<story><title>One week of empathy training (2019)</title><url>https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2019/07/i-feel-hopeless-rejected-and-a-burden-on-society-one-week-of-empathy-training/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>joker_minmax</author><text>I do think this is important as an awareness exercise, however, it is worth noting that a lot of the issues CANNOT be seen unless you actually do bring the wheelchair. I learned this in 2018 when as a student I attended a conference with a fellow disabled student in Chicago. I was responsible for pushing her (she could use her arms but it was faster to navigate the city if one of us pushed). Not all train stations have a wide enough platform for wheelchairs to roll across, so your mobility is limited by which stations you can use for the train, which means walking farther from the station to where you actually wanted to go. Accessible hotel room with a pushbutton door shut too quickly for her to get into the threshold. Thankfully one of us was there to hit the button again each time she needed it reopened, but sometimes you had to physically catch and push the (heavier than normal) door before the button would re-open it. If you were just &amp;quot;thinking&amp;quot; about being a wheelchair user, and not actually trying to navigate this, you would not have a sense of the timing of this door. Another complication was her foot in a cast sticking out. The lovely, welcoming residents of Chicago catcalled her using wheelchair-related phrases, one guy on the train pointed at her and told her to kill herself, and someone kicked her cast in a crowd. The general attitude toward the disabled, in that environment, is unkind at best.&lt;p&gt;When I was a child (in the US), the science museum in my hometown had an exhibit dedicated to the ADA. You got into a wheelchair and tried to do tasks. It showed how payphones at a certain height are too high to reach, how difficult it would be to go up a ramp with an unapproved slope, etc. I wonder if it&amp;#x27;s still there, because that was my first foray into thinking this way. The Chicago trip however, basically radicalized me.&lt;p&gt;The article has a reference point of the UK and I don&amp;#x27;t know what their laws are with regards to accessibility. But it&amp;#x27;s clear that in both countries public attitudes toward accessibility have a very long way to go. And I&amp;#x27;m sure most other countries can say this as well.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>blahedo</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;in Chicago. ...&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;And the sad thing is, in this respect Chicago is less bad than a lot of other towns and cities in the US and &lt;i&gt;way&lt;/i&gt; less bad than many (most?) cities in other countries, including many that are much more progressive than the US.  Chicago has been working on curb cuts for years and is in the midst of a years-long quest to upgrade all El (metro&amp;#x2F;subway) platforms for accessibility, and the ADA---33 years old---has much stronger requirements than, as far as I can tell, even current legislation elsewhere.  In Canada, France, Spain, Germany I&amp;#x27;ve seen whole rows of storefronts that are a half-storey up or down from street level, curb cuts are rare, and it&amp;#x27;s more usual for stores and other business to have steps than not.  In other realms of accessibility, I&amp;#x27;ve also noticed a lot more Braille and&amp;#x2F;or headphone access on ATMs and public kiosks in the US, and fire alarms that are rigged with lights as well as sound.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s not a perfect mechanism, and the US gets a &lt;i&gt;lot&lt;/i&gt; of other things wrong, but the ADA is something we got really, really on the right track (and keep improving).</text></comment>
<story><title>One week of empathy training (2019)</title><url>https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2019/07/i-feel-hopeless-rejected-and-a-burden-on-society-one-week-of-empathy-training/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>joker_minmax</author><text>I do think this is important as an awareness exercise, however, it is worth noting that a lot of the issues CANNOT be seen unless you actually do bring the wheelchair. I learned this in 2018 when as a student I attended a conference with a fellow disabled student in Chicago. I was responsible for pushing her (she could use her arms but it was faster to navigate the city if one of us pushed). Not all train stations have a wide enough platform for wheelchairs to roll across, so your mobility is limited by which stations you can use for the train, which means walking farther from the station to where you actually wanted to go. Accessible hotel room with a pushbutton door shut too quickly for her to get into the threshold. Thankfully one of us was there to hit the button again each time she needed it reopened, but sometimes you had to physically catch and push the (heavier than normal) door before the button would re-open it. If you were just &amp;quot;thinking&amp;quot; about being a wheelchair user, and not actually trying to navigate this, you would not have a sense of the timing of this door. Another complication was her foot in a cast sticking out. The lovely, welcoming residents of Chicago catcalled her using wheelchair-related phrases, one guy on the train pointed at her and told her to kill herself, and someone kicked her cast in a crowd. The general attitude toward the disabled, in that environment, is unkind at best.&lt;p&gt;When I was a child (in the US), the science museum in my hometown had an exhibit dedicated to the ADA. You got into a wheelchair and tried to do tasks. It showed how payphones at a certain height are too high to reach, how difficult it would be to go up a ramp with an unapproved slope, etc. I wonder if it&amp;#x27;s still there, because that was my first foray into thinking this way. The Chicago trip however, basically radicalized me.&lt;p&gt;The article has a reference point of the UK and I don&amp;#x27;t know what their laws are with regards to accessibility. But it&amp;#x27;s clear that in both countries public attitudes toward accessibility have a very long way to go. And I&amp;#x27;m sure most other countries can say this as well.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>13of40</author><text>&amp;gt; The lovely, welcoming residents of Chicago catcalled her using wheelchair-related phrases, one guy on the train pointed at her and told her to kill herself, and someone kicked her cast in a crowd.&lt;p&gt;Dear god.  My wife broke her leg about a month ago, and I&amp;#x27;ve been pushing her in a wheelchair when we go out.  The spectrum of reactions so far has run from a quick smile to strangers coming up to ask what happened and wish her well.  This is in the eastern Seattle suburbs.  WTF, people?</text></comment>