Complacency or condescension?

It is often difficult for me to decide which of the two is being dished out to me whenever I take that decisive step to either challenge an entity or God forbid the system.  Sometimes it is not difficult.

That is; whenever my intuition tells me that I am being placated which means complacency or whenever I am being treated to interesting comments which means condescension.

I think that I have now lived long enough to know the difference and what do I really mean?  Well, here goes.

There are those companies and organizations that truly believe that they have done enough and that they do not really need to do any more.  They truly believe that their efforts have gone far enough and now it is time for them to rest on their laurels.  Then there are those companies that use their high priced lawyers to try and persuade, intimidate, and bully you into either thinking that they don’t need to do any more, that they have done enough, that they have done what is necessary and that they are right and you are not.

The former is what I call complacency and the latter is what I call condescension.  For trust me when I tell you that there are entities out there that believe that they can get away with either of these two strategies and it only makes things worse for complainants whenever the ones that they are counting on to help, support, and protect them and their rights are nothing but paper tigers with plastic teeth!

I am afraid that sadly enough this is the picture that Canadians with disabilities face today and as complainants they will continue to face off against companies and organizations that are being allowed to get away with either complacency or condescension or a combination of both.  For as long as the various levels of Government continue to dance to the tunes of industry and entities with deep pockets and high priced lawyers, complainants with a disability will continue to be subjected to systems and processes that are unfairly eschewed against them.

We need to bare in mind that for the most part, lawyers are only out to win on behalf of their clients and as long as their clients are willing to pay high legal fees this picture is not going to change.  Can it change?

This is the million dollar question that I personally continue to ask myself every day and I am definitely not alone.  We could either continue to put up with it or we  can decide that enough is enough and come together to do something about it.  It’s our choice.

Just my two cents for today.

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