Disability Inclusion Quotes

Disability is not something an individual overcomes. I'm still disabled. I'm still Deafblind. People with disabilities are successful when we develop alternative techniques and our communities choose inclusion.

The message I'll share...is that inclusion is extremely important for kids with and without disabilities.

If your voice didn’t hold any power, people wouldn’t work so hard to make you feel so small.

Inclusion without power or leadership is tokenism.

If we can't start by seeing an autistic child as inherently capable, interesting, and valuable, no amount of education or therapy we layer on top is going to matter.

Navigating ableist situations is like traversing the muckiest mud pit. Ableism runs so deep in our society that most ableists don't recognize their actions as ableist. They coat ableism in sweetness, then expect applause for their "good" deeds. Attempts to explain the ableism behind the "good deeds" get brushed aside as sensitive, angry, and ungrateful.

People want so desperately to fit in that they forget what makes them stand out. Be loud. Take up space. Our differences are our strengths.

diversity doesn't look like anyone. it looks like everyone.

All of our bodies change over time. We all deserve dignity and access at every stage in our lives. Most people will need to seek accessibility solutions at some point, whether for a family member, a colleague, or for oneself. Disability is part of the human experience. We all need to engage in the work to make our world accessible to everyone. Inclusion is a choice.

Communities designed with just one kind of person in mind isolate those of us defying our narrow definition of personhood.

Sighted or blind, Deaf or hearing, each of us holds just the tiniest fraction of the world's wisdom. Admitting we don't know everything will aid us on this Trek for Knowledge.

... I REALISE MY DISABILITY IS A BIGGER PART OF ME THAN I ADMIT. IT’S DEFINED ME ALL MY LIFE.

I wanted to share the realities of living with a disability since birth. My book is my attempt to promote increased inclusion and greater understanding of individual abilities

People with Down syndrome can do anything—really, really, really anything!

For we are leaders of inclusiveness and community, of love, equity, and justice.

There is no such thing as a disability, and we say diffability, because we know you are all different, and possess different abilities.

I’ve noticed tons of abled activists will happily add “ableism” to the list of stuff they’re against (you know, like that big sign in front of the club in my town that says “No racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism”) or throw around the word “disability justice” in the list of “justices” in their manifesto. But then nothing else changes: all their organizing is still run the exact same inaccessible way, with the ten-mile-long marches, workshops that urge people to “get out of your seats and move!” and lack of inclusion of any disabled issues or organizing strategies. And of course none of them think they’re ableist.

Anyone can be made to feel like an outsider. It’s up to the people who have the power to exclude. Often it’s on the basis of race. Depending on a culture’s fears and biases, Jews can be treated as outsiders. Muslims can be treated as outsiders. Christians can be treated as outsiders. The poor are always outsiders. The sick are often outsiders. People with disabilities can be treated as outsiders. Members of the LGBTQ community can be treated as outsiders. Immigrants are almost always outsiders. And in most every society, women can be made to feel like outsiders—even in their own homes. Overcoming the need to create outsiders is our greatest challenge as human beings. It is the key to ending deep inequality. We stigmatize and send to the margins people who trigger in us the feelings we want to avoid. This is why there are so many old and weak and sick and poor people on the margins of society. We tend to push out the people who have qualities we’re most afraid we will find in ourselves—and sometimes we falsely ascribe qualities we disown to certain groups, then push those groups out as a way of denying those traits in ourselves. This is what drives dominant groups to push different racial and religious groups to the margins. And we’re often not honest about what’s happening. If we’re on the inside and see someone on the outside, we often say to ourselves, “I’m not in that situation because I’m different. But that’s just pride talking. We could easily be that person. We have all things inside us. We just don’t like to confess what we have in common with outsiders because it’s too humbling. It suggests that maybe success and failure aren’t entirely fair. And if you know you got the better deal, then you have to be humble, and it hurts to give up your sense of superiority and say, “I’m no better than others.” So instead we invent excuses for our need to exclude. We say it’s about merit or tradition when it’s really just protecting our privilege and our pride.

The most important outcome of education is that students have a good quality of life and are productive members of society. Employment is the critical component for a successful quality of life for people with disabilities. Good jobs and/or careers that offer meaningful work, good pay and benefits, and social inclusion provide the key for successful outcomes. Page 3.

At the risk of seeming like a Christian, or a Che Guevara poster, love is bigger, huger, more complex, and more ultimate than petty fucked-up desirability politics. We all deserve love. Love as an action verb. Love in full inclusion, in centrality, in not being forgotten. Being loved for our disabilities, our weirdness, not despite them. Love in action is when we strategize to create cross-disability access spaces. When we refuse to abandon each other. When we, as disabled people, fight for the access needs of sibling crips. I’ve seen able-bodied organizers be confused by this. Why am I fighting so hard for fragrance-free space or a ramp, if it’s not something I personally need? When disabled people get free, everyone gets free. More access makes everything more accessible for everybody.

Those who are weak have great difficulty finding their place in our society. The image of the ideal human as powerful and capable disenfranchises the old, the sick, the less-abled. For me, society must, by definition, be inclusive of the needs and gifts of all its members. How can we lay claim to making an open and friendly society where human rights are respected and fostered when, by the values we teach and foster, we systematically exclude segments of our population? I believe that those we most often exclude from the normal life of society, people with disabilities, have profound lessons to teach us. When we do include them, they add richly to our lives and add immensely to our world.

America was at the crossroads between its slaveholding past and the possibility of a truly inclusive, vibrant democracy. The four-year war, played out on battlefield after battlefield on an unimaginable scale, had left the United States reeling. Beyond the enormous loss of life to contend with, more than one million disabled ex-soldiers were adrift, not to mention the widows seeking support from a rickety and virtually nonexistent veterans’ pension system.6 The mangled sinews of commerce only added to the despair, with railroad tracks torn apart; fields fallow, hardened, and barren; and bridges that had once defied the physics of uncrossable rivers now destroyed. And then this: Millions of black people who had been treated as no more than mere property were now demanding their full rights of citizenship. To face these challenges and make

I grew up with a sibling who has a disability, and I witnessed firsthand the struggles they endured and still go through. I've heard both able-bodied and disabled people alike tell disabled people that they're fine the way they are and don't need to change. I agree with this completely---but the reality is unless you've lived with it day to day, or observed someone living with a disability every day, you can't possibly understand how hard it is to embrace that mindset. Much of our world---from our transport systems to our social and health care systems, is not set up in a way for individuals with disabilities to thrive. This lack of accessibility can lead to emotional distress, reduced educational and work opportunities, and increased isolation, among other things. Today, people are more sensitive compared to the lack of inclusion, equality, and autonomy that occurred in the era The Circus Train is set, but I think many people still may not consider accessibility issues, so I wanted to offer insight through Lena's experiences.

Instead of concentrating on how we can include the “other,” too often in American Christianity the focus becomes on when, how, and finding the right justifications for excluding the “other.” When I truly begin to appreciate the inclusive nature of Jesus, my heart laments at all the exclusiveness I see and experience. I think of my female friends; women of wisdom, peace, discernment, and character who should be emulated by the rest of us. When I listen and learn from these women, I realize what an amazing leaders they would be in church—but many never will be leaders in that way because they are lacking one thing: male genitals. Wise and godly women have been excluded, not because of a lack of gifting, education, or ability, but because they were born with the wrong private parts. I also think of a man who attended my former church who has an intellectual disability. He was friendly, faithful, and could always be counted on for a good laugh because he had absolutely no filter— yelling out at least six times during each sermon. One time in church my daughter quietly leaned over to tell me she had to go to the bathroom—and, in true form so that everyone heard, he shouted out, “Hey! Pipe it down back there!” It was hilarious. However, our friend has been asked to leave several churches because of his “disruptiveness.” Instead of being loved and embraced for who he is, he has been repeatedly excluded from the people of God because of a disability. We find plenty of other reasons to exclude people. We exclude because people have been divorced, exclude them for not signing on to our 18-page statements of faith, exclude them because of their mode of baptism, exclude them because of their sexual orientation, exclude them for rejecting predestination…we have become a religious culture focused on exclusion of the “other,” instead of following the example of Jesus that focuses on finding ways for the radical inclusion of the “other.” Every day I drive by churches that proudly have “All Are Welcome” plastered across their signs; however, I rarely believe it—and I don’t think others believe it either. Far too often, instead of church being something that exists for the “other,” church becomes something that exists for the “like us” and the “willing to become like us.” And so, Christianity in America is dying.

Ministry to the disability community is often an afterthought because for years we have been building our churches backward.

The concept of inclusive education, discussed here in relation to students with disability, has emerged from a global trend aimed at ensuring the most marginalised and vulnerable students can access and participate in education (Carrington et al. 2012).

In the same way, we must expect that designations for various groups will turn over regularly: the linguist and psychologist Steven Pinker has perfectly titled this “the euphemism treadmill.” Long ago, crippled was thought a humane way to describe a person—it had the ring, roughly, that hindered would today. However, once it became associated with the kind of ridicule tragically common among members of our species, handicapped was thought to be a kinder term—less loaded, it sounded like a title rather than a slur. But while words change, people often don’t—naturally, after a while, handicapped seemed as smudged by realities as crippled had. Hence: disabled, which is now getting old, as in having taken on many of the same negative associations as crippled and handicapped. Of late, some prefer differently abled, which is fine in itself. Yet all should know that in roughly a generation’s time, even that term will carry the very associations it is designed to rise above, just as special needs now does. Note the effort now required to imagine how objective and inclusive even special needs was fashioned to be.

...love is bigger, huger, more complex, and more ultimate than petty f***ed-up desirability politics. We all deserve love. Love as an action verb. Love in full inclusion, in centrality, in not being forgotten. Being loved for our disabilities, our weirdness, not despite them.

The costs of not being integrated correctly (and I am using corrections here deliberately) are the veiled threats and often realities of institutionalization or returning to segregated congregate living (for those who were deinstitutionalized). There is always the shadow of the adverse consequences if one does not conform or comply—what I called elsewhere the institution yet to come.46 The specter of incarceration is inherent, as a promise or threat, in mechanisms of liberal inclusion.

I believed the challenges of inclusion must be dealt with on a moral level by the wider community.

A disability is not a choice for some of us. We have to live through it and acceptance is what really matters to make sure there is inclusion for us as others without a disability.

The subjects of this practice of inclusivity are first the poor and outcast. This is articulated both generally, in terms of Jesus’ ministry to the “crowd,” and specifically, in terms of episodes involving the disabled (2: 1ff.; 10: 45ff.), the ritually unclean (1: 45ff.; 5: 25ff.), the socially marginalized (2: 15ff.; 7: 24ff.); and women and children (10: 1ff.). This solidarity is perhaps best represented in the first episode of the passion narrative (above, 12, B, i), in which Jesus is pictured residing at the house of a leper, and there teaches that one woman's act of compassion outweighs all the pretensions to faithfulness of his own disciples (14: 3–9). Because it is often raised in political readings of the Gospel, the question must be addressed: Does Mark's story portray Jesus as the author of a “mass movement?” This might be suggested not only by his clear “preferential option” for the poor of Palestine, but the evident class bias in the narrative. There are those who would see some of Jesus’ “popular” actions, such as the wilderness feedings (above, 6, D, ii) or the procession on Jerusalem, as indicative of mass organizing. But we must keep in mind that Mark's discipleship narrative articulates a definite strategy of minority political vocation. That is, Jesus creates a community that is expected to embrace the messianic way regardless of how the masses respond to the “objective conditions for revolution.” In what sense, then, do we understand Jesus’ solidarity with the poor?

families impacted by autism are nearly 84 percent more likely to never attend religious services due to a felt lack of inclusion. Similar studies report that 46 percent of families impacted by disability have never been asked how their child and family could be included in the life of the church.

It is ironic that our need to feel safe in and among differing groups is itself a subtle form of violence against the groups that we often fear will be violent toward us.

Diversity, then, is more than desegregation; diversity is rooted in full integration.

The diversity discussion begins by asking questions about who’s missing from our communities, our classrooms, our boardrooms, and most importantly our churches. Next, we need to ask, where are they?

New educational options produced by market-driven policies offer (and promote) a selective and high-cost form of inclusion that sorts out those students who can fit within the narrow parameters of being a student informed by ableism and racism from those students who cannot. These latter students are further marginalized

Finding a fine British International school can be a challenge if you live in a place like Dubai. Known as a melting pot of cultures, Dubai offers many choices when it comes to curriculum preferences. Digging the web for valuable options can leave in you bind as well. But, to find the right and affordable British school in Dubai you must have a clear picture of the options available. To make your work easier, here is a list to help you pick the best British curriculum school in Dubai. The best British International schools in Dubai Listed below are the top picks of English Schools in Dubai: The Winchester School This English school in Dubai is the right example of high-quality education at affordable rates. The Winchester School is an ideal pick as it maintains the desired level of British curriculum standards and has a KHDA rating as ‘good’. Admission: This school is fully inclusive for kids aged 1-13 and it conducts no entrance exam for foundation level. However, for other phases, necessary entrance tests are taken according to the standard. Also, admissions here do not follow the concept of waiting lists, which can depend on the vacant seats and disability criteria. Fees: AED 12,996- AED 22,996 Curriculum: National Curriculum of England-EYFS(Early Years Foundation Stage), IGCSE, International A-Level, and International AS Level. Location: The Gardens, Jebel Ali Village, Jebel Ali Contact: +971 (0)4 8820444, principal_win@gemsedu.com Website: The Winchester School - Jebel Ali GEMS Wellington Internation School GEMS Wellington Internation School is yet another renowned institute titled the best British curriculum school in Dubai. It has set a record of holding this title for nine years straight which reveals its commendable standards. Admission: For entrance into this school, an online registration process must be completed. A non-refundable fee of AED 500 is applicable for registration. Students of all gender and all stages can enroll in any class from Preschool to 12th Grade. Fees: AED 43,050- AED 93,658 Curriculum: GCSE, IB, IGCSE, BTEC, and IB DP Location: Al South Area Contact: +971 (0)4 3073000, reception_wis@gemsedu.com Website: Outstanding British School in Dubai - GEMS Wellington International School Dubai British School Dubai British School is yet another prestigious institute that is also a member of the ‘Taaleem’ group. It is also one of the first English schools to open and get a KHDA rating of ‘Outstanding’. Thus, it can be easily relied on to provide the curriculum of guaranteed quality. Admission: Here, the application here can be initiated by filling up an online form. Next, the verification requires documents such as copies of UAE Residence Visa, Identification card, Medical Form, Educational Psychologist’s reports, Vaccination report, and TC. Also, students of all genders and ages between 3-18 can apply here. Fees: AED 46,096- AED 69,145 Curriculum: UK National Curriculum, BTEC, GCSE, A LEVEL Location: Behind Spinneys, Springs Town Centre, near Jumeirah Islands. Contact: +971 (0)4 3619361 Website: Dubai British School Emirates Hills | Taaleem School Final takeaways The above-listed schools are some of the best English schools in Dubai that you can find. Apart from these, you can also check King’s School Dubai, Dubai College School, Dubai English Speaking School, etc. These offer the best British curriculum school in Dubai and can be the right picks for you. So, go on and find the right school for your kid.

Every human being experiences limitation. Everyone’s body is limited: limited within a certain span of years, limited in having to live and work with other people who also have their desires and plans.

Finally, however, everything will be perfect again. We need to recognise that there are many forms of perfection. Perfection itself may be diverse. So we should not try to divide people into those who are perfect and those who have an impairment, because basically we are all the same.

It would be easy for us to think that Jesus took the distorted, abnormal people and normalised them, making them like everyone else. We should, rather, understand that the welcome Jesus extended to marginalised people, whether because of their occupation, their social status or their impairments, was an experience of healing. He healed people by helping them to escape the ritual taboos which marked them out as impure, by restoring them to the communities from which they had been banished, by eating and drinking with them when no one else would even touch them, and by restoring them to life in all its fullness. In many cases this healing process was accompanied by a cure, but it is the healing that we should emphasise, because it was being healed that saved them.

The court ruled that the ADA does in fact cover internet-based businesses. Deciding otherwise would lead to absurd results, like excluding services provided door-to-door or over the phone. Many companies provided services over the phone or door-to-door in 1990 when Congress passed the ADA, and Congress expected the statue to cover these "places." The court affirmed that Congress intended for the ADA to be a broad statute that evolves with technology. "Now that the Internet plays such a critical role in the personal and professional lives of Americans, excluding disabled persons from access to covered entities that use it as their principal means of reaching the public would defeat the purpose of this important civil rights legislation.

We are all Differently the Same.

LCB instructors have warned us about the hierarchy of sight, a system where society privileges those who have more sight. Blind people sometimes internalize the hierarchy of sight, with those who are totally blind deferring to the partially sighted, and the partially sighted deferring to the fully sighted. Such classifications divide the blind community and contribute to our oppression. The training program has been teaching us to recognize and resist the oppressive system. I don't want a blind world where the one-eyed man is automatically king.

I'm so glad I decided to step back and let Rosa find Tom on her own. She deserved to experience the thrill of discovery. Growing up as a blind person in a sighted world, there have been many instances where well-meaning sighted people denied me that thrill. We all need to get better at knowing when to help and when to back off and say, "Check every corner.

Here at LCB, I'm surrounded by people who understand that blindness is just limited eyesight. With the right tools and training, blind people can compete as equals with sighted peers. Places like LCB exist to help blind people gain the tools and training to succeed. Sadly, our views on blindness are a minority view outside of these walls.

While grief is a natural part of any special needs parent's journey, it may be processed somewhat differently for the family affected by a diagnosis with a wide range of outcomes, such as autism. Every child with or without a disability is unique. And no special-needs diagnosis affects any two children the same way.

As church leaders, our opinions on these topics aren't necessary to effectively love and support families who have children with disabilities. Encourage ministry team members and volunteers to remember the calling of the church: to enable families to develop a growing relationship with Jesus Christ.

In churches that care about special needs inclusion I have found that the single biggest determinant for a child's success is the strength of the relationship between the church and the child's parents. When church leaders and parents are in general agreement regarding a child's abilities and needs, problems tend to get solved with greater speed and ingenuity. But when parents view their child's special needs as nonexistent or insignificant, it creates extra work (and stress!) for everyone serving that child. This is the reason that it is sometimes easier for churches to successfully include children with complex needs that are obvious than it is for churches to successfully include high-functioning children whose disabilities are less obvious. When parents dismiss a child's legitimate need for even occasional assistance it makes it really hard for the child and the volunteers serving them to experience success.

We help all children learn healthy ways of relating when we create environments that reflect real life. In contrast, we re doing the child with disability as well as the typically developing peer a disservice if we aren't looking for opportunities to facilitate their interaction. And as Christians, I would add that the church is naturally set up to adopt an inclusion mindset, because we follow Jesus and know He modeled love and value for all children.

Showing participants in a positive light may be the first time some parents have had their child celebrated at all, let alone publicly. The church cannot underestimate the meaningful way this affects a family of a child with special needs. Using the public venue of a worship service will shape the entire church's view of disability, reminding them of God's value for everyone.

When abled people get ASL and ramps and fragrance-free lotion but haven’t built relationships with any disabled people, it just comes off like the charity model once again—Look at what we’re doing for you people! Aren’t you grateful? No one likes to be included as a favor. Inclusion without power or leadership is tokenism.

We can’t just push troubled students into classrooms where they won’t get the help they need and celebrate ourselves for being “inclusive.” The idea that all students with disabilities must be taught in the “least restrictive environment” ends up just becoming a way for school district bureaucrats to save money and congratulate themselves for being politically correct even as they do things to students that teachers know are wrong.

Ted helped pass major social and civil rights legislation. His efforts include the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (1975), the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Child Care Act (both passed in 1990), and the Ryan White AIDS Care Act of 1990; he increased funding for the National Institutes of Health and many more educational, housing, medical, and support-services programs. The ADA specifically prohibited discrimination on the basis of disability, forcing the inclusion of millions of people with disabilities in education, housing, employment, sports, and more. Hatch said that even though he and Kennedy differed much on policy and philosophy, he “never doubted for a minute [Ted’s] commitment to help the elderly, the ill, and those Americans who have been on the outside looking in for far too long.

In their ongoing war against evil capitalists, some vengeful Democrats have their eyes on banks, which they blame for making millions of loans that resulted in foreclosures and the 2008 financial crisis. Never mind that it was progressives who forced the government to make these loans to low-income borrowers with poor credit ratings through the Community Reinvestment Act and anti-discrimination laws. They promoted minority home ownership without regard to the owners’ ability to repay, and the result was catastrophic. But being a leftist means never having to say you’re sorry—just pass a misguided policy and blame everyone else when it predictably fails. Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters, emboldened by Democrats recapturing control of the House, issued a stern warning to bankers before the 2019 session began. “I have not forgotten” that “you foreclosed on our houses,” she said, and “had us sign on the line for junk and for mess that we could not afford. I’m going to do to you what you did to us.”62 How’s that for good governance—using her newfound power as incoming chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee to punish bank executives for the disaster she and her fellow Democrats caused? Waters is also targeting corporations for allegedly excluding minorities and women from executive positions. Forming a new subcommittee on diversity and inclusion, she immediately held a hearing to discuss the importance of examining the systematic exclusion of women, people of color, persons with disabilities, gays, veterans, and other disadvantaged groups.63 Why concentrate on policies to stimulate economic growth and improve people’s standards of living when you can employ identity politics to demonize your opponents?

Deep thanks to Susan Robertson for her understanding of the effects of trauma on the mind and heart, and for helping me translate the language of dreams. I am grateful to Saffron Burrows for sharing her experience and compassion as someone who has long campaigned for the rights and equality of disabled persons. Thank you also to Alison Balian for the wonderful conversations we had during the time I was writing this novel. My gratitude to Richard Rieser and Susie Burrows for working toward inclusion and against the bullying of disabled children and people of all ages. Richard’s generosity in talking to me about his own experiences helped me imagine a child’s long hospital stay and understand more about the challenges of moving forward. My mother had a brain tumor, and during her long illness I learned a lot about loving someone with a brain injury. The grace and humor she showed through her suffering has always inspired me. She was an artist, and she never gave up looking for beauty and meaning.

When children are brought into the world with an extra chromosome—with Down syndrome, that is—the first words parents often hear are, 'I’m sorry,' as if Down syndrome itself is something to be down about. It’s not. I want to say, 'Congratulations.' I want to say, 'What a beautiful gift you’ve brought into the world, one more being here for a reason, here with purpose.' I want to say, 'Oh, mama,' or 'Oh, dad—this new little being is going to lift you up.

But of course healing is time-consuming, difficult work. Whereas curing is hasty. No wonder prayerful perpetrators would rather demand a quick fix than investigate the way society needs healing when it comes to disability inclusion.

Everyone loves disabled people until we stop being inspirational and start asking for access needs to be met. Inertia is easier to handle than inclusivity.

Inclusion is an intention or policy of including people who might otherwise be excluded or marginalized, such as those who are disabled or non-neurotypical, or racial and sexual minorities. Inclusion, like diversity, is a step in a better direction, but often is problematic. Though well-intentioned, inclusion presumes there is a group that is in power that has the ability to “bring in” others with less power. This is often a white normative group, so this approach becomes white centering. It uplifts the white power-holders and power-brokers as the ones at the center of the narrative who get to pick and choose who they “include,” while they get rewarded for being “inclusive.” An analogy for why inclusion is problematic is when we say, “Invite us to the table.” Who owns the table? Who sets the rules, manner and way things happen at the table? Contrast this to a model where the disadvantaged people create, set and furnish their own table.

For all the gains the women’s movement has made over the past two centuries, we have done little to escape from a beauty culture that elevates white, able-bodied, cisgender, heterosexual, skinny bodies over and above everyone else. It’s hard to take these so-called advancements seriously when the overall culture remains the same. Photo spreads that include fat women, disabled women, or women wearing hijab ring hollow when they are treated as an attempt to meet a quota instead of an opportunity to change the status quo. The only thing worse than outright exclusion is condescending inclusion that values our presence as long as we agree that we won’t do too much to confront our oppression.

American Express employees were told in mandatory trainings to create an “identity map” by writing their “race, sexual orientation, body type, religion, disability status, age, gender identity, citizenship” in circles surrounding the words “Who am I?” 71 Verizon employees were taught about intersectionality, microaggressions, and institutional racism, and asked to write a reflection on questions like “What is my cultural identity?” with “race/ ethnicity, gender/ gender identity, religion, education, profession, sexual orientation” beneath. 72 CVS Health hourly employees were sent to a mandatory training where keynote speaker Ibram X. Kendi explained that “to be born in [The United States] is to literally have racist ideas rain on our head consistently and constantly … We're just walking through society completely soaked in racist ideas believing we're dry.” 73 Employees were asked to fill out a “Reflect on Privilege” checklist and told they should “commit to holding yourself and colleagues accountable to consistently celebrate diversity and take swift action against non-inclusive behaviors.” 74

Did it occur to this pastor that I am not calling him out, but calling him in to a more inclusive way, one that centers the least of these like Jesus? Did he consider that my engagement with his words isn't an act of cancellation or condemnation, but one of conviction? Did he stop to consider that perhaps I am not oversensitive, but he is under-aware of perspectives other than his own? Did he wonder whether I might not be the only one harmed by casually using disability as a metaphor?

exciting application is in physical therapy, where virtual reality combined with AI can create immersive, engaging therapeutic exercises. This approach can motivate patients, making therapy more enjoyable and effective. Moreover, AI-powered assistive technologies can significantly enhance the quality of life for those with physical or cognitive disabilities. For example, AI-enabled communication devices can help those with speech impairments express themselves, promoting their social inclusion and independence (“AI Enhancing Human Experience in Healthcare, ” 2021).