Disability privilege

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Does anyone else feel they have advantages to their disability? Do you think disability privilege exists?

I can spend $28 bucks for a monthly commute pass here because I have a disability or because I am on Medicare so that makes me feel privileged while the "normal" people have to spend over $100 on an adult monthly pass.

Now our country is offering free passes to those with disabilities so that is another advantage for us. I can see if I can get one and it never expires.

When we had that government lockdown, while people had to struggle not getting home a paycheck, I didn't have to worry because of SSDI. I work in a federal building so I had back up in case it affected me too.

Now do you think diagnoses privilege exists? There are advantages to it too.

There should be these sorts of discounts available to persons with disabilities. Usually, they can barely make ends meet. They need some perks in life to increase the quality of their lives. I believe people have the right to have a decent quality of life, regardless of income.

No, I don't believe "disability privilege" is something to be concerned with.

I don't know it I'd call it privilege...more slight compensation? I can get a reduced price on public transportation, but by the same token the service is less functional than its standard counterpart.

I used to get time and a half on exams in school. One of my teachers said to me once that this wasn't really fair, since he probably could have aced all of his classes in college if he had extra time on all the exams too. This didn't sit well with me. I declined my time and a half for the rest of his course, just so I could break all of his stupid curves without special accommodations. I'll take that 110% Thanks. Sorry Prof, it wasn't my time and a half. Your class just wasn't very hard for your special needs student :p

Seriously though, at some point (partly due to lost paperwork) I stopped asking for special accommodations at all. I realized that jealous NTs were always going to resent me for them. I'm just lucky that I could figure out how to test-take without them by college.

I didn't have that privilege to not get accommodations because it was not possible for me to do school work without any accommodations. I used to think kids were probably resenting me and hating me because my school work was being made easier and I was being given less work. I quit caring after a while when I realized I wouldn't be able to do college so at least I will get to finish high school and still get a shot at employment without being a high school drop out and have a hard time finding work. I think getting an education and getting high pay is a privilege because it's something they were able to do. Education after high school is a privilege. Education under age 18 is a right.

Accommodations for those with disabilities at least have the laudable goal of making life more fair. Most other forms of privelege--of wealth, class, race, etc--make life unfair.

There was no such thing as "accommodations" when I went to school---maybe later on, but I was already in high school.

"Mainstreaming" hadn't really started until maybe the mid-to-late 70's. I was in a totally separate school for kids with disabilities (even though I was on the academic track).

I gave a lecture to the seventh graders at my local middle school last week as part of a disability awareness project they were doing. I discussed autism, and explained that accommodations are given to disabled people in an effort to give them equal access to the things that non-disabled people can access. It's not about our receiving special treatment, it's about our being given the support we need to have just as fair a chance at life as everyone else. I am at a disadvantage to NT's where getting and keeping a job is concerned, due to my symptoms, and so the leg up I receive in response to that is disability benefits, which allow me to (mostly) have the same opportunity to not be homeless and starving as everyone else. Some people may be envious of the fact that I'm able to receive money without doing anything to earn it, but the restriction that comes with living on these benefits is that I have to have a roommate, because I can't afford an apartment on my own, the way NT's can on their employment wages. It's all a balance.

Very well said, StarTrekker, and Thank You for using your opportunity to educate and enlighten.

That's like saying people with service dogs are "privileged" because they can take their animals into public buildings and I can't.

I think setting up special privileged groups can go too far and is often abused. One example is the current Hollywood Scandal around College Admissions.

Several of the Hollywood elites were involved in a massive college admissions cheating scandal. One of the tools they used was to claim:

The ringleader of the scam, William Singer would allegedly instruct parents to seek extended time for the children to take entrance exams or obtain medical documentation that their child had a learning disability, according to the indictment. The parents were then told to get the location of the test changed to one of two testing centers, one in Houston and another in West Hollywood, California, where test administrators Niki Williams, 44, of Houston and Igor Dvorskiy, 52, of Sherman Oaks, California, helped carry out the scam, the indictment alleges.

So they were having their NT children pretend to be mentally disabled, such as having autism ND, in order to allow their children excessive time in performing the SAT/ACT exam. They were abusing a loophole, a privilege to up their scores in order to gain access to top schools including Yale, Stanford, Georgetown, Boston University, Northeastern, UCLA, USC, University of Texas at Austin and Wake Forest.

[It was more than just the extra time for the test. This disability privilege allowed them to orchestrate where the test would be given (location), which then allowed them other tools like test monitors who would rework test answers and substitute proxies to take the test for them. - so they abused a well intended privilege for NDs to cheat their way into the best colleges.]

Source: Massive college admissions cheating scandal snares Hollywood stars Lori Loughlin, Felicity Huffman

Well kind of, but I'd give them up any time if it meant getting rid of my disability, too.

During my first years of school, I got a bit less homework than others. In fourth (fifth?) grade, the amount of points I needed to pass English word tests were less than what my classmates needed since I just couldn't learn the spelling rules. Also, in fifth grade I started to get private English lessons. Before them I was barely able to pass the bigger tests, yet at the end of sixth grade I had caught up with the average students in the class thanks to this... then again it was the summer between fifth and sixth grade that we got internet, so I suppose that helped too. But I highly doubt I'd be able to even write this now without those private lessons.
In P.E classes I didn't have to do some of the things others had to since I had a doctor's testimony that some things were too dangerous because of my disability. While there were some things I was glad to skip, there were also a lot of things I would've liked to do but wasn't allowed, so I wouldn't count this as a privilege.
These days I don't get any privileges aside from a disability benefit once a month, but it's not much. It would be impossible to live with just that, even if it was tripled.

I kind of understand NT kids who resent the disabled who get less homework and such... I mean I don't know how these things are handled at other schools, but as far as I know my classmates were never explained why I get less homework. (They knew a lot about my physical disability for safety reasons though so they barely ever complained about my "privileges" about P.E) I think the teachers messed up there; I know I'd be pissed if I was made to work more than someone else without it being explained why... I mean I'm still a bit bitter about how some people in my special education class clearly sruggled with English and got less work because of it, yet I didn't get any less work with the subjects I struggled with. To add salt to the wounds those were subjects that the ones who had trouble with English were good at, such as chemistry.

They were still sticking kids with disabilities in one class when I was little. But they still went to a normal school but they would have classes for these kids they were in all day. Closest they did for mainstreaming was they would send them to "home room" where they went to PE, Music, or Library with that normal class. My class went to Music with this one class when I was six. That was part of mainstreaming.

It was very hard to get your child out of that class once they were in it and it was not easy for my parents to get me out of that class. My mom got support and even the classroom aid in my class helped her too when she agreed that she may be right that I don't belong in that class and recommended a class to her for my mom to take. It was just a class telling my mom what rights she had as a parent for my education. The law was only way to get me out of that class was the teachers had to prove to the parent their kid belonged there by having them get tested so my mom used that law to force them to test me. Back then we didn't have internet like we do now so only information you could find was word of mouth and hope you ran into someone who knew the correct information. You couldn't go online and ask a bunch of random strangers you don't even know to get advice. So my mom was lucky to still get support. She was just social and knew how to make friends and interact.

I remember when I was in high school, I found out you could get paid for having a disability so I thought "If I am not able to work, at least I will still get money" and my therapist told me they didn't get much money and I wouldn't be able to buy video games and I would have to put up with not having my games. I knew he meant you in general and someone wouldn't have that privilege to buy what is their interest. They wouldn't be able to buy something new and I knew then this was not the life I would want to have. This is why I work and luckily you can still work while receiving benefits. But then they cut your disability check when you earn wages and only way to get on SSDI is if you have worked long enough to qualify and you would have to prove you are unable to work and stuff. But you can still work without having your check get cut but you need to make under a certain amount. Last time I checked, it was $1070 before taxes.

I just hope our kids won't get the wrong idea that they don't have to work because they can get "free money" because of us. I also don't want my son thinking he can get paid for having a disability. Children model what they see.

You get the privilege of not being able to afford things most people enjoy and what you what little you can afford is of the lowest quality. You get the privilege of being heavily dependent on others and viewed with resentment and suspicion by people forced to pay for your benefits.

Interesting thread, so to the op and readers, an inquiring mind wants to know: Do you think it's fair or not fair that disabled people receive these special privileges, or does the word "fair" not apply, and, if so, why?