MBTA Showers

Sorry for the ambiguity, this happened on a Red Line car...I'l edit my post to make it more clear.

On the one hand, I hate that my original post is so poorly written; on the other hand, I value the knowledge provided above; I hope this discussion can benefit others. I knew that my post was flawed and I knew that my language skills are very weak in discussing this topic. I put your name in the title of my post in the WGC because this is exactly the kind of input a person such as myself needs. I really appriciate the response.

I do want to further the discussion and I do want to clarify certain aspects of my post, but not so late at night. I'll post again Friday morning/afternoon.

Thanks again to eeka for the feedback.

My original post was problematic for many reasons. Among those reasons:

* My writing skills lack/lack of diligence of seeking correct terminology
* English is problematic for expressing gender, ethnicity, race, and ability without bias. (Case in point: eeka’s discussion of a Metro article where she points out “’unmarried’ and ‘single’ are not synonyms”)
* I wanted to be brief. Blog composition is not yet taught in college, but when that course becomes available, I am sure the mantra will be “less is more”. I know I skim over long blog/forum posts. I sacrificed accuracy for brevity.

“Can we call her a person using a wheelchair?” – Ceretainly; I was sloppy in my writing. I wanted to convey that the woman was in need of long term, if not permanent use of a wheelchair. In my laziness, I chose “wheelchair bound”. No excuse.

As for “totally dependent” – again, because I wanted to be brief, my writing is ambiguous. I do not know the degree to which this woman depends on others in her daily life. Eeka rightly pointed out that my description should have been more precise.

Perhaps my post is sensational. If it is sensational, I argue the sensationalism originates in my word choice, the style of my writing, etc. I clearly could have presented this information better. However, as an outsider in this situation, I see a huge gap in the hypothetical dignity that I might loose from having water dumped on me once, verses the abject humiliation of the repeated drenchings this woman faced because of her disability. To echo Jodie, if water was dumped on me, I could easily stand up and move out of the way. I could even exit the train at the next station to escape the laughing teenagers. This woman, however, was in a wheelchair that was strapped down with a seat belt. After the first dumping of water, she could not move herself out of the way. Her situation dictated that she suffer the repeated humiliation of being drenched by this disgusting, rusty water until someone else moved her.

I, too, want to differentiate between a person with a disability having a bad T experience vs. a person having a bad T experience because of her or his disability. As eeka and many of us know, our society still requires a change in attitudes towards ability (and gender, ethnicity, race, age, etc) that cannot be legislated. Is there room enough to document examples an incident, while technically not illegal, but still in poor taste, insulting, or demeaning to a person with a disability? (Example, it is not against the law for me to refer to someone as “wheelchair bound” on Universal Hub, but that doesn’t make it right. It was quite constructive for eeka to call me out on my post.)

RE: ADA tag – I know that there wasn’t an ADA violation here. I chose that tag because ADA is instantly recognizable; it focuses the dialog to persons with disabilities. I could not think of any other shorthand that would be useful as a tag. But the more I think about it, I also wonder if using ADA as a catch all tag is analogous to tagging posts dealing with African American issues as “NAACP”? We need a better tag.

Perhaps we could use “MBTA vs PWD” (persons with disabilities), but PWD isn’t in the overall American lexicon. A tag such as “transgressions on the T perpetrated against persons with disabilities” is obviously not practical. How do we sort this information?

I am far from an idealist; I know in my lifetime there will always be a disparity in treatment, access, etc. between those with disabilities and those without disabilities. And water falling from a train car ceiling is inexcusable at any time. But the fact that something so outrageous yet simple to prevent happened to a person secured in her wheelchair really hit a nerve with me. To me, this story underscores our egregious failure to respect and integrate persons with disabilities into the society at large to the degree of which we are capable. The first dumping of water had nothing to do with the woman’s disability; but having to sit in silence while having water repeatedly dumped on her while teenagers laughed loudly and cracked comments, having to ride the train several stops while everyone on the train is aware of what happened yet pretending as if nothing is wrong, and the degree to which this woman was humiliated can definitely be linked to the woman’s disability. I am not comfortable with the idea that this person can have her dignity so easily stripped by a negligent government agency that she depends on due (at least in part) to the fact that she has a disability. She deserved better. We can do a better job is what I am trying to say.

This issue is very complicated. Eeka tacitly raises the point that persons without disabilities often over-sympathize with persons with disabilities or they get the idea that a person with a disability is helpless and they need a non-disabled persons help. I am still re-examining this issue in my own mind; perhaps I did over play the disability issue?