Should we pity the disabled?

That is a topic that we have discussed a lot. Some people agree with that, while others are not.

At the earliest, I felt that this kind of sympathy was correct and necessary, and the disadvantaged groups really needed help. So help them a lot when I was a kid. Later, after experiencing more and seeing more, I change my view.

As I learn more, I realized that “help” and “sympathy” are two different things. There is nothing wrong with sympathy, what is wrong is the abnormal excessive sympathy at the moment without really trying to help them change their current situation. Some people pretend to be blind and go to the street, using people’s “sympathy” to treat money. If most of the blind people that we meet on the street pretending to be blind, then no one will give them help, but when there are disabled people that need help, most people will just stand by.

In fact, even though some of them are disabled, they can still get a job. It stands to reason that in such a country that “sympathizes with a disability”, shouldn’t barrier-free facilities be well-developed? But the truth is the opposite. Take my hometown city-Guangzhou, which is the big city in China. I noticed that barrier-free toilets are often occupied by the roadside in many cities. Even though the blind road was occupied by some public bicycles, also some of the construction of the blind road was completely unreasonable. Some of them have a lot of corners, whenever I was passing through those lines, I am also thinking how can those blind people walk on the road when the road has a lot of corners. That also in the U.S., in the article “Disability as Inequality: Social Disparities, Health Disparities, and Participation in Daily Activities”, the author said that although in the U.S. the ADA has strength the persons with disabilities in daily life through proper medical condition, rehabilitation, and society equal to treat them, this still need to improve.

Do we need to pity for the disabled?