Had never thought about 'wheelchair-bound' as being derogatory, will be careful about using that in future.
This is similar to "confined to a wheelchair." The person in the wheelchair says he is liberated, not confined, because without it he couldn't go anywhere at all.
Miss Manners, an American etiquette columnist, once had a column about parents not caring when children stare and point at a person in a wheelchair or even make fun of the person. The Gentle Reader who wrote her about it included an anecdote about a pleasant encounter.
>When one child asked his father, "Why is she riding in that?" the father replied, "So she can come out and see all the pretty things around."
MIss Manners added that the father did particularly well in teaching his child
>by drawing the child's attention to the normality of going out and away from the detail of your method of mobility.
I rarely had the opportunity to read the Miss Manners columns, but contrary to a lot of other such columns, they had a lot more good sense.
Frankly, when I wheel my mother out through the streets of Paris to take her to the hairdresser (her very last regular outing as everything else became impossible, even going to a café), I find it very interesting to see how people look at us. Most interesting of all, due to the great number of beggars in my neighborhood, is to see the ones who don't ask me for anything as we roll past ("oh, he has problems, too") compared to the ones who will still beg as usual when we pass by. For these people, I have absolutely no respect.
Assuming that someone in a wheelchair is poor doesn't make any more sense to me than assuming that they are deaf.
Jeez, you harrassment specialists get stupider every day, don't you? Your mental functions do not seem to benefit from any discernment regarding the equivalence of various hardships and the mutual respect that can be felt or not. But you have proven so many times in the past that "respect" is a word regarding which you have no comprehension.
In other words, you aren't able to explain what you meant when you wrote #14, right? Might as well just say so; it would make communication more efficient.
Maybe you meant that you have no respect for beggars at all, whether or not they treat people in wheelchairs the same way they treat people not in wheelchairs. Is that it? If so, I misunderstood. I thought when you said "for these people, I have absolutely no respect," that you meant the beggars who begged as usual when you passed by with your mother.
I can't see why treating people equally, regardless of their ability to walk, renders someone unworthy of respect.