In a society where value is often placed on looks versus what someone can do, many people are underestimated.

Talent and skill are overlooked in favor of a pretty face.

When society counts people out based on things beyond the person’s control, it does a disservice to society and that person.

You look at someone in a wheelchair and think they have less to offer than someone who isn’t wheelchair bound, and it is harmful.

Coming from someone with a vocal disability that has been overlooked, underestimated, and deemed useless acrroding to societal standards, I can personally tell you how hurtful it feels.

To know you are doing all you can, just to be overlooked, is awful.

To feel that nothing you do will ever be enough, just because you have a disability is depressing.

When society underestimates someone with a disability, someone older in age, a woman, or somone of a certain race, it makes society unequal.

The purpose of laws like Equal Employment Oppurtunity Act, The Civil Rights Act, Title 9, and the Americans with Disabilities Act, everyone legally has the right to work, go to school, and do anything else they choose.

But society does not seem to see that. Maybe there are people who think these laws are pointless. That “everyone should pull themselves up by the bootstraps”, well where are these bootstraps??

Who asked to be disabled, who asked to be a woman, who asked to be Black, Latino, Native American, or any other minority race? No one asked for the circumstances in their life.

Whether someone is old, young, disabled, able bodied,white, black, a woman, a man, etc. Everyone should have a fair shot. Everyone should be counted and considered.

Don’t underestimate anyone based on things beyond their control. As the saying goes, you should not judge a book by it’s cover.