A Pandemic of Kindness?

4 May 2020

What an interesting start to a year. I’m at home. A lot. I’m filled with gratitude that we got into our own house before New Zealand closed. I’m filled with gratitude that Steve and I can both work and be productive from home. I am filled with gratitude that I have friends and family that I can still be in contact with, albeit a little less physical and a little more virtual. I am filled with gratitude that I live in a place where our leaders in government can say things like ‘be kind to one another’ with a straight face and no one thinks it’s a joke – we are not cynical about ‘be kind’.

The past year has been about discovery for me. I’ve been learning what it means to be a disabled person, and some of the lessons have come harder than others. I’ve changed jobs to see what it is like inside an organisation that helps newly injured people and I’ve started a year-long leadership course focussed on disability and access. The new job has been great, and the leadership course has been a bit mind-blowing. There are 12 of us on the course – all with a disability of some sort – and I just can’t tell you how humbling, interesting, funny, refreshing and intelligent our discussions have been. I’m learning so much about people that it is hard to fit it all into my brain and make sense out of it.

A topic that has come up for me a couple of times over the past five years has surfaced more frequently and more obviously in the pandemic environment. This is an issue that I’ve been discussing at length with my course-mates and I want to talk about it here with you. At grocery stores, there is a queue and standard procedure is to wait in the queue, 2 metres (6 feet) apart until it’s your turn to go in and shop. Every time I go to the shop (no matter which one it is), I am invited to go straight in, no waiting. When the queue is 40 people long and looks like it might be a while … you can imagine how this feels lucky or like a no-brainer. Go on in, Claudia, you’ve been given a free pass. But you know me. Things are never this easy.

I’m not vulnerable in any way. I’m strong and fit. I can wait in a queue. I’m concerned that people see ‘disabled person’ and think ‘vulnerable person’ or ‘weak person’ or they just straight up pity me. I don’t need to go to the front of the queue. BUT, I get that there may be some in the disabled community who really do need to be let in first or need to get in and out fast. I also get that people want to be kind and I appreciate that. I wonder, though, how much of their perception of disability colours the rest of their actions and the rest of their beliefs – if you think I’m weak or vulnerable, would you hire me? If you think I’m weak or vulnerable, would you be friends with me? would you invite me to join in sport with you? if you think I’m weak or vulnerable are you silently judging my decision to come outside to the shops on my own?

Unsurprisingly, there is a term for it. It is the “subtle bigotry of low expectations”. This term was coined by an Australian guy to demonstrate that, unlike other minorities, we are rarely subject to violence, hate speech or blatant discrimination (yay). Instead, we get this insidious pity and niceness that is really hard to call out and address, because we then get accused of being ungrateful, having a chip on our shoulder, etc (booo). We (and I do mean all of us in this community) get called ‘inspirational’ because we somehow manage to get out of bed in the morning and brush our teeth without maiming ourselves. If that’s the most you expect me to accomplish, no wonder getting in and out of a swimming pool looks like a miracle. No wonder earning a living or living independently or doing the shopping – all of these everyday things suddenly appear inspiring. Well golly, if that person in a wheelchair can walk her dog, then I can go to the moon or run a marathon or paint a masterpiece.

The truth is that we are each differently endowed, and all of us – each and every one of us – does the best we can with what we have every day. We are functionally diverse and we each operate with advantages and deficits across the full range of physical and mental abilities and capacities. Should I pity you because you can’t whistle a tune? or ride a bicycle? or do subtraction without using your fingers? It so happens that I was fully functional for my first 50 years. I know what it means to look at a person with different or less function and feel pity or inspiration. It is hard to face that now, but it’s part of learning about what it means to wake up and be functionally different. Talking about this with my course-mates is refreshing in some ways – putting a name to these experiences and knowing it isn’t only me is a real comfort. The flipside though, is the cold reality of coming to terms with the way society sees us and thinking about how to change that.

I want people to keep being kind. I want people to look out for each other and give each other a break. I want to keep connecting with my community and my neighbours. I also want to be an inspiration – not because I can function like the independent, strong human I am – but because I have somehow found a way to change society in ways I never though possible.