Ableism Blog 9

Ableism is the cowardly act of discrimination against people with disabilities. When a person that does not have a disability feels lika a person with a disbility is "less than" you have ableism. In this writers opinion, society is afraid of what is not considered "normal behaviors or actions". So people with disabilities of any type are treated differently from the moment they are born. They are looked at differently as babies, toddlers, children, and adults. Put in special classrooms at school. Told they will not be able to succeed at life. Where does all this negativity towards people with disabilities begin. I can not help to think of this story when thinking about ableism. I have been a little league baseball coach for children in the age group of 9 to 12 for almost 30 years. There was a person (For name purposes I will use AA) that lived right next to the baseball field my all star team practiced at every summer. AA had numerous physical and mental disabilities. AA would come out to watch practice every single day. Retrieve all the balls that went over the fenceand cheer for the players whether they did something right or wrong on the field. One day at the end of practice one of the players from my all star team asked me to throw a few pitches to AA. What I witnessed from the players was truly inspirational. The whole all star team took the field to play defense. As I am throwing pitches AA is making contact, albeit soft contact and my team is rooting him on like he was Babe Ruth. I yell out last pitch run this one out. AA hit the ball and began to make way around the bases. The whole team was yelling and cheering AA all the way around the bases until AA touched home base, where the team mobbed AA like they had just won the championship. Every kid had humongous smiles, laughing and chanting AA's name. I was literally moved to tears by the diplay of affection they had shown AA. From that day forward for the next 4 to 5 years AA would show up at every practice with the same outcome at the end of pratice. Was this a form of ableism? I do not believe so. I believe it was an act of kindness and gratitude towards a person that would retrieve balls and root the ballplayers on. Yes all the ballplayers knew that AA had numerous disabilities, but they were children making another child feel great.