[SCA-cooks] Handicapped/Disabled [Was I quit]

[Morgan Cain (Ansteorra)]

> I say this not to toot my own horn, I believe it is something any good
SCAdian
> (or person) would do, but to point out a couple of things we discussed
along
> the way.  Mainly, many people are afraid of offending someone who is
mobility
> impaired. For some unknown reason, a wheelchair is frightening. They don't
> want to do anything which would upset a person in a 'chair.  Believe it or
> not, there are quite a few who refuse any kind of assistance and will
verbally
> attack an offer of help as though it were an insult to them.  Also,
sometimes
> asking for help is too hard, be it pride or that it only emphasizes the
> impairment.  Again, the fear of insulting a person is greater than the
risk of
> helping, so a kind deed goes left undone.

I agree with Giovanna on this.  I look on helping someone with a
disability - of any kind - as the same as helping someone with too many
parcels or a heavy load, or going into an understaffed kitchen, or sitting a
turn or three at the gate even when it's not "my" group's event.  They need
help, you give it.  It goes beyond the SCA, too, and I've held a lot of
doors and picked up dropped items for people.

But if people have the experience of someone snapping "I don't NEED your
help - do you think I am a cripple??" a time or two, they are going to
assume that all persons with disabilities or challenges are going to react
the same way.  And who wants to subject themselves to that?

>  On the other hand, I think that if
> a person needs help, it is their responsibility to ask.  In our Society, I
> don't know of anyone that would ever refuse a request such as that.  I
would
> like to believe that most people in the SCA would go out of their way to
offer
> assistance, but sometimes we just don't know when assistance is needed.

I agree on this also.  We've talked about how the level of chivalry in the
SCA seems to have eroded.  And if people have gotten yelled at for trying to
help in the past, they are not going to be too likely to offer to help in
the future.  Someone said that Muiredeach was too proud to ask for help.
Well, if you won't ask, how do people know you need it?  Maybe the attitude
of "I don't need your help" is apparent enough that nobody wants to offer.
I had an uncle who was in a wheelchair for many years.  His attitude was, if
he wanted to get someplace and needed help getting up a ramp or over a bump,
he asked for it.  I think he also figured that if people realized that
whatever "accessibility" wasn't accessible enough, they might change it.

                                        ---= Morgan


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Life is something that happens when you can't get to sleep.
                        ---= Fran Lebowitz