Tag: examples

False assumptions made about wheelchair users

Real Social Skills
A reader asked
 
There are also cases of false assumptions being made about wheelchair users – e.g. they have full hand function, that they aren’t heavy etc. There have been a number of times my dad’s been trapped in lifts because you need to press the small lift buttons (he doesn’t have fine hand control) and the lift can’t carry him (a fully-grown, slightly overweight man) his electric wheelchair (built in the 1980s), and a button-pusher, due to weight restrictions or space in the lift car.
 
realsocialskills answered:
 
Yes, those are all also things that can cause access features to be inaccessible.
 
Sometimes these things are designed as though all people who need flat entrances and lifts are all either little children, accompanied by able-bodied people, or 20-something paraplegic athletes who use lightweight manual chairs.
 
And that’s really not the reality.

Hate joke example

Real Social Skills
Content warning: This post is an example of a racist hate joke. Some of y’all might be better off skipping this one.
A reader asked:
When I was in middle school there was a racist ‘personality quiz’ joke that was framed as an innocent question, “Which would you rather have: vanilla or chocolate ice cream?” If you said you like chocolate better, it meant you preferred oral sex with a black boy. Trust me, white girls quickly changed their answers when they realized what the implication was.
realsocialskills said:
Wow, that’s horrible. And it’s a particularly clear example of a hate joke. (I bet most of those same girls vehemently denied that they could ever have any racist attitudes.)