Disability and Disability Image

Our culture, as has been widely talked about, is quite consumed with image. One area this can be seen is how people with disabilities get treated. It's pretty common educational practice to teach kids not to "stare" at anyone who is physically different; yet, maybe that instruction is a part of the problem. Maybe instead of teaching children not to stare, parents should instruct their kids to talk to people who look physically different, thus getting to know them on a human, personal level. It might help with the divide in this country. At any rate, one area of image that is not talked about that often is the vast difference in how people who are seen as attractive who have disabilities are treated versus how those are treated who have disabilities and are also seen as physically different or unattractive.

A case in point would be the media coverage of Sean Elliot versus media coverage of Gary Coleman.

Sean Elliot was a basketball player for the San Antonio Spurs. He is tall, athletic, and good looking. During his career he came down with kidney failure, which required him to have a kidney transplant. Following the transplant, he played one more year of basketball, before retiring and becoming a TV basketball commentator. The media coverage was all about his courage and bravery; how nobly he'd acted, what a role model he had been.

Gary Coleman, on the other hand, is known for his TV situation comedy Different Strokes, which he starred on as a child. He is short due to kidney failure, which at various intervals has required him to have several transplants. Due to his small stature, during the TV series he was made to act younger and more childish than his actual age. Once the show ended, he has been lampooned and constantly made fun of, most of the time the humor has to do with his round face and his height - both of these situations are a result of his kidney failure.

The only difference then in how these men's ailments are viewed and how these two men are perceived has everything to do with how they look. Both are celebrities, both are African-American. The main central contrast is their height.

Apparently in America you are courageous and brave and a role model if you have a chronic problem, as long as you are pretty. If you have an ongoing illness but appear in any way different, then your ailment is made to look like buffoonery.