Honesty and the Disabled Community

Meanness, tolerance, honesty and the reality show era.

I’ve been watching Britain’s Top Missing Model. It is a search for a fashion model with a disability. When my mom’s in the room, she can’t believe how mean they are to the women. My first response was this is a competition, the Disabled Community wants to be treated real. But as I watched week after week my stance was this was reality TV. Reality TV is mean across the board. These girls had to have known that, yet they signed up anyways.

I think TV got mean thanks to Seinfeld. I remember watching back then and being shocked. Now I’m so accustomed to it, I deny it when my mother points it out to me.

As far as the reality TV craze goes, I’ve only watched the first season of Survivor. I might watch bits and pieces of a reality show, but I’m never intrigued enough to watch the whole season. Maybe subconsciously all that meanness turns me off?

I have however really gotten into The Biggest Loser. I was surprised to find myself watching it every week. So I started thinking about why I liked it. I was far from being overweight, I knew nobody on the show. What was it? My guy Brian, a big Survivor fan pointed it out to me.
You like that show because they aren’t mean to each other.

I’ll be damn, he was right. The gym coaches may sound mean, but it’s because they want to see that person become healthy. When it comes down to voting people off, it seems people genuinely don’t want them to leave.

These reality shows pride themselves on being honest. Contestants will run their mouth off behind somebody’s back, or even more often, in their face.
Oh I’m just being honest!
Sure it makes for good TV but at this rate after years and years of reality shows, the behavior probably is sinking into all of us by now.

With no boundaries set, are people becoming meaner to one another?
I’m not saying this TVs fault. But how did we get from being kind to our neighbors to this?
Mom blames the Baby Boomer generation. They wanted freedom, no rules, don’t let the man tell you what to do. etc., so they raised their kids like that too.

So now present day: My disability advocacy group is trying to get disability rights and awareness taught in schools.

A few people I’ve come across on chat boards make it seem teaching tolerance is the same as teaching religion in schools.
I can teach my kid that at home.
Well obviously you’re not. Bullying has grown out of control. Teachers don’t want to step in. They're most likely scared of the kids getting physical. Or think think it's not their problem, they're there to teach.
The buck stops where? I want to know.

Where have the boundaries gone? Is there a correct way to treat a person anymore?
There is a difference between being honest and being mean isn’t there?

The disabled community wants to be treated fairly. This means being honest. People are afraid to be honest towards people with disabilities. One reason it makes it so hard to be honest towards people with disabilities, is the abled-bodied population knows NOTHING about the Disabled Community. This has to end if the disabled community wants to reach the goal of equality.
(although, I expect to be given my rights, with no understanding of my disability)

Spoiler alert...
Ex. In Britain’s Top Missing Model the girl that got voted of this week was displaying a bit too much sexual flirtation with one of the male judges. She had a brain injury. I’ve been in rehabs and have noticed that these people tend to have sexually inappropriate behavior. I’m no expert, so I couldn’t explain why that is but it’s definitely a characteristic.
Did the judge take this into consideration? No, because he did not know enough about her disability.
The girls are in the show BECAUSE of their disabilities, but when it’s time to vote it could be because of their disability that they get thrown off. (it’s interesting to me)

The judge was only being honest. That behavior isn’t professional, she couldn’t act like that if she was a real model. But it seemed to me her disability caused that behavior.
She was told plenty times to stop being so flirtatious during the series. She was warned. So I think the judge made the right decision.
A fight broke out between both male judges. The other thought he was being too hard on her. I felt he was only being honest.

It’s a strange phenomenon. How all of us can tackle the problem, I’m not sure.

Where how does the Disabled Community fit in, in today’s world of brutal honesty and low tolerance?
And
Why are the Disabled Community continually held to the same standards as the abled-bodied population, when we are different? Is there room for 'different' in Society?


UPDATE: 12/7/10
BBCamerica just finished airing the series. The girl that won was given the chance to be picked by a major modeling agency. During the decision to take her on, two things stuck out to me. (Her disability was that she was missing part of her arm) I heard a comment like; if she was abled-bodied and came off the street asking us to represent her I don’t think we would.
They ended up signing her.
Now why did they? According to that comment I thought for sure they wouldn’t pick her up.
I heard another comment; we’ll give her a chance.
Why don’t more employers have that attitude? Or was it because they were on TV and didn’t want to look bad?