“courtesy for the disabled”

Jennifer Bartlett in a NYTimes Online column, “Assumptions” for city room blog describes her experience venturing through New York with cerebral palsy.

Micah Kellner, a NY assembly man, responded with the following letter:

Ordinary New Yorkers expect to be treated according to a simple standard of common courtesy and respect, and those of us with disabilities are no different. Yet too often we are confronted by strangers who make bizarrely inappropriate comments or offer unnecessary and unasked-for expressions of sympathy. There is a double standard here — as if we are not entitled to the same basic consideration taken for granted by others in their daily interactions.

Kellner stresses the importance of overcoming social barriers: “equality begins with respect for people’s differences, and with overcoming deep-seated preconceptions about people with disabilities.”