On ridiculous strangers
Much has been said on various feminist blogs about Nubian's experience with a white woman's curiosity. This encounter, from awake : to : dream, is strikingly similar, I think.
Today my friend Jessica and I were wheeling along the residence walkway towards the main campus when we encountered a middle-aged “mom-type” lady who I often encounter on my way to school. She lives in one of the residence buildings, and I know from experience she is a little inappropriately effusive with me given that I don’t actually know her. [Given the cloud of oblivion, I have usually given her the benefit of the doubt and had not yet marked her for idiocy.]Like Nubian, I have most often not been able to express my true feelings when surprised with an encounter like these, but awake:dreamer manages remarkably well:Jess and I continue on, not truly noticing her until the point when her face completely lights up and she looks straight at us, pulling a camera out of her pocket.
Her: “Oh, wow! Can I just take a picture of you both? It’s so rare to see two people in wheelchairs together and you two look so good together!” She smiles broadly, beaming, clearly enamoured with her own brilliance.
Us: “…”
Me: (in my serious-but-deadly voice) “I don’t think that’s appropriate.”I wish I had the poise in the moment to tell someone they were being inappropriate. It's a pretty gentle way of telling them off without having to invest too much time in impromptu education.
Her: dimming now like a Kosovar power plant: “Oh, of course… yes, I’m sorry…”
Us: (expressions of shock and disbelief)
Her: (apologetically) “I was in a wheelchair for two weeks once when I was at Langara because I [insert irrelevant injury here], and it’s just that I would have loved to have had some company.”
Us: “…”
Her: (mumbling irrelevantly)
Us: (dripping with sarcasm) “Okay. Bye now.” (Wheeling away determinedly)
2 comments:
Hey, thanks for continuing the conversation... I've been surprised lately by the increasing frequency of these strange encounters with people. Like you, I struggle to spit out an appropriate but not cruel response when people are being unreasonable and I feel objectified, but at the same time, I don't always want to switch to "education mode" and automatically adopt the role they so clearly wish I had, that of cultural oddity, inspirational/educational object, and not of individual, person, equal, anonymous-just-like-everyone-else.
Visible disability is so often much like an involuntary, often conspicuous celebrity.
Visible disability is so often much like an involuntary, often conspicuous celebrity.
I've thought this too! There are so many interesting parallels to celebrity -- except the income, of course.
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