Disability matters and the sanity challenge - my tribute to human endless capacity to be unfair

For a long time now, this blog has been a testimonial of growing clarity, serenity and self-awareness. There's absolutely no doubt about the path that has eventually brought me to this new position. However, I feel the pressing need to call the attention to draw backs in that virtuous cycle: It's the power of reality shock. No matter how determined we are or how well supported are our opinions and what we want to do about them, there's always the bitter matter of reality as is.

Maybe that statement will sound insane, but I think that's exactly the point here. We are all used to taking reality as if it was some sort of standard for what is correct. It's quite compelling, natural. For instance, if I say that in the US (or Brazil), the probability of randomly selecting a black person with higher education is much lower than a white one, I'll just be describing reality. The issue is that when one says that, he/she ends up justifying prejudice with the facts of life (thus converting a prejudice into an actual judgement). Same thing applies to disabled people, and all the social groups that are subjected to some sort of exclusion process.

By analogy, the mechanism adopted with the so-called "outliers" by recognizing countless cumulative advantages they've always had as merit has exactly the same nature. In the end, reality will prove they are the best of the best (which will be true for activities like sports, law, corporate stuff, politics, etc). And history will be re-written having that in mind.

Then I have to ask myself with brutal honesty and with no neutral ground to support the weight of doubt: am I crazy for disagreeing with reality. Am I stupid for seeing things differently, not because I want to benefit from bias, but because the world is and has always been trully biased?

The correct answer for that is "yes and no". But reality will give me the treatment it always does to the crazy, the freaks, the outsiders and the crips. And I'll take it, because that's the best for me to do. At the same time there's doubt, there's fire, there's disapointment and desperation. But I need to leave all of them behind, and as society and reality always do I must ignore what I don't want to see. And move on.