Amanda, I think I have third-personed you on your own blog. Ugh, sorry!! And if it IS all that complicated, please correct me.

So, while I’ll read Assumptions Ping Pong, I shouldn’t bother too much.. I won’t read between the lines that someone wants to be asked unless they say so clearly. My judgement is voting NOMB here. (none of my business) ATM. In either case, a wheel chair was mentioned so I don’t think totally unfair to bring up or a big deal either. I am sometimes tempted to change subjects for the sake of doing so when I’m uncomfortable and there is perhaps cautiousness…when is it good or bad? Generally speaking, I think communication might be better but not to cross lines. I do recall reading the ping pong article a while back actually…but perhaps its worth rereading to see where you come from. Sorry for being verbose…just having some mental logorrhea.

Speech does not desert me voluntarily.

Language deserts me, and consider the heirarchy of speech and language. The top level domain goes. Even a speech synthesiser is not a lot of help in such situations as I cannot parse any grammar so what I might write is as fragmented as what I might speak albeit that alternative musculatures to the oral tend to be a little more available.

Flash colour image world flash on flash turn mutate swivel

A world so rich there are never enough words in any language or all to express it.

I find it hard sometimes to interact with parents of disabled kids in public because they seem embarrassed about their children. For example, like many teenagers, I have pimples. At this one program where I was volunteering with autistic kids, I asked one girl how old she was. She replied “what happened to your face?” I knew exactly how to deal with her (I said “answer my question and I’ll answer yours” and after she told me how old she was, I told her I had pimples on my face) but I didn’t know how to deal with her mother’s embarrassed admonishing of the girl. What I did was interrupted just as the mother was about to apologize or tell her daughter not to do that and responded in a way that made it clear I wasn’t ashamed of having pimples.

Some people get by just fine socially as long as they stay within familiar territory, but they’re awful when they are in a situation where they aren’t in control of their social interactions any more – for instance, J’s event staffer. He’s probably not stellar with the general public either, but his marginal ability to deal with people falls apart when confronted with the unfamiliar.

Lots of people are both quite inflexible and live narrow, constrained lives. They are simply not equipped to process something that seems new and unfamiliar, or to focus on commonalities with people instead of differences.

Education might help with the second groups of obnoxious people, but it would have to be the sustained, focussed kind. Not the kind of education they can get from people they randomly insult/assault on the street. But maybe the kind they could get from a good customer service training program, where you’re taught to focus on what other people want or need. (One of the most skilled people-persons I know trained as a telephone operator.)

Education won’t help with the first group of awful people, though. They’re just awful.

People who are open to new ways of looking at the world, who actually respect and care about other people and their autonomy, are easy to educate. They’re prepared, so a word or two can point them in the right direction. Even if it’s a word like “fuck off.” They’ll think about it, figure out what it was they were doing that was so obnoxious, and not do it again.

Staff need to know what they can say in these situations too. For instance, “I’m just an employee. If you want to know anything you need to talk to my boss. She might not want to talk to you, though.” No, it won’t make any sense to an ineducable person, but it’s true. Also, “Um, Amanda, do I need to go get a cop to make this stranger stop bothering you?”

I don’t think it’s that useful to worry about the messages that compliant disabled people give vs the messages of politicised disabled people. If the compliant disabled person is actually comfortable in a particular situation and has judged that an attempt at education is appropriate, then let them. If they are still learning about their own boundaries and how to judge what other people are able to hear, then let them explore. But if they aren’t comfortable and simply don’t realise that they really do have the right not to submit… that’s an issue. It’s an issue for the disabled person, not because it gives the wrong message. The world is a big place. There will always be multiple messages in it.