The caption of a Nov. 7 photograph (MetroChicago) of a girl using a wheelchair described her as “wheelchair-bound.” No one bound the young woman to her wheelchair, which she uses to achieve as much mobility as possible in a generally inaccessible world. I hope you will instruct your caption writers to replace the phrase “wheelchair-bound” with “wheelchair user.”
The Chicago area is not an easy one to negotiate for people who use wheelchairs for mobility, and insult is frequently added to injury. Last week, I observed two Cook County deputy sheriffs in uniform parking at a local grocery store in a space designated for people with disabilities. No one other than myself seemed to find this outrageous.
The attitude of people like these deputy sheriffs, along with insurmountable architectural barriers in many of Chicago’s most attractive areas of local interest, make life even more difficult than it would otherwise be for those of us with physical disabilities.
