Two comments (in agreement) to make about that:

First, I have ambivalent feelings about "trying on a disability."  The focus
is on what it feels like to have a disability in terms of the physical
limitations.  One day of volunteerism won't explain all of that, as you said.
 It also can't focus on the way we are treated.  I've had this disability for
three plus years now, and there are still things I'm learning about being a
minority.  I am convinced however, that I am perfectly normal for who I am,
and who I am is okay.  Trying on a disability isn't going to demonstrate that
either, and it may well be the most important lesson for an AB to take home.
I do think that there is a proper place for that kind of exercise, but I
don't think the sole emphasis should target physical limitation.


Second, if we had free access to the public through mainstream media, we
could tell our own stories.  The last time I read the employment stats in the
Washington Post, there was no mention of the disability community in an
article focusing on employment stats in minority communities.  Most other
articles I read in various papers seem to reflect the "woeful, pathetic us"
angle.  There are exceptions of course -- that prove the rule.

I know too many people here who live and die by what they read in the Post,
and what they see on CNN.  I think the media is one of our biggest stumbling
blocks.


In a message dated 05/22/2000 8:00:03 AM Eastern Daylight Time, [log in to unmask]
writes:

<< Mainstream media doesn't tell our stories the way they should be told.  I

 these people think they can spend the night on the street and know what it
 is like to be homeless, but they don't because they know that tomarrow night
 they  will be warm and comfortable. they think they can roll around for a
 day in a wheelchair or blindfolded and understand what it is like to be
 disabled, but they do not, because they know that tomarrow they will be
 walking, or seeing. part of disability is knowing that you'll not every play
 3rd base the way your brother does, that you'll never be on a highschool
 team, you can't even serve your country in the service. you know that 90 %
 of the opposite sex would not even thing about dating you, even those that
 are your friends would not ever consider you in a "dating way."
 part of being disabled is knowing that tomarrow will be the same, the next
 day, the day after that and on and on you are going to be disabled, then you
 get old a find that it gets worse.
   how can anyone tell our story?

  >>