Scary Minorities With Disabilities

What if I told you that, somewhere, there is someone who is different than you are? What if, right this very second, someone in the very city you live is also living; but is doing so in a way that you have never experienced? What if I told you that there are living, breathing, thinking, feeling human beings in your very neighborhood that were born with characteristics or challenges that you might never face? Could you sleep tonight knowing that you are almost certainly lying in bed less than five miles from a person with whom you don't typically identify?  It may even be a neighbor, a relative, or even the person sitting beside you tomorrow in a diner; but the reality is that someone, somewhere, is at this very moment navigating the complexity of life on the same planet as you are- only, this person has a body that doesn't look exactly like yours. There are minorities living alongside you, and some of these individuals have physical, developmental, or psychological disabilities; it's true, but, what if I told you that you didn't need to be afraid of them?

An Unsettling Thought

Statistically, there are more people who are born into demographics which are not considered in a minority category than otherwise. Of those who are born into a minority demographic; most will be born without significant differences in body or capability than their counterparts. These two facts considered; is it a surprise to find that the largest gaps in the social support net would seem to be the shared lot of those who traditionally have the least representation, and who are the least likely to avoid disproportionate hardships such as discrimination, exclusion, and a higher cost of living? 


Perhaps this is why so many of those who are born into the elite classes are so uncomfortable with sharing space with those who are so different than them. While it is unlikely that there will be resources which the wealthiest among us will find themselves lacking, many of the disabled, the minority classes, the "other" will need to think about how they will make ends meet. Between these two groups, one of them is actually further disadvantaged by legal requirements that they have no more than a certain amount of combined wealth. In the United States, a person who is permanently disabled may neither own, earn, nor possess any asset which would be considered of great value without risking a loss of benefits and insurance. There are laws which require that they not find innovative ways to improve their economic conditions; lest the meager rations they are afforded be audited, reduced, or taken from them altogether. Hardly seems fair to cripple millions of people economically simple for being born at a statistical disadvantage.