No Shame

The Letter of the Day in today's Toronto SUN. Substitute your city name for 'Toronto' and tell me if it holds true where you are:

For many years I have been a proud member of the Toronto community. My pride is wearing sorely thin. As a disabled person and wheelchair user I am more and more left to wonder where the common sense and common decency of this city's people have gone. My days have become a litany of waiting -- waiting for the able bodied to provide me the space and place to move through this city with any ease or comfort.
Every day I wait at bus stops or boarding platforms while people board a bus before me, leaving me sitting in every kind of weather this city has to offer. Then, I wait again while they grumble when asked to vacate the wheelchair seating they have rushed ahead to seize.
I wait at access ramps endlessly. I wait for people to move their illegally parked cars from the only wheelchair ramps available to enter an area. I listen constantly to the excuse that they were only going to be "a minute." However, it was my minute they were taking.
I wait for elevators that come and go full of able bodies. Most often, escalators or stairs are just a few more paces away. I have perhaps a 1 in 10 chance, conservatively, of going to a public washroom and actually being able to use the accessible stall. Instead, I wait for an able bodied person to finish using it, despite there being several other "normal" stalls available.

I wait for simple courtesies and the rare conscientious apology. I have been hit, fallen into, walked into by people not paying attention to their own space and bodies. Many times I have been left in absolute tears for how such "accidents" hurt me while I get only that nasty glance that says I am the one in the way.
I wait for people to simply give me the space my chair needs to move so I too can go about the events of my day. I have had people refuse to move so I can drive my wheelchair past them on the sidewalk. This, of course, in addition to the daily puzzle of just trying to manoeuvre around the many obstacles placed in the path of any wheelchair user.
I wait for the end to the list of discourtesies and downright mistreatment I face each time, every time, I venture forth in this city.
In the end I am left with only one question, "where is your shame, Toronto?"
Susan Ruttan
Etobicoke

Susan:

I must tell you, first off, that sometimes--often, actually--I feel ashamed to be a member of the human race.
I use 'race' deliberately, because 'racing' is the root of the problem. The rampant discourtesy is only a symptom.
I have seen each and every one of the behaviours you cite from my able-bodied point of view, here in my hometown of Kitchener-Waterloo: some of them almost daily. It's no consolation, but wheelchair users aren't the only ones to suffer such indignities: the elderly, young mothers with children...often people whose only 'handicap' is that they're in the way.
You see it with drivers constantly. You'll be moving at the speed limit in the right hand lane and a maniac will rush up behind you, veer around, and cut in front...only, more often than not, to slam on his (usually his) brakes for the red light three hundred metres ahead. All so he could get that one, crucial car length ahead of you.

But as you note, Susan, it's public transit that brings out the worst in people.

I think that most people who take the bus, whether by choice or by necessity, secretly resent it. They resent having to sit next to strangers, which is why the vacant seats 'reserved for the elderly and persons with disabilities' are among the first to fill up (after the troglodytes stampede to the back of the bus, that is): ah, all that space! But even more so, people resent the fact that public transport is invariably so much slower than driving. This 'time-theft' irritates the hell out of people, most of whom seem to have a sense that their time is so much more important than anyone else's time. So they'll rush on to the bus ahead of anyone else. They'll ignore the prominent sign posted on every bus I've seen ("Leave By Center Door") and rush out the front door while someone like you, Susan, is trying to get on. I often want to say something to these people--hey! Stupid, rude, and illiterate? Boy, you've got the triple combo, there--but these days you can't be sure the stupid, rude, illiterate person isn't carrying a knife or a gun.

Handicapped parking. How I wish there was some kind of quick-tow mechanism that could ascertain whether or not a given car had a disabled sticker and, if not, remove it swiftly and efficiently as soon as its owner was out of range. "But I was only going to be a minute!"--then, buddy, why not take the extra minute and walk to and from the next closest available space? Oh, yeah, that's right. One minute's okay, but two is unacceptable.
(I should note that not every disability is visible. Take Eva, for instance: she suffers from something called cold-induced urticaria. Briefly, sudden exposure to cold will cause her to break out in hives. Hives sound relatively harmless...they're anything but if they're on the inside of your throat. If the cold is severe enough, she can go into anaphylactic shock and die. Hence she can lay claim to a handicapped sticker for her car, over the winter months, so as to avoid prolonged exposure to the cold. Her 'disability' is invisible...but very real.)

What able-bodied person uses the handicapped stall in a public washroom, and why? I've seen this, too, and it baffles me. I'm sure the person thinks they can get away before someone who really needs the stall shows up, and I'm not above using the thing myself if all the other stalls are in use...but what possible reason can there be for walking into a public bathroom and ignoring the toilets you're supposed to use in favour of one that's clearly designed for someone who's not you?

Our culture is sick. There's no other word for it: it's in advanced decay. Robert Heinlein propheseyed it back in the 1930s, calling the closing decades of the 20th century "The Crazy Years"---when anybody exhibiting sanity would have to be locked up for his own good. In FRIDAY (1982), Heinlein described just what he was getting at:

"...a dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot...This symptom is especially serious in that an individual displaying it never thinks of it as a sign of ill health but as proof of his/her strength."

In short, not just a total lack of empathy, but a total disdain for empathy. Why put yourself in the head of another when the world revolves around you?

This is one of many reasons I'd like to get the hell out of the city and live some place where I don't have to watch the daily chaos unfolding. As for you, Susan...I hope your letter provokes some sort of decent response and changes your daily routine for the better. I hope we haven't reached the terminal stage, when public shaming no longer has any effect on one's behaviour. (I fear we're perilously close).