This is a post that I’ve been wanted to make for a while but didn’t want to trivialize it with recipes, please read… thank you.
It makes me wonder sometimes, in this big all-embracing world of ours, how some people actually manage to live with themselves. It appears that their perception of someone’s intelligence starts with whether or not the person they are looking at has a disability. They see a person in a wheelchair or with a disability that manifests itself in some disfigurement, and their initial impression is that they are stupid (I’m not going to use the American term). Let me just say this… “Normality” and/or beauty does not make intelligence. The one acception to the previous statement would be Professor Stephen Hawkins, who is wildly known to be a genius, although there are probably a small minority that would still tag with the unintelligent label upon sight through sheer ignorance.
There are occasions where, through no fault of their own, someone with a disability has had education pass them by but has not stopped them being loved by so many people for so many years. A classic example of this is North Staffordshire’s very own Neil (Nello) Baldwin, born with “learning difficulties” life was always going to be a struggle for him. But this didn’t stop him for more than 50 years he has been party of the welcoming committee for students, new and old, at Keele University. If he was on Facebook, his friends list would include Gary Linekar, The Archbishop of Canterbury amongst others. His sheer determination and energy make him a man that is loved by his home city.
I have been touched by disability myself, my uncle, who is now sadly passed, suffered from MS (multiple sclerosis) and was confined to a wheelchair for the majority of his later years. The man was amazing, he never appeared to let his illness get him (to his relatives), he was the life and soul of the party and devil at cards. Where his illness may taken his control way of his limbs and body to a degree, it hadn’t taken away his intelligence – his mind was as sharp as anyones.
So next time you go to pass judgement on someone in a wheelchair, or with disabilities… think of them as a person, think of how they live their lives with their disability day in day out… you don’t know them to judge them.
chefgarfy 