Six Flags Great Adventure, Sunday May 10th

Marvin Miller said:

Basically, the disabled pass is a compensation for lack of access throughout the park.

I've read through this thread, and -- I'm sorry -- I'm not understanding what lack of access you should be compensated for. You have the same ability as anyone else to stand on line, deaf or not, and the same ability to easily enter the ride vehicle.

I totally understand the "not wanting to be cured" thing. I have a super-duper slight disability that is barely noticeable and doesn't have a culture or community around it (color blindness), but I've dealt with it my entire life and it's part of my identity. Just like I am Chinese, just like I am tall and skinny, just like I am good at math and bad at history, I am color blind. I wouldn't want my color blindness to be "cured" any more than I'd want my "Chinese-ness" to be cured or my "bad at history-ness" to be cured.

As a religious person, I've often wondered whether I will have full color vision in heaven and, more specifically, whether I'd want to. There're a lot of complex issues of identity and theology that go into the answer to those questions. You could ask the same questions about all kinds of differences.

Now whether any of these things merit FoL passes...(though I would love to get an FoL pass for being bad a history).

The idea is very new to me. I would think that I would want to be cured of colorblindness, but now I can't say for sure that I would because I never had the disability.

My little bro (not really related) JD has a few disabilities, and I think because of that, it pushed him to succeed whereas not having them might have not made him push himself as hard. It would be interesting to ask him sometime if he ever wanted to go back in time and live life without his disabilities.

I've read this thread with great interest today, and as a person who considers himself sensitive to all issues and all people I feel it's time to comment.

There's disabled and there's differently abled. In my view, a "disabled" person is one who cannot function to the degree that allows him to live without assistance or attendance of some kind. That disability can be physical or mental in origin. A "differently abled" person is one who might not have, let's say, all their limbs, all the normal body functions, or might be missing one or more of their senses. People in the deaf and blind communities, amputees, or chair-bound people usually prefer to be referred to as differently abled and pride themselves on their abilities, or, what they can do as opposed to what they can't. They've learned how to go through their day exactly the same way we who are totally abled learned to go through ours- one step at a time. There's no reason for any of us to think that a differently abled person is incapable of performing daily duties or interactions and that is usually their message to us.

I've had friends in the blind community (and one who is particularly close) and they have mentioned to me that there's nothing they would like better than to see, and cite reasons that range to being able to gaze upon their grandchild to something as simple as being able to ride a bike around town. The deaf community, however, seems to be of a slightly different ilk. Certain deaf people I have known tended to be almost, and I'm choosing this word very carefully, militant in their deafness. They don't want a "cure", they reject attempts at assistance, and demand inclusion in the everyday world. And why shouldn't they? Just like Andy's tall, skinny, Chinese color blindness, or my, 'noggins, or Travis' gayness, it's who we are and we see avenues to acceptance that don't involve change on our parts.

However, there was an attempt earlier to equate the struggles of the LGBT community and non-Caucasian people to that of the deaf community. I'm sorry, but that equation is very thin at best. I feel I'm qualified to say that yes, we all strive for equality. We've all faced challenges and we all have overcome (or ignored) attempts to make our lives more difficult. But I dont view my difference from the majority as a disability or a different ability. In my quest for acceptance I do everything I can to avoid being viewed as someone who feels entitled to any special accomodation or more than I deserved in the first place and that (and I never thought in my life I'd ever have to say this) includes front of line access at places like amusement parks. Just know this- it doesn't matter a bit to me what difficulties I've faced. I'll never stand behind you and I won't expect to stand in front of you. But I will demand to stand with you. Which is all any of us who want to lead normal lives should ever have to do.

I think this highlights a classic problem with talking about a minority (or any less privileged) community. Within the community the most helpful conversation is how to work within/around the system to avoid victimhood (i.e. work around your disability). When interfacing with the rest of the world, the most helpful conversation is how the system is broken and takes away equality of opportunity (i.e. not dis-abled but differently abled).

Sadly, too often conversations within the community become about victimhood and conversations that interface with the rest of the world become about how the members of the minority should just try harder.

Great post, RCMAC.

BTW, I forgot that I did see a group coming onto Nitro via the exit ramp that was communicating with ASL. This was mid-afternoon (as opposed to mid-Timbers.) I'm guessing that was the OP's group.