Breaking the Cycle: Ableism and the phenomenon of lowered expectations | Cheri Blauwet | TEDxBoston
so i was born in raw raised on a small family farm in rural iowa related to our last speaker as well imagine corn fields stretched as far as the eye can see and chasing fly balls at baseball games on warm summer nights this is a rural community where everybody knew everyone and people generally support each other i started walking when i was about 11 months old and i was very quickly toddling around and getting into trouble one fateful day in august of 1981 i toddled away from my mom and into the driveway and my life changed in an incident when i was run over by a tractor and i was rushed to the hospital for emergent surgery and clearly i survived but in that moment my life was redefined by a complete spinal cord injury meaning that i would never walk again and now remember that this was 1981 still nine years before the americans with disabilities act would be passed as i grew into childhood i learned how to play and cause trouble like every other kid this is a pic of myself my two cousins the farm cat i'm using a homemade scooter that one of our neighbors made that helped me to get around even when i was too young to use a wheelchair and like most people with disabilities i became very resilient and very creative and i figured out how to make things work no matter what it took yet as i got into elementary school and particularly middle school i had in many ways already been typecast and profiled by those around me people viewed me through the lens of the ableist narrative that was very dominant at the time where the common themes are typically fragility and pity i recall midway through elementary school that when all the kids in my class were asked what they wanted to be when they grow up someone told me that i should do something i could be good at and encouraged me to get a desk job one was challenging me no one was really pushing me to think big to work hard or to fight for my dreams and simply put i was on this very well paved path towards mediocrity this story may resonate with many of you out there because who because of your personal characteristics have also been subject to what has been framed as this phenomenon of lowered expectations those who are subject to this phenomenon are typically those who are also experiencing stigma and discrimination due to the isms that we're all familiar with sexism racism ageism classism and in my case ableism lowered expectations are insidious and it takes the right intervention at the right time to break the cycle and to set our lives on a different path and for me what broke the cycle was sports throughout all those years growing up in the rural midwest i never identified as an athlete but better put i was never given the opportunity to identify as an athlete and of course you can't be what you can't see the pivotal turning point for me happened in eighth grade when our high school track coach invited me to come out for the track team this coach j roos rosaboom was extraordinary he saw a wheelchair a wheelchair racing event at the state track meet and he came back to school and he tapped me on the shoulder and he said you should come out for the track team to which i promptly replied no thanks i don't play sports not my thing but with enough coaxing and honestly just to get him off my back i went out to the team the following season and honestly i initially had no fun at all we would go to regional meets where they would have a 100 and 400 meter wheelchair race on the program and i would race down the home stretch by myself with everybody in the stands doing this nice clap and saying oh that's so nice but at the end of the season i was ready to quit however i had another critical turning point when i went to the state track beat and i met several other teenage girls and i saw that they had racing chairs and i heard them crack self-deprecating wheelchair jokes and i knew that i had found my people i started to go to practices and with time started to actually acquire skill in the sport but at the same time i was experiencing a true evolution in my self-identity and with it i started to think differently about my capabilities and my potential fast forward to 2004 when i had the honor of winning the women's wheelchair division of the boston marathon and as i pushed down [Music] as i pushed down the final stretch of boylston street with the crowds roaring i knew that my life was about to change sport taught me that not only can i win the boston marathon and win a gold medal for team usa at the paralympics i can also be the first wheelchair user to attend stanford medical school and to complete my residency in harvard it taught me that i can use my voice to change the game for other people who also may be suffering from this phenomenon of lowered expectations simply put it changed everything and this shifted perspective has led to opportunities to be a change agent and to help others think differently about their potential in a number of areas let me share with you some examples my background as a paralympic athlete has led to many opportunities to stay involved in the movement and proudly i now serve as a member of the board of directors for united states olympic and paralympic committee when i joined the board in 2017 i was the only person in the room with a background in paralympic sport and simply put i really felt like the weight of the world was on my shoulders and i felt this tremendous responsibility to ensure that our nation's paralympic athletes weren't seen as an afterthought shortly into my term it became clear that there was this really big elephant in the room because although the usopc governed both olympic and paralympic sport in this country paralympic athletes earned less than 20 percent of what a pure olympic athlete would earn for winning a gold medal for their country so what message did this send essentially it was another example of the phenomenon of lowered expectations due to inequity and under investment we were telling our paralympic athletes that we were okay with mediocrity that we didn't really care about their achievements so we started to advocate and to elevate this issue and to engage the right people both in public forums but also in those really important hallway conversations and simply put we started to change hearts and minds and when it came time for a board vote although i was only the only paralympian in the room the board chose unanimously to support parity in metal payments in medicine i now practice sports medicine at spaulding rehab hospital and mass general brigham and i'm an associate professor at harvard medical school not a bad place to land for a farm kid from iowa and due to this phenomenon of lowered expectations you'll likely not be surprised that people with disabilities are very underrepresented in medicine only a few years ago i was in line at the hospital cafeteria and a very well intentioned man looked at me kindly and stated you look like you're doing really well when are you going to be discharged on other occasions i've rolled into a patient's room for a clinic visit and i've encountered some interesting reactions one man stated you've got to be kidding me and another confessed well doc i feel bad complaining about this to you and clearly your problems are bigger than mine now these moments are telling because they demonstrate the ongoing stigma that exists in health care particularly for people who may not look like a doctor that prototypical doctor and in these moments i realized that when people see me they equate my wheelchair with illness rather than empowerment and it's an insidious version of lowered expectations and i'm not alone however over the past several years people with disabilities in medicine have started to mobilize and to come together and to change that narrative and slowly but surely having a disability is being recognized as a desirable characteristic for medical professionals and this is logical because people with disabilities are smart resourceful and resilient all qualities that we want to put want to see in our doctors but additionally we bring a powerful and i would say unparalleled sense of empathy and connection to patients as a parent although i'm proud of my accomplishments in sports and medicine i'm most proud of my role as a parent to two young children stella and spencer and the wife to my husband eli with sports and medicine parenting is a career you all know that where people with atypical bodies are not expected to succeed and it's easy to see that when people see my kids they inherently lower their expectations just a few days ago i took out my five-year-old to the grocery store literally this happened as we were getting back into the car the car that i had driven to the grocery store a stranger stopped to ask can i help you now i totally appreciate people's generosity and the small acts of human kindness absolutely but that said whenever this happens which is often i question the profiling that leads people to make this seemingly benign offer do they really think i would have brought my daughter to the grocery store if i couldn't get back in the car or do they ask anyone else in the parking lot if they need help probably not what's incredible to me however is the way that being a parent with a physical disability is clearly shifting the framework by which my own children and their friends see the world my daughter likes borrowing my wheelchair to tool around the house she treats it like any other wheeled device like her bike or her scooter rather than associating my wheelchair with pity or fragility to her it's just another cool way to get from point a to point b so ultimately through all these experiences i've learned one simple thing that when we lower our expectations of people particularly people with disabilities or any other diverse or intersectional identity we are missing out we're missing out on our full human potential as individuals but also as a society so the next time you see a little sherry wheeling down the hallways of your school don't tell her do what you can be good at instead tell her aim for the stars girl because you never know what she can achieve thank you