2006-01-11 - 12:31 p.m.
Yesterday, Nya and I took the bus downtown to go to a seminar on marketing run by SCORE, a service of the federal Small Business Administration. It was a good seminar although a lot of it was a reminder to me about stuff I already knew, having taken a course in market research at Brown.
Then again, �market research� is not quite �marketing� and most of what I�ve done so far has been the study of theory, rather than down-and-dirty practice. As the guy who taught the seminar put it, it�s all well and good to carefully plan and research in depth, but at some point you have to be willing to pull the trigger and execute.
But I wanted to talk about a moment that transpired on the way there, just a brief exchange between the driver and I as I was leaving. We were getting off at the final stop of the route, downtown in the Loop. Nya got off first and I waited until all the other riders had left before going up to the front for the driver to raise the automated lift to let me off.
I should note that the boarding system for passengers using wheelchairs on Chicago buses is just amazing and a world better than New York�s. In NYC, the driver has to get up, go to the back of the bus, operate a wheelchair lift back there, and manually connect safety straps to the rider�s chair. It�s a pretty elaborate process and takes several minutes, slowing down the route.
Although no one�s ever acted directly resentful in my experience, every time I�ve taken a bus trip in my chair, there�s been the minor discouragement of knowing I was slowing things up for others. As I can�t imagine anyone would want to feel that every mass transit trip they take is a special production, this probably psychologically dissuades people with disabilities from using the system regularly.
Here in Chicago, the driver doesn�t even need to leave their seat to let a passenger in a wheelchair on. They just press a button on the console to lower and raise a lift or ramp (there are a couple of different models of bus) and let the rider on or off. A seat folds up to make room for a chair and a clamp automatically locks around your rear wheel when you back into it. The whole process takes well under a minute.
Integrating people with disabilities into the regular activities shared by the rest of the community is the essence of �reasonable accommodation�. Much props to the Chicago Transit Authority for implementing it so well. And yes, I�ve sent them an email with this praise. (Now, the famous �el� train system is only accessible at certain stations, but of course it was originally built over 100 years ago, when people just didn�t have disabilities�)
Anyway as I was maneuvering onto the lift (it�s really the front stairwell that folds out straight and goes up and down that way), the bus driver said to me, �Gee, it�s good to see you�re so spirited.� I thought for a second about why I seemed so �spirited� to him. Maybe it�s that I was dressed well. I was wearing casual �business clothes� � slacks and a button-down shirt and a nice wool Polo sweater I got for Hanukkah.
But then I realized that no, it was that I wasn�t acting morose and depressed. Unfortunately, many outside observers see that someone is in a wheelchair and assume that, since that�s the main thing they know about the person, that must be the dominant factor in their life. They must be constantly brooding about their disability.
Maybe this is how white people saw minorities back in the day (shit, maybe it�s how some see them now): �I see that you�re black, therefore I assume that I�ve got your number down cold and know exactly what you�re thinking!� And maybe there really are some people with disabilities who really do think this way. Who (if they have an acquired disability) can�t let go of the idea that once they were quite different from how they are now.
�Oh,� I replied. �I guess I could be bitter all day, but who�s got the time for that?�
Nya got very angry at the driver when I told her what he�d said later. But for all I know, he has a friend or relative with a serious physical impairment who has a very different attitude from mine. Maybe his grandmother had a stroke and now resents all the time how she can�t do the Lindy-hop anymore. Maybe his nephew was born with cerebral palsy and always gets angry that he can�t play soccer like the other kids.
Now that I think of it, people often do express surprise that I�m like actually participating in life. I think that�ll be my new line for them: �I could be bitter, but who has the time?�
� 2006 Geoff Gladstone
Sign My Guestbook!
powered by SignMyGuestbook.com
�
