ABLED

This blog is about reconciling the two worlds of disability understanding. On one side are the strong voices of activists in the disability community. On the other is the well meaning but naïve/ ignorant able bodied population who see disability as something pitiable. As an able bodied person who has realized the very compelling and interesting arguments about society and life coming from the disability community, I am compelled to referee the exchanges between the two sides. Often times it seems that everyone is speaking so loudly and with such great conviction that the other doesn't even listen. Since I am not personally motivated by either side, I can weigh both sides of the arguments and hopefully facilitate an open and accepting space for both sides to express themselves and learn about each other. Please join the discussion!

Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Pizza Poll

Also referenced on Wheelie Catholic is a video of a man in a wheelchair making a frozen pizza. I think this is a really interesting video just because of all the ways we could react to it. As a quick poll, watch the video and post a comment of how you reacted to it.

A) Felt bad for the man because it was so hard for him to make the pizza.
B) Thought it was cool to see the tricks and devices he used to accomplish his goal.
C) Was interested to watch a disabled person for such a long time.
D) Was frustrated with his difficulties.
E) Thought he should have made a simpler meal.
F) Other, write you own thoughts!

3 comments:

Frederick Grier said...

I thought that he was quite resourceful, he had so many strategies and tools - but it did seem much more difficult to bake a frozen pizza than I am used to. Frustrating but clever!

Spottswood W. Robinson III said...

Amazing. This is hard for me to watch because this is just one tiny aspect of this guy's day, which must be filled with this kind of frustrating activity. On top of the frustration, you would also have to accept things like the uncleanliness of the prosthetic gripper. Its movements are not as precise as a hand, so you drop things on the floor, then you have to touch the floor with the gripper when you pick them up, then you touch your food with it, etc, etc. It would take me decades before I could accept that kind of thing.

Anonymous said...

I felt much more frustration than anything like pity. It's like watching someone screw up a very simple task over and over again - you want to just do the thing for the person. What makes it worse is the feeling that it would be totally inappropriate for you to do that in this case.

I disagree that there was much strategy going on. That's exactly what I would have tried to do if someone put a gun to my head and put me in a wheelchair and prevented my hands from functioning as they do now, and then told me to bake a pizza. What else could you do? I imagine it's much more about sheer will and brute practice.

Just think about how lucky it was for the pizza itself to just have fallen on the floor. And I'll bet it's only a bit less lucky that it didn't FLIP and fall onto the floor face-down.

I'm not sure whether this is real or not, but check this out:
http://seehere.blogspot.com/2007/07/chinese-woman-with-no-hands.html

 
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