The Dark Side

Hailee Gerwitz

Professor Shultz

ENWR 100- 25

16 December 2013

From The Outside Looking In

Everyone in the world has his or her own unique specialty that makes them different from everyone else in this world. Even though we are all different, we should always treat everyone equally. No matter who we are in the world, we are all human. In the essay, “Growing up Asian with a Disability,” by Grace Tsao, and Temple Grandin’s essay, “Autism and Visual Thought,” two people with a disability talk about how they overcome their disability, and show how they can be a contributor member of society. Unfortunately, as seen in these accounts, some people don’t view someone with a disability as a regular person. People with disabilities are used to others treating them as if they don’t exist, and not giving them a chance to show who they really are, which we all should have a chance to do.

Tsao talks about how her disability made her judge other Asian people and how she was judged, because of her disability. Tsao was raised as a traditional Asian family. Her parents would not let her go out to certain functions that her brother could attend, because her parents didn’t want other people to think they did something wrong in the past or present. They were a superstitious family, just like other Asian families. They believed that,“Any disability, whether from birth or as a result from an accident, would fall under the category of ‘punishment’,”(8). This gave Tsao a negative interpretation on Asians, and she started to judge them. But she was judging them for the wrong reasons, and she started thinking that they may judge her the same way, and was,“is almost surprised that someone is Asian American can look beyond my disability and accept me as their friend”(9-10). She learned to stop judging others in her culture and became friends with a variety of people instead of just “white” people. By the end, her parents became more open minded, because of their daughter’s disability....