A simple moment at a café recently revealed something many people with disabilities experience far too often.
A person and their friend sat down to order lunch.
The waiter approached with a smile but directed every question, every comment, and every decision toward the friend instead of the person who actually needed the service.
“What will he be eating?”
“Does he need anything else?”
All said while the individual sat right there, fully able to respond, fully part of the moment yet completely overlooked.
Not out of cruelty.
Not out of malice.
But out of an unspoken habit in society: assuming someone with a disability must be spoken around, not to.
Situations like this happen everywhere: hospitals, restaurants, phone stores, and waiting rooms.
People with disabilities are often treated as observers rather than participants, as though their voices are optional or secondary.
But the truth is simple:
A disability does not remove someone from the conversation.
It does not make a person less capable of choosing a meal, asking a question, or making a decision about their own life.
Everyone deserves direct respect.
Everyone deserves to be acknowledged.
Everyone deserves to be included in the human interactions that make everyday life meaningful.
So here’s the reminder:
Speak to the person.
Look them in the eye.
Include them in the conversation, not as an afterthought, but as the centre of their own experience.
Support workers, community members, and staff in every setting, let’s be the ones who help shift this.
Dignity begins with simple connection.
A greeting.
A question asked directly.
A quiet recognition that people with disabilities belong not beside the conversation, but inside it.
Nothing about us without us.
By I Am Institute