Assumptions
Published in the Republican 2019
Carrie Writes
Making Assumptions
Carrie Barrepski
Through Twitter, allegations were made towards Southwest Airlines, where a gate agent accused an individual with special needs of faking their disability. A cheerleader who has cerebral palsy, who is part of an Illinois cheerleading squad called the Reign Athletes Dynasty tried to board an airplane with an early boarding pass.
When it came time to check in, the man checking tickets mocked the girl, saying, “HAHA I can do that with my hand too and say I’m disabled.” When the cheerleader’s sister heard the comments and laughter, she immediately demanded to speak to whoever was in charge. Another agent asked the sister if she herself were disabled and claimed they were both faking a disability. The only response they got from the person in charge was a free drink coupon.
According to Fox News, Southwest Airlines stated that “preboarding is available to our customers who have a specific seating need to accommodate their disability. . . . If a customer with a disability simply needs a little extra time to board, we will permit the customer to board before family boarding, between the ‘A’ and ‘B’ groups. We are following up with the employees working this particular flight to emphasize our policies and procedures and underscore our expectations to offer all customers the legendary customer service we’re known for – and especially customers with disabilities.”
It is incidents like this that show that there is a lot of stereotyping happening in our society. There are still many misconceptions floating around that cause many problems for people with disabilities. More importantly, it needs to be remembered that not all disabilities are visible and assumptions should not be made about anyone.