This past Monday marked the 14th annual International Day for Tolerance, a day set aside by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization to encourage respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms for all, without distinction as to race, gender, sexual orientation, religion or disability.
We as citizens of the United States commonly hold for granted the basic liberties we possess, however, it takes but a look at our own backyards to divulge the many bridges toward tolerance we have yet to cross as a society.
We are still a nation of bigotry, a nation of sexism and xenophobia.
And yet there is still one more form of inequality that ofttimes goes overlooked, even by those with the most earnest of intent.
I speak of the hundreds of thousands of Americans with physical and mental disabilities nationwide.
Much akin to the religious beliefs and sexual preferences of others, it is not uncommon for students with physical conditions to find themselves treated as outsiders by their own community, defined by their handicap rather than character.
It is hard for many of us to identify with individuals who have learned to see without their eyes, or who have spent their entire lives confined to wheelchairs.
There is much these people could teach us, many ways they could enrich our lives and share our dreams, and yet we do not approach.
Society taught us not to stare, not to ask — to segregate rather than explore our differences.
But it need not be this way.
Aimee Mullins wants to change the way people view their disabilities, and the disabilities of those around them.
Born without fibulae in both legs, doctors amputated both her legs below the knee on her first birthday. She later attended Georgetown University and, outfitted with cutting-edge carbon fiber legs, went on to set the world record for the 100-meter and 200-meter dash, and the long jump at the 1996 Atlanta Paralympic Games.
Aimee has since set her sights on acting and modeling, and has become a face of reverence and innovation as a spokesperson for surgical prosthetics.
“[Prosthetic surgery] is no longer a conversation about overcoming deficiency,” she said at a TED speech earlier this year. “It is a conversation about potential.”
Aimee has spent the past week as guest-editor for tech-blogging giant Gizmodo in an editorial series titled “This Cyborg Life.” The series explores “where technology can and will take the human body” through such theoretical avenues as the “Bionic Body Shop” and the soon-to-be-reality production of “Meat Band-Aids,” factory-grown living tissue.
It’s all fascinating stuff and definitely worth checking out, but what do these discussions imply for Generation-Y and beyond?
Perhaps that we are on the edge of an epoch, the beginnings of an age where children are raised to believe in change, to believe in the power of utility through customization.
Future generations will be raised on movies similar to “Robocop” and “Terminator,” as well as video games such as “World of Warcraft” and “Bioshock,” where players may explore the prospect of self-augmentation as tools of empowerment, rather than abnormality.
“A prosthetic limb doesn’t represent the need to replace loss anymore,” Mullins said. “It can stand a symbol that the wearer has the power to create whatever it is that they want to create in that space.”
Today’s geeks may very well be tomorrow’s shepherds of social tolerance, and I for one commend them for paving the way.
The world around us is changing. As Martha Stewart would say, it’s a good thing.
Send Hal your augmented reality at hscohen@asu.edu.
