I think I've finally hit the core reason peoples with disabilities are marginalized. They're different. The able bodied see a wheelchair and can't comprehend a life like that. It feels so totally different from their own ambulatory life, and their mind may unconsciously drift to all the incongruities of a life in the seated position. But they don't have any facts or experience to base their thoughts on.
We are afraid of what we don't know. But that fear makes it more difficult to learn because we avoid that which we fear. So the able bodied shun the person with a disability because of his difference and they don't form a genuine relationship.
This is why disability education is so important, but how do you do it well? It is a challenge to educate on this topic without on the one hand forcing fake affection for the disabled (usually based in pity) or on the other teaching only about the difficulties of a disabled life. The goal must be to educate enough to break down the barriers of fear so that genuine relationships can be built between peoples with disabilities and the able bodied.
Is it really this simple? Solving it is the hard part.
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A quick two cents: Difference seems to me to be much like similarity - in some sense or another, everything is different than everything else much like everything is similar to everything else. If all you mean is that disability is marginalized because they're different, in the sense that they're not abled...well...that seems to be exactly that for which you were hunting for an explanation.
Anyway, I say this because it seemed to me that the idea that we "can't comprehend a life like that" seems to me to be more helpful, and I'm wondering whether you can't just focus on that...
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