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This is an assignment for my disability studies course in my social work program. The purpose of the assignment is to identify different models of disability in the media by reviewing a news article. This one looks at the construction of the ‘supercrip’ (super cripple) who ‘overcomes his/her disability. Let me know what you think of this image – inspiring or unrealistic?

Learning Activity 3.1

The article I chose for this Learning Activity describes how a disabled man named Luke Anderson started an initiative called STOPGAP which works to improve the accessibility of Toronto’s built environment by providing ramps to local businesses for free. The primary model of disability employed in the article is the charity model, specifically the construction of a ‘supercrip’. The narrative describes how Luke Anderson was once a star athlete when a tragic accident left him with a spinal cord injury. Fortunately, “Luke Anderson showed that what he has inside is the tenacity to tackle problems of getting around the big city, for himself and others, when you are physically challenged” (Fatah, 2011). The author initially invites the reader’s pity, by, for example, noting how Anderson is now dependent on help to get dressed in the morning. As Withers (2012) describes, the construction of a supercrip is complete when pity is transformed into inspiration (p. 71). Fatah (2011) accomplishes this when she describes how Anderson has not only overcome the challenges of his own disability but is also working to help overcome “the environment of ordinary life itself”.

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Anderson’s disability is constructed in the article as a physical impairment resulting from an accident. His disability is understood to be a medical problem located in his individual body, which is consistent with the medical model of disability, rather than the result of societal oppression and marginalization, as in the social model of disability (Withers, 2012). Although the author focuses on urban accessibility, the solution is framed in terms of the charity model. The author describes the nonprofit STOPGAP’s ramp project in laudatory tones, with no mention of the government’s failure to implement the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disability Act, which is meant to make Toronto “barrier-free” for disabled people.

Luke Anderson is a white man with an excellent education. His relative privilege is not discussed in the context of the author’s description of him as a supercrip. No other structural factors are mentioned in the discussion of the accessibility of the built environment. I would have thought that a discussion of poverty and class would have been incorporated, as it is well-known that exclusion from workplaces and educational institutions because of their inaccessibility affects the economic security of people with disabilities. Overall I found this to be a light and superficial discussion of the issues.

The Ramp Project: tackling access for the disabled one storefront at a time

• It has become a mantra of our progressive, polite society to insist that appearance doesn’t matter, that it’s what’s inside that counts.
• But, fair or not, our physicality affects not only the way we live and what we are able to do but how others perceive us.
• Luke Anderson has been on the extreme ends of the physical spectrum, the ability one as well.
• As a child and young adult, he defined himself primarily as an athlete. If an activity involved a ball, a chase, a run, a ski, a dive, or a bike — Luke was interested, and he excelled.
• His physical strength and love of activity dominated so much of his life that upon graduating from university, he moved from the Toronto area to Rossland, B.C., too, as he puts it, “do nothing but mountain bike.”
• Luke Anderson, speaking at the Canadian Urban Institute forum in November 2011. (Marlena Rogowska)
• But one day in 2002, a biking accident resulted in a massive spinal cord injury that changed his whole life as he knew it.
• Anderson lost the ability to walk, as well as most of the control of his hands.
• He went from being a popular, all-around star athlete, and a pillar of strength, to a young man who needed help getting dressed in the morning and must use a wheelchair.
• It was challenging to say the least. But these are the times when it is what’s inside that counts.
• And Luke Anderson showed that what he has inside is the tenacity to tackle the problems of getting around the big city, for himself and others, when you are physically challenged.  

Just getting around

At a recent Canadian Urban Institute forum on accessibility and cities, Anderson gave a presentation to a group of about 100 people, who were charmed by his easy, surfer speak and intrigued by his message.

He talked about the obvious things involving the physically disabled, like wheelchair ramps and push-button door openers.

But he also opened our eyes to the things most of us don’t necessarily think about — like how difficult it can be to navigate a narrow apartment elevator when you are in a wheelchair.

Most elevators are big enough to allow a wheelchair to get in, but not to turn around. So if you are in a wheelchair by yourself, you don’t always know if you have reached your floor because your back is towards the numbers and the door.

Then there is the problem of getting out of an elevator. You either back out and risk running into someone or something because you can’t see clearly where you are going, or you try to maneuver a challenging three-point-turn within the confines of the elevator itself.

Redesigning the city

For the physically disabled, there are also issues with those everyday things that “seemingly” have nothing to do with accessibility — like air conditioning.

Former British PM Tony Blair places a temporary ramp in front of 10 Downing St., the official residence, for a visitor in 2005.

Anderson told his audience that because of his physical status and the fact that some of his muscles don’t get used enough, he has really bad circulation.

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So the extra-cool air conditioning in most of our big office buildings and retailers actually affects his health directly by slowing his circulation even more and causing numbness.

Used to having defined himself by what he could achieve against the toughest of physical environments, Anderson now has given himself a new challenge — to change the environment of ordinary life itself.

An engineer, with a job in a successful Toronto firm, Anderson is also the founder of  STOPGAP, a group of artists, design professionals, and architects that wants to transform Toronto’s built-up urban environment into “a place where everyone has access to what they desire through art, design, discourse and community action.” 

The first place he started in was his own neighborhood.

The Ramp Project

Despite all the progress, technology, and social will that is out there, Anderson still found it difficult, if not impossible, to access many of the local businesses, shops, restaurants, cafes, and bars nearby, primarily because most storefronts have a single step.

A brightly colored Ramp Project ramp in a Toronto neighborhood. (Stopgap)

That is one small step for someone who can walk. But it can be a giant obstacle for someone in a wheelchair.

So Anderson and STOPGAP began what they called The Ramp Project, a simple but effective plan to build and provide temporary, weatherproof, slip-resistant ramps to local businesses at no charge.

The materials and money are donated by sponsors and the labor is provided by volunteers. And because the ramps are viewed as “temporary,” they don’t have to fall within the strictures of the building code. 

STOPGAP hopes that their colorful ramps will become a staple throughout the city, and maybe even other Canadian cities until permanent accessibility solutions can be found.

The result has been a dozen or so brightly painted, cheerful and useful ramps along with a West-end neighborhood, to help not only people with physical disabilities but the elderly, parents with strollers, pregnant women, people carrying heavy packages. The list goes on.

That’s the thing about improving our built environment to make it more accessible. It doesn’t just help those with disabilities, it improves the standard of living for all of us

Research shows a new marker for the intensity of pain, as well as a new area for the target of pain medications – in the glial cells that surround nerves and provide structure and support.

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