The Welcome Table
The Welcome Table
In this chapter, Alison Piepmeier describes how eating at a table can figuratively and literally show the barriers people with disability face in trying to connect with a larger community. She interviews adults with Down syndrome and parents of children with Down syndrome to learn how some people are included in, or excluded from, social gatherings like family meals, children’s parties, school activities, and organizational meetings. Alison recalls disability rights activist Harriet McBryde Johnson’s fight for accommodation and Johnson’s interaction with a professor whose views on euthanasia are criticized as being ableist. Being invited to sit at a table—be it a dinner party among friends or an organization’s luncheon—means accepting a person’s value as fully human. Alison points out that even some well-intentioned groups forget the importance of inclusion. She quotes disability advocacy leader Nancy Brown’s observation “We segregate those we don’t value.”
Keywords: adults with Down syndrome, disability advocacy, social gatherings, inclusion, accommodation, Harriet McBryde Johnson, Nancy Brown
NYU Press Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
