History Of People With Disabilities In Joseph Shapiro's No Pity

“What’s happened?” or “Was he/she born that way?” People may ask those questions when they first see a person with a disability. While some people may feel comfortable discussing their conditions, these are still sensitive and personal questions. Lots of people use sensitive words such as “handicapped,” “retarded,” and "slow" to refer to people with disabilities, directed at people with disabilities are obvious. For the first time the United States president is black, attitudes about race and sexuality are changing. Similarly, disability can not keep a person from being normal.

No Pity is a very informative book on the history of disability rights in the USA up to 1993. The author mostly focuses on the period between 1950 and the passage

Joseph Shapiro focuses on the many struggles that people with disabilities are facing, but he writes about them as a journalist and not as an individual with personal experience.

People with disabilities do not want pity. Cyndi Jones, who publishes and edits Mainstream, a national disability magazine, sees it: "The main thing disabled people need to do is to claim their disability, to feel okay about it." (Joseph 14). People with disabilities want to be judged for who they are, not what they look like or talk. Non-disabled people are not obligated to "take care of" the individuals with disabilities. They may offer assistance to whomever they choose, but most disabled people prefer to be responsible for themselves. People with disability are trying very hard to change the perception of society towards them. They may offer assistance go to school, get married, work, have families, get angry and dream, like everyone. They want to be included in society, not excluded, separated or discriminated. Misunderstanding often perpetuates attitudes, which promote stigma and discrimination. Pity sets us apart. People feel familiar with the 'social construct of disability'

But this is only a slight understanding and misses the reality that disability lasts forever. No one has ever asked how it is like to be in a car? How is it like to be on a train? They are social constructs. We used the train, the car because they transport us quickly and efficiently than walking. But do people ask what it is like to be in a wheelchair? Because we haven't accepted that wheelchair is another social construct. Today, wheelchairs are a common sight on the campus, but 20 years ago, it was very different. Berkeley has always been known as a place where movements for social change had begun, typical when students on the Berkeley campus were rioting against the Vietnam War and campaigning for the rights of minorities. Since these protests, disabled people gradually become more confident in themselves, and they began to fight for the disability rights movement. Ed Roberts is an example of how people deconstruct the social construct of disability. Ed Roberts was the first student with severe disabilities to attend the