A professor I had once taught Psychology of the Disabled. The first thing that he did was take off his prosthetic leg and swung it on top of the desk in front of him.
My reaction was just plain stunned! I had no clue what to expect next.
This creative professor drove a point home. He stated that often times if the person who is disabled is uncomfortable then chances are other people in society will follow suit.
Now, many years later this thought process has carried over to other areas. Like Kermit the frog, (I am a fan) its not easy being green! There are those times when being ourselves becomes very difficult. As open of a society that we have become we still remain biased to those who are different. In such a case I ask myself could I feel comfortable in my own skin? Could I feel comfortable if society was re-enforcing the negative? Would I develop a chip on my shoulder as the saying goes because I was always compelled to debate,protect & defend my right to breathe? If I did get comfortable would it change anything? Could I actually plant a seed?
Do I know what it is like to be a black person in this white privileged world? One step better, do I know what it is like to be a black woman in this society? Do I know what it is like to be gay, or a transgender individual? Do I know what it is like to be handicapped,disfigured,mentally ill ? The list goes on and no one is spared. Not, Latin, Mexicans,mixed race, Jews, Arab, Asian and so on.
One can never know unless they are. If you are human you can understand. You don't have to wear a tee shirt that states you are proud of your gay son or lesbian daughter. You don't always have to try and "stick up" for the other guy or tell people you marched for thus and so equal rights. This is not to say these are bad things. Quite the contrary. It is just going to take a little bit more from you.
Hear me croak loud and clear. You need to be comfortable enough in your own skin and reach out to educate people about people. You need to know in your soul who you are and then you can pave the way. You can teach others understanding by showing them their own skin.
You can also help the one who finds the skin they are in is most definitely a horse of a different color. You can be comfortable enough in your own skin to give them respect and confidence to not be afraid to show who they really are. You may not know what it is like to be thus and so however you are endowed with understanding and love. Should this not be the case then perhaps bitterness has replaced understanding and the coin toss of love has flipped over to indifference or hate.
So, the wooden leg laid on the desk like it was just a thing. A picture is worth a thousand croaks. Two sides to the story. The disabled of heart and mind are uncomfortable. The white class is the disabled in large numbers! I hear that Dylan tune floating in my head, "Idiot wind".
My frog mantra is that its not easy being easy. Life is better on the lily pad of hope even though I may fear a storm. Yet, it really isn't easy being easy. To top it all off, every now and again I look at my reflection in the pond just to check that I am comfortable in my own skin. Just to be sure I can croak and croak and croak to say, come on in, the water is fine! Ribit- I'm done.