Question Time: Disability and the New Year

Question Time is a series in which we open up the floor to you, commenters. We invite you to share as you feel comfortable.

Well, it’s Gregorian New Year today, and I wish you a very happy new year if you use that calendar system, and a very happy next twelve months in any case!

This year, as in every year, disabled people are going to be having a tough time of things. So, in what respects would you like society to improve its treatment of PWD this year? What concrete things would you like to be done? What nebulous dreams fulfilled?

(Alternatively, as I put it when I threw the idea for this post out to meloukhia: ‘like, what are your wishes for society to improve stuff for PWD this year or something’. Sophistication: I have it.)

15 thoughts on “Question Time: Disability and the New Year

  1. This is more wishful thinking than anything, but…reliable, safe, /workable/ mass transit for my area. I keep hoping.

  2. More understanding about pain medication, less speculation about people’s health. It’s none of your business, ok? (Unless I decide to share. Which I probably will. But don’t assume and don’t pester me. I’ll pester you with info until you beg for mercy.)

  3. I’d like for the media to stop treating mental illness like an insult. As someone suffering from anorexia nervosa, I’d particularly like to see the media stop speculating about stars weights and hurling the word “Anorexic!” at them like it’s some sort of insult to have an eating disorder. Actually, I’d like the media And general public to stop speculating about the mental state of public figures in general.

  4. Ensure people with disability continue receiving the appropriate medical equipment they deserve. Hopefully the whole health care bill will not create access issues for people with disability as federal funded insurance program may hinder patients access to quality medical equipment.

  5. I would like to see mental illness treated as an actual illness rather than a character flaw.

  6. I’d like for people to stop treating accessibility as an add-on for some wild statistical anomaly (us) — I wish accessibility were simply something assumed. There are so many of us, and our numbers are only going to grow. We are the public, not some occasional pain in the kiester to the vast majority of “normal” folk, which is how our needs get treated. And even if we were rare birds. . . I’d like to see us treated as part of a normal spectrum, to be welcomed in public spaces as a matter of course. We should not have to ask for it, then agitate when we don’t get it.

    And yes, I realize this is not some achievable goal for 2010, like ‘pass a law in my town mandating retro-fitting of curb cuts’ or something. This is clearly in the “nebulous dream” category.

    Realistically? I’d settle for my employer clearing the cr*p out of the hallways so I can get through, and so the exits aren’t effectively blocked to people like me.

  7. The bug up my butt lately has been flashing lights.

    They need to crawl in a hole.

    The people who say “oh, you can just cover your eyes” can go with them.

  8. Especially after the holidays … more information for family members about disabilities. Because at least for me, holidays always remind me that having a familial network is either needed or nice. But it would also be nice if they understood a bit more about mental illness. I’d like Christmas not to be an annual disaster. Or any other time of the year, really.

    So yeah, better family education and resources in 2010.

  9. Shoot, I forgot one when I sent my last comment.

    For people to stop making assumptions about us based on various parts of our disabilities. Especially if these people include friends and loved ones.

    I can dream, right?

  10. @Samantha: Gah, how’d I forget about that? Yes, I’d love to see improvements in captioning– particularly when it comes to professionally-produced web videos. Online captioning is forgotten about by organizations who *really* should know better.

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