Most of you aren’t disabled.
You don’t need the ramps, the wider parking spaces, the bathroom grab bars. You don’t need most of the stuff marked by “the little blue guy.” Perhaps you don’t even know anyone who needs those adaptations.
So why should you care?
Why should you care about an issue that doesn’t directly impact you?
I’d suggest that accessibility would advance dramatically if its advocates were the “privileged” folks, able-bodied people who worked on behalf of a just cause in which they had no clear vested interest. Same thing’s true, I think, for any social justice issue.
But why should you care?
(I assume you understand that this isn’t really about accessibility.)
Last time I suggested that The Best View Is The Long View. In A Letter From A Birmingham Jail, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. explained the long view of social justice.
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.”
Dr. King’s quote in the context of civil rights outlines a general principle. You and I ought to care about injustice because each victim is our neighbor. When the only folks pushing for change are the victims, you have to wonder what happened to The Good Samaritan. Jesus asked us not to pass by, even when the victim was a hated enemy.
The FREEDOM TOUR advocates for justice by raising funds and awareness for kids rescued from human trafficking. Why should we care?
It’s not about being nice or feeling good about ourselves. We do have a lot of fun, but we do this thing because we take the long view.
We take Jesus at His word. We believe we are “caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny” with the kids at the HOME OF HOPE.
So even though we’re privileged, even though we’re not impacted, we choose to stand with kids we’ll never meet.
Most of us live in incredible privilege. We’re not poor or disabled or enslaved. We’re not victimized by bullies or racists.
Privilege is not an excuse to pass by.