In this day and age, many will be tempted to think that the disabled have never had it so good. Even if that is true on paper, take it from me that we still have a long way to go as a society. Though not disabled myself, being in a relationship with someone who uses a powered wheelchair has given me a certain insight into the difficulties they face. UK Disability History Month, which runs from 22nd November to 22nd December, seems like as good a time as any to share my own experiences. It is not my intention to appropriate the suffering of the disabled. My motivation for writing this article is that that my perspective, as an outsider looking in, might shine a different light on the struggles that they face.

One of the most striking things about our society is just how many ignorant people there are. Trying to get a wheelchair from one end of a busy street to the other is akin to navigating a minefield. People frequently walk straight in front of the wheelchair, deliberately cutting across it or simply not paying attention to their surroundings. Worst of all is how many of these people shoot the wheelchair user a dirty look after a near collisions, despite it invariably being their fault.

That there are that many ignorant people did not come as much of a surprise to me. What has surprised me is how little everyone else seems to care. You would like to think that more people would have the decency to make their companions aware of their ignorance or apologise on their behalf. If a friend or relative did something racist, out of ignorance, most of us would feel compelled to say something. Why are disabled people not afforded the same consideration?

One part of the problem is that it is easy to assume most of the problems facing the disabled have been addressed. It is worth saying that accessibility in this country, while it could always be better, could be a great deal worse. What is astonishing to me is how often this accessibility is provided in theory but not in practice. People are too complacent; they neglect to unlock the disabled access door or block the access route with a badly placed security barrier. Cases like these are especially frustrating because you know that decent people have done the work to ensure a building is accessible, only for it to be undone by such a basic level of ignorance.

It may well be that, as would once have been the case for me, nothing in this article sounds all that bad to you. What needs to be understood is that these little problems are faced all day, every day. When we are ignorant, when we lack basic consideration for the difficulties some people face, we contribute a little bit to a big problem. The good news is that this means we only need to be willing to make small changes to make a big difference.

Michael Everitt
(Image courtesy of Kevin O’shea)