News Article: "Disabled Feel the Frustrations”

Everyday people with disabilities face barriers because the world is catered to able-bodied people and there are so many physical barriers that make their daily lives harder than they need to be. It is unfair that people with disabilities must deal with these barriers because so many aspects of their daily lives are affected by these physical barriers. As Stevie Wonders said, “We need to make every single thing accessible to every single person with a disability.”

Discrimination is the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, especially on the grounds of race, age, or sex. People who have a disability have been dealing with discrimination since the medieval ages, with that many different types of disabilities have been discovered. These disabilities include blindness, deafness, mobility, learning disabilities such as Dyslexia and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), medical disabilities such as cancer, Arthritis, and Chronic fatigue syndrome as well as Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). ​Whether it be a physical difference, sex difference, age difference or even a racial difference people struggle with accepting others. Unfortunately, our society greatly struggles with accepting people with differences such as disabilities.

The Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) defines a disabled person as, “someone who has a physical or mental impairment that has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on his or her ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities”. Robert M Hensel suffers from spina bifida, a birth defect that does not allow the spinal cord to develop properly, and he does not agree with this definition. Hensel says, “no disability or dictionary out there is capable of clearly defining who we are as a person.'' Hensel’s disability did not stop him from achieving success in his life. He holds the Guinness world record for the longest non-stop wheelie in a wheelchair.

Instead of acting as though people with disabilities are not as capable as able-bodied people these differences should be celebrated rather than looked down on or pitied.  Only those who have a disability truly understand what it is like to live with that disability every day. Pretending or faking a disability is the greatest display of disrespect in a world where we are trying to grow from our differences. One way we make changes is by improving accessibility. “In the United States, over 58 million people - or nearly 20 percent of the population above the age of five years old identify themselves as having disabilities. There are 25 million people in the United States with severe visual impairment. 19 million people with severe visual impairment are of working age, where the unemployment rate is nearly 70% of that number.” (MBS Accessibility Defined) These numbers are very high which proves how necessary it is for the United States to make the country itself more accessible.

The unfortunate truth is that despite the advancing technology in our world today, those with disabilities face many physical barriers throughout their daily lives which prevents them from going throughout their day with ease. Accessibility primarily focuses on making all things accessible to everyone whether they have a disability or not.

At Fitchburg State College in 1995, an experiment was held where students tried to live a day in the life of someone who has a disability in order for them to acknowledge the much-needed accessibility of the college campus. The article “Disabled Feel The Frustrations” explained the experiment. All of the participants walked into the experiment thinking it would not be very challenging. The experiment was to simulate an assigned disability for approximately four hours, it was assigned to a total of twenty-five people which included students and faculty members of the college. One of the chosen candidates was David Marsh, an athletic department worker. For David Marsh, his assignment that day was a wheelchair. The article stated, “he figured it would be easy but it was not instead it was a burden and it made him feel isolated.” This shows how people do not understand the struggles that people with a disability have to face every day and it is impossible to fully understand what they must go through every day. By the end of the experiment, Marsh was sitting by himself, in hopes of avoiding people or at least making fewer conversations so he buried himself in some reading. Marsh only went through this experiment for four hours which does not even begin to compare with those who have to live with a disability every day of their life.

Another student named Matt Deveau, a member of the Sigma Pi fraternity reported that one of his members participated in the experiment. Deveau said, “he figured the wheelchairs would be no big deal” but after the orientation, he hit a sharply inclined ramp while trying to exit the auditorium. While he was struggling to get up the ramp, the audience started laughing at him. Deveau had to ask friends for help to get up some of the ramps. Later he goes on to say “The ramps were just as bad going down” for instance, he could not stop the chair and landed in the streets.  This experiment allowed people to realize what they thought was accessible turned out to be an obstacle.

Lastly, a mother named Laura Gurley-Mozie, an employee at the computer center, attempted a try at the wheelchair because she has a two-year-old daughter named Gabrielle who has muscular dystrophy, a group of diseases that cause progressive weakness and loss of muscle mass. After using a wheelchair, Gurley-Mozie said the going was tough and every muscle in her body will probably be aching tomorrow. This mother was able to better understand the struggle of using a wheelchair and she can try to sympathize with her daughter and what she is going through but it does not give her the full experience because she was in a wheelchair for mere hours and her daughter has to live with this disability for the rest of her life.

Since the experiment, many changes have been made to the Fitchburg State campus. As Erin Murphy states about another Fitchburg State artifact, “Fitchburg State University has not always been accessible for those who are disabled. Recently, ramps were added to every building and are useful for those who are not disabled as well. At Fitchburg State University, Holmes Dining Commons was renovated making it easier for everyone to access the quad using the bridge rather than the stairs. Behind Edgerly Hall is a ramp that wraps around the building in which you can access next to one of the faculty buildings. Accessibility also creates more space and multiple entrances for everyone. Antonucci science was a big part of making Fitchburg state more accessible”. There were many improvements made to the Fitchburg State University campus which made it accessible to people with disabilities and these changes were made because the accessibility of the campus was made apparent during the experiment.

The most common theme for individuals living with a disability is that people often judge them before they see them and it is heartbreaking because these individuals are more than their disability. As Kate Bornstein says, “Let’s stop ‘tolerating’ or ‘accepting’ difference as if we’re so much better for not being different in the first place. Instead, let’s celebrate difference because in this world it takes a lot of guts to be different.” Access-ability is primarily seeking accessibility for those who are disabled but even with today’s advancing technology and laws this subject and matter for the disabled continues to be ignored. It is time we take a stand for disability rights which will embrace accessibility, safety, community acceptance, independent living, equal active participation in society and most importantly, equal access to education and employment. It's time we focus on their abilities, not disabilities. There is room for everyone who society perceives as “different” as well as culture, race, sex, and languages. “Our survival as human beings will not depend on eliminating those who are different and seeking only those who think and speak and behave and look like ourselves” (Our Glorious Diversity). As a society, it is our responsibility to accept all beings, not just the ones who look and act like us. It is our differences that should bring us together and it is time everyone realizes this.

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