News 5’s Final Sit-down with Disability Advocate Kenrick Theus

Last week, we had the pleasure of chatting with Kenrick Theus about the newly passed Disability Bill. He opened up about the discrimination that people with disabilities face and emphasized the importance of teaching children to see things differently.

 

Kenrick Theus, Deceased

“It is prevalent. I have never felt it, simply because I don’t go out that often and when I do it is very specific. I am going to a meeting, I am going to the bank, I am going to see a lawyer. I don’t go out like some people go out every day. They will suffer it more. And, a lot of it sometimes I hear people talking about catching a cab in a wheelchair, the taxis don’t want to pick you up and if they do pick you up they want to charge more. They say because I have to come out and help you and want to charge more. That is discrimination. Then you will find where people will tend to look down on you as person in a wheelchair, because for some strange reason people imagine that because you are in a wheelchair you are not as sharp, you don’t have the wit, you don’t have the education. I don’t know where that is coming from, because you could be in a wheelchair sitting down with a master’s degree. That does not make me something lesser than, it is simply because you believe that. So, we have to teach our children to respect that and to know, to make them aware of it.”