The image of the person in the mirror is what I have become and not who I see when I close my eyes. Closing my eyes allows me to escape reality, but I live in the real world. A world the calls me a handicap and thinks of me as less than I am. A world that forces me to access and egress through specially marked entrances. Handicap Entrance? A world that still has five and six-story walk-ups, bathrooms that are not wheelchair friendly, doors too narrow, and counters that are too high. If you think that is bad, consider sitting in a seat two-sizes too small, kneeling buses that don’t kneel, elevators and escalator out of service, what is a person with mobility difficulty do?
Do you see what I see; the most lambasted, stereotyped, criminalized, and marginalized eyes looking back at you? The eyes of a black man that does not steal, use drugs, never been to jail, does not beat his wife, and in college. That’s right 53 years old and still in college getting the education that you white people say we don’t have. Cradle of civilization, lost history, slavery, lynching, miseducation, segregation, and now the police kill us. I’m looking at you look at me and label me undesirable. Where have I heard that term before – Hitler, Germany, and the Nazi Party?
