye opener in uncovering the past history of negative stigma associated with having a disability. Through history people have felt the need to stare at people with disabilities or to turn away in fear of maybe contracting the “disease”. This negative attitude was positively reinforced by ordinances such as the Chicago “ugly law” in which a person with physical deformities would have to pay a fine for simply being too “disgusting” looking to other citizens. This law was in place from 1880 to 1973, which is pretty recent in history. However there are positive glimpse in history when it came to uncovering and defining disabilities. Men like Leo Kanner and Asperger have dedicated

People with disabilities were also forced to enter institutions and asylums. Society hid people with disabilities from a mean, fearful, and biased world. This continued until the Civil War and World War I when our veterans returned in a disabled state expecting the US government to provide some sort of help or rehabilitation in exchange for their service in the nation. Although President Roosevelt was the first president with a disability to take office was a great advocate for the rehabilitation of people with disabilities, the nation was still operated under the assumption that being disabled was and abnormal condition and needed to be medically cured. In the 1940's and 1950's, World War II veterans started placing pressure on the government for rehabilitation for their disabilities. The veterans made it more visible to a country filled with thankful citizens who were concerned about the well-being of the men who sacrificed their lives for their country. By the 1960's, the civil rights movement began to take place and disabled citizens saw this as an opportunity to join forces along with the minority groups to demand equal treatment, equal access, and equal opportunity for people with disabilities. The Disability Rights Movement just like the others faced negative attitudes and stereotypes. In the 1970's, disability rights activists lobbied congress and marched on Washington to include civil rights language for people with disabilities into the 1972 Rehabilitation

When I am explaining about the social stigma for the vast majority of disabled people a restriction of the possibility of participation in normal social life and limitations in the pursuit of personal happiness are often grave and depressing for the person with an impairment that causes a disability. There are a number of diseases that are stigmatized- mental disorders, aids, venereal disease, leprosy, and certain skin diseases. People who are stigmatised are usually receiving much less social support than those who have non-stigmatising illness. Mental disorders carry more stigma than any other illness. Stigma reduces the value of the persons who have a mental disorder. Stigmatisation is one of the major obstacles to the improvement of

People who suffer from the difficulties of having a disability as well as being discriminated against may have complications managing. In daily life, individuals seek the approval, acceptance, and companionship of their peers; those with disabilities are no different in what they seek. Therefore, being out casted can have very disturbing conclusions. A woman and her daughter experienced severe brutality because of the daughter’s mental disabilities. In order to escape the cruelty the woman killed both her daughter and herself (Williams, Rachel). As if it isn’t wretched enough, others with disabilities also feel the discrimination against them, more so than other groups of society. In addition to discriminating, people do it

According to the statement in Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, “that [a]ll human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights,” contained no footnote that stated, “except for persons with an intellectual disability.” In fact, in 1971, The U.N. General Assembly had adopted without a dissenting vote a Declaration on the Rights of Mentally Retarded Persons that stated, in seven articles, “that persons with mental retardation (formally termed), deserve the same rights as other human beings, including the right to a decent standard of living,

All people who have brown hair are not alike. All people who have disabilities are not

The invasion of barbarians in the middle Ages i.e. 476-1500 A.D turns a unified continent to hundreds of small communities, these era dominated by the idea of God and people with disabilities are referred as children of God, they

Disability inequality occurs if you are treated less well for a reason that relates to your disability than a person without disability in same situation. This attitude towards physically/mentally disabled is also called “Ableism”. Even unintentional ableism is illegal.

In the Haitian culture it is very rare for someone to openly talk about disabilities. It does not matter if the person was born with the disability or gained the disability over time. They believe that a disability happens from the origin in the interaction of the natural and supernatural worlds. ( Stone, 147) As an example, a person with a disability has the disability because of a curse from Iwa, a spirit, who is upset. (Stone, 147) They believe that disability is a punishment. A Christian in Haiti believes that going against God is the equivalent as going against Iwa. They also believe that disability is caused by a spell that was cast by an enemy. A person with a disability in Haiti wants to live an independent life. They have the same values as the other people in Haiti who does not have a disability. Parents in Haiti are overprotective of their children, whether they have a disability or not. However, if their child has a disability, they love their child, consider them “worthless”. If their child has a mental disability, when they turn 18 they become they chose to be their legal guardians so they can continue to make

It is human nature to despise those that are different than normal. Everyone has a different perception of normal and when someone cuts that boundary it results in discrimination. Some people also tend to dislike the disabled due to their own weaknesses, to hide their own failures they will look down upon the handicap to make themselves feel better. Some people's self-esteem is so tiny that they have to find someone "lower than them" to feel superior. Also society perceives the disabled as useless, powerless and inefficient human beings, which also contributes to the ideology that leads to the discrimination against the disabled. Psychological and cultural influences also result in discrimination against the disabled. Hence, we can conclude that the fact that the disabled are “different” is what leads to the discrimination against them.