I was out in town this morning, looking for one or two things I’d forgotten, pondering the whole subject of disability rights. Navigating my way through the crowd, I stumbled the idea that the whole movement can be framed in terms of a paradigm shift: the problem of disability does not lie with disabled people, but with those around us. Further, this does not apply only to disability but any other so-called minority.

Take, for example, my dribbling. I drool quite a bit. for me to try to stop it, however, I’d need to concentrate on swallowing more than any other thing. At the extreme ends of the scale, my productivity in writing would slow, almost to a halt, because I’d be concentrating on not dribbling. Thankfully, my friends and those around me accept me for who I am, including the fact that I drool. Other people need to adapt to me, not me to them.

Moreover, say two guys were walking along the street, obviously in love. The most appropriate response would be none at all, or rather to respond as you would suing any other couple. Yet some people would be appalled at such a sight; and it is such people that I have no time for. I hate intolerance, bigotry, and conservatism.

We all need to accept people for who they are. We also need to see disability in terms of ability, not the lack thereof. Most of all, ‘we’ want to be seen as people.

A week or two ago, I came across a new York times article on a dance class for girls (and presumably boys) with cerebral palsy. They would be changed into dancewear, and helpers would guide their bodies through a ballet class. This seems the epitome of social model thinking: under the s.m, nothing, not even something as quintessentially physical as ballet, is closed to us. If those girls wanted to do ballet – and what’s more natural than a little girl wanting to spin about in a tutu? – then why shouldn’t they. The organisers have seen those girls as girls, not as kids with cerebral palsy. While some may say ‘that’s silly’, I say ‘why the hell not’.

The point is, society’s perceptions of disability must change. I drool, so what? Those girls probably can’t walk, let alone dance en point. So what. We are, first and foremost, people. at uni, for the most part, people got this point. Why can’t everyone else? The problem lies with other’s perceptions and failure to adapt, not disabled people.