Afternoon of Alterity - Nazareth College

not us and are in the proximity of difference, “they are put into anoppositional category of not-me” (Margrit Shildrick 2-3). RosemarieGarland Thomson writes, “people who are visually different havealways provoked the imagination of their fellow human beings”which is the cause of our misconception of the disabled as monstrous(1, Introduction). Yet, such provocation does not justify the inferiortreatment of the disabled that eventually subjects the disabled tootherness. However necessary it may be for people in society to forman identity based on their interactions with each other, the disableddo not need to be demean.Although I work with the disabled community, I have neverreally asked how my clients feel about the inferiority with which theyare treated in society. On the twenty-third of March two thousandand eleven in the early afternoon, I conducted a mini-interview atthe Finger Lakes Community College campus in Canandaigua NYin which I interviewed two people, whose names will be withheld forprivacy purposes. The first subject is a forty-six year old woman, whois non-ambulatory and has spina-bifida, and the other is a twentythree-yearold young man, who has mild mental retardation andsuffers from infrequent seizures. Both are self-advocates, they haveattended a college experience program at Finger Lakes CommunityCollege and have completed coursework in public speaking and art.I will use ‘the woman’ and ‘the young man’ to refer to the subjects.I also want to make it known that their experiences cannot be usedto account for the inferior treatments of all disabled people. I askedthree questions which are:1. Do you see yourself as different from other people nondisabledor disabled?2. Are you every discriminated against?3. Do you believe that society has done a good job to facilitatepeople with disabilities and if they have what do you believesancia s. huffman 25