Editorial: Handicapped spots should be priority for parking department

"Chivalries like this may seem harmless or even kind but they interfere with equal rights and equal treatment. Don't forget you are aggressing on strangers in a presumptuous, interfering way. If you want to help, than kindly just mind your own business. It is simply not acceptable to patronize people and interfere with their equal educational and employment rights in a self-respecting University town. The offensive label "handicapped" is a hold-over from the 1950s. Discrimination means treating people differently. Per civil rights law it's illegal to regard or treat people as having a disability--it creates an uneven playing field-- especially harassing when we are talking about approaching complete strangers with this officious attitude. It is morally questionable as well as being a violation of civil rights law to speak for other people and to regard or treat them as belonging to a particular protected class." The Denver remix by DJ Pantheon.

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• Posted by pantheon on November 20, 2009 at 12:49 a.m.
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Editorial: Handicapped spots should be priority for parking department

The parking on campus for students and faculty with disabilities is free or at a much lower rate than the rest of campus. Get your facts right! I've had experience with trying to park and the JayLift and KUOnWheels are much better alternatives to parking "next" to any building.In most cases you get dropped off right in front of the building, much closer than parking.

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• Posted by GO4J on November 20, 2009 at 9:51 a.m.
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Editorial: Handicapped spots should be priority for parking department

The insultingly patronizing lower-midwestern idea that life is so pitifully tough on those who are perceived to have physical limitations needs to go. What makes life tough and unfair on everyone around here is Jayhawks who don't understand civil rights law and who have been raised to be bigots to the point they approach strangers on campus and in town intrusively and discriminatorily with the mindless and offensive question " Need help?" People do value their legally protected rights to privacy and personal boundaries. Stop judging and treating strangers according to narrow stereotypes, please. This offensive attitude terrorizes people and creates a hostile campus environment. Most people don't need that much help and just want to be treated like everyone else. Please stop aggressively interfering with the equal educational and workplace rights of qualified people.

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• Posted by Denver on November 20, 2009 at 8:38 p.m.
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Editorial: Handicapped spots should be priority for parking department

Accessibility and removal of physical barriers are of course reasonably important, but backward social attitudes represent a more invincible barrier to equal rights-- especially at places like KU where people seemingly are caught in a complete backwater of time. Prejudice, bigotry and cultural imperialism abound at KU, and people are incredibly aggressive here about how they get up in others' faces with these attitudes. Treating people differently equals discrimination, and I would think ambushing and conducting guerilla warfare against strangers counts under this heading. If your opening comment to someone whom you perceive to have a physical limitation references this issue you are likely a completely politically incorrect social moron. Pity rots, and so do all local sidewalk terrorists and people on a mission who go around trying to extort gratitude from complete strangers by reacting to them in terms of offensive one-dimensional stereotypes.

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• Posted by Denver on November 20, 2009 at 9:01 p.m.
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Editorial: Handicapped spots should be priority for parking department

@GO4J: While it is currently free to use the marked accessible parking spaces, if those are all full (as is often the case) and someone still needs parking near a building using an accessible parking permit, the person must buy a standard KU parking permit. The concerning issue is that the Parking Department was considering making accessible parking spaces some of the most expensive parking on campus. While it may be easier for some people to use JayLift or KU on Wheels, not all users of accessible parking qualify for JayLift and not all KU on Wheels buses are accessible. For some people, parking near a building may be the best option, if not the only option, they have available to them. In addition, accessible parking is required by the ADA, and KU must be in compliance with federal regulations.

For the rest of you who thing you ought to be protected against people asking if you need help, I have one thing to say. Learn to say "no, thank you." Federal anti-discrimination laws only protect you from being discriminated against by businesses, employers and state/local government entities, not by private citizens. Anyone can come up to you and say whatever hateful or offensive thing they like, and you have absolutely no recourse under anti-discrimination laws.

In addition, it has never been illegal to regard someone with a disability differently. The government can only control how certain entities act towards protected classes, they can't make anyone have different opinions or thoughts. Statements like some of these above simply serve to show the able-bodied public that people with disabilities are angry, bitter people who should be avoided. Education promotes inclusion, hatefulness promotes exclusion. Let me ask you, if you are so concerned with how you are treated as a person with a disability, what have you done to educate others except screaming at them on campus when someone holds the door open or ranting on newspaper message boards? Remember, you speak only for yourself, not for the disability community as a whole.

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• Posted by habeogladium on November 20, 2009 at 10:40 p.m.
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Editorial: Handicapped spots should be priority for parking department

Please register the distinction between regarding and treating someone as disabled--legally actionable harassment-- and being a person with a disability.It's illegal to regard and treat people as if they disabled;therefore, it's simply unacceptable to approach people of the street or quad with the unexamined assumption they have a disability and/or need help. People at KU and in Lawrence unacceptably TERRORIZE strangers by aggressively approaching them and often by molesting their physical person or commandeering their belongings. There exist privacy laws that getting up in people's faces violate. Please respect the personal boundaries of strangers.You have me pegged unfairly if you think I'm so impatient and outspoken with anyone who merely opens a door. Often don't like it and may say so if someone gets too unctuous, but don't yell. Many people at KU are offensively HARASSING in the name of being helpful by making unfair assumptions based on stereotypes. When people require accomodations(which would not apply to me, but soon may if Jayhawks keep terrorizing me in the name of "help") this process is supposed to handled confidentially and on a need-to know basis only.A co-dependent idea of "help" is terribly unhealthy--especially when it comes to imposing it on complete strangers.

I don't mean to speak for the disability community--obviously don't even consider myself a part of it--it offends me that you make the assumption I'm disabled(Being regarded and treated that way is something else and illegal)--this shows poor thinking and braindead ethics. I can speak to the inappropriateness of approaching strangers off the street with an "intellectually challenged" braindead"I'm o.k. you need help" attitude" It's simply socially unacceptable to get so intimately up in the personal business of strangers.

Remember identity politics are about SELF-IDENTIFICATION-- not about the mob rule of overly aggressive cultural imperialists/hicks who interfere with others' equal rights and equal treatment. To recap: please follow the privacy laws with strangers, and remember it is illegal to regard someone and treat them as if they are disabled and/or require accomodations. The privacy laws apply to anyone who doesn't opt out, so don't assume a complete stranger wishes to--this is incredibly hurtful and causes people unfair difficulties. Of course a patronizing attitude of being helpful empowers some--but also unfairly disables others. It creates an unequal relationship and involves an abuse of power.Assuming people need help tends to be a self-fullfilling prophecy--and it's terribly unjust to impose this travesty on strangers. If you act discriminatorily, you deserve to be yelled at and put in your place. The problem is many self-annointed "helpers" then go a the attack--threatening to beat you up--as soon as you question their position. Remember, protesting discrimination is a legally protected activity.

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• Posted by Denver on November 23, 2009 at 10:35 a.m.
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Editorial: Handicapped spots should be priority for parking department

I grant that you have a valid point about the distinction between what federal anti-harassment laws cover and the behavior of private people toward those they perceive as having physical limitations(particularly egregious, ignorant, and intrusive in places like Lawrence and Columbia). There do exist fripping hate-crime laws and anti-harassment laws though, and if you are being harassed at work or at school and your employer/school administration knows this they are legally responsible for stopping this. In more advanced areas of the country overly-aggressive people who have the offensive gall to terrorize strangers on a beseiged-class basis is not such a problem--you are more honored for your spirit, brains and character and not so crippled and pigeon-holed by stereotypes. Personally, I'd rather deal with thugs and muggers. These stinking bigots who approach people off the streets are so full of blind ego they will vindictively blame you and retaliate against you-- if you refuse to submit to their harassment they'll likely disingenuously accuse you of being the harassing one for protesting. If someone harasses you, and then on this basis and as a result of being treated like this you lose your job or educational rights it does fall under the anti-discrimination law. KU staff (even those intrusive bus drivers) are definitely responsible for following privacy laws too.

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• Posted by Denver on November 23, 2009 at 11:42 a.m.
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Editorial: Handicapped spots should be priority for parking department

"harass" I do not think that word means what you think it means. http://elultimoquecierrelapuerta.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/inigo1.jpg

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• Posted by pantheon on November 23, 2009 at 11:47 a.m.
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Editorial: Handicapped spots should be priority for parking department

Please treat everyone the same. Respect the equal rights of all and don't terrorize and offend strangers by approaching them in public on the basis of unacceptable assumptions born of unthinking bigotry and stereotypes. Most people just do not need that much "help,"( All thinking and experienced people realize the amount of harm that gets done in the world by incompetent and poorly trained self-appointed "helpers) and most people these days do not welcome strangers violating their personal boundaries and space or getting so intimately up in their personal business. If you want to help maybe become a volunteer, but don't continue to make KU such a hostile place for diversity by interfering with the safety and dignity of complete strangers. The only legitimate way to help is to stand up for equal rights and access, and approaching strangers and treating them with the equivalent of racist actions and words hardly fits the bill.

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• Posted by equalityjones on November 28, 2009 at 3:17 p.m.
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Editorial: Handicapped spots should be priority for parking department

Equal access privacy is all and the law. You are kissing to kill if you one of those hillybilly types who pushily violates the personal boundaries of complete strangers with your mindless and empty offers of help--you could be a psychotic killer or a perverted molester for all the trust you instill in others.

You people obviously need a lot of help with your brains and thus should not nose up in the business of strangers on the basis of bigotry and stereotypes. Back off; stand back-- equal access respect and privacy is all. Please treat everyone the same and with respect and dignity. Please be careful and considerate and tenative in the way you approach people you don't know. Don't just charge ahead with no impulse control and ill-considered words that would offend the most sturdy of pachyderms.

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• Posted by equalityjones on November 28, 2009 at 10:06 p.m.
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Editorial: Handicapped spots should be priority for parking department

Did you forget your password, or what? What's with the new login?

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• Posted by pantheon on November 29, 2009 at 5:28 p.m.
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Editorial: Handicapped spots should be priority for parking department

If your definition of being helpful involves approaching strangers who are simply exhibiting their normal characteristics and not in an emergency situation you should examine the cultural position that empowers you to think this way and consider what advantages may be in it for you to treat and regard other people with such limited and limiting attitudes. Are you a gloryhound who buys into cheap, sentimental notions of pity? Well, pity is a tainted, pitiable,skin-deep emotion that only bigots glorify.

Read up on your Code of Student Rights and Responsibilities, kids. "Unwanted contact" is not allowed at KU; neither is harassment or discriminatory treatment(Treating people differently or demeaningly on the basis of superficial appearances would fit into this category). Targeting people to bother on the basis of stereotypes is just completely offensive and shows zero political awareness or respect for others' humanity and dignity. In this day and age aggressively accosting complete strangers for bigoted reasons counts as an act of terrorism. Most people would much rather carry their own groceries or book bags than be knifed or molested, and obviously no one enjoys being made the butt of ignorance, especially when a complete stranger is laying this bs on them.

Too bad this ignorant part of the country has ensconced at the heart of its culture such a warped, self-serving, and intellectually challenged notion of "helpfulness" that allows mainstream hick-types to feel glowingly wonderful about themselves, deluding themselves others appreciate such a formulaic idea of what it means to be a moral person and to contribute to society. These self-annointed "helpers" act like they are God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost all rounded up into one capable ball-- but actually they are barbaric champions of inequality and whitebutt cultural imperialism who obviously lay way more store in brawn than brains. They have just hurt and damaged me so badly, and no one deserves to be blamed for defending themselves against discrimination. Check your law books! Protesting discrimination is a protected activity.

When dealing with the wounds of discrimination silence can be a consoling bandaid, and civil-rights law supports the reasonable idea that you should not get up into strangers' business and behave as if information they hold private is an open book. Who can function effectively in society when their most intimate personal boundaries are constantly being invaded? If someone's body is being offensively made the subject at a supposed institution of higher learning it's a dead giveaway that this backward place prides itself on blind prejudice, and thinking people will likely find it a hostile place for enlightened intelligence and compassion. According to Buddhist teaching, ignorance in the human mind is the true evil.

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• Posted by equalityjones on December 8, 2009 at 8:50 p.m.
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