Public Discourse Prospectus

I will argue that, in today’s increasingly diverse society, the disabled are often getting overlooked, causing the general public to become ignorant, shallow, and intolerant towards people with disabilities. This issue has a personal connection for me because my brother Andrew suffers from Angelman Syndrome, a genetic disorder causing developmental delays and mental retardation. Too often I see people giving him puzzled looks and scathing stares, wondering why he looks different than we all do. Their body language gives off a condescending image, which severely bothers me because they are basing their (incorrect) judgments only on his unique look and not his personality. They are not seeing him as a real person; rather they only point out his differences instead of highlighting his value. Hopefully this piece will help to dispel some basic preconceptions about people with disabilities, and help the general public to better understand the world they live in. I’ll write this argument and explanation as a blog post in order to reach more people using technology as a middleman. In this situation, the more people that I influence and educate, the better. I plan on targeting primarily the disabled community in order to have it spread to other groups of people who might not be tolerant of people of disabilities. Since the audience is very common and basic, I’ll use a very simple argument and incorporate lots of personal experience (through my brother) which will help to give a specific face to all disabled people. The appeals will be very logical, and will just plain make sense. There’s a large moral perspective associated with this topic, so the “bleeding heart” approach will have a certain degree of effectiveness and will not be too lofty or academic for a common audience. I’ll take information and use specific examples from disability-related websites and blogs to strengthen my argument, mostly by highlighting the struggles people with disabilities face and the extraordinary measures they take in order to overcome those struggles.