Being Diverse

Having any kind of illness makes you diverse from healthy people. When people think and talk about diverse issues they usually leave disability and illness out of the picture. They focus on race, ethnics, class, and gender. I know 'they' is a broad term; by using 'they' I am referring to the majority of people. When I think of diversity and how it effects people; I think of everything that makes us unique. I only started acknowledging that having disability or illness is also a category of being diverse. Some categories are more relevant in the media and have greater obstacles to overcome in the world but they are all equally categories under diversity. I have only identified myself as a white woman, never an ill white woman, at least up until this summer. Whenever someone assumes I am healthy or want to hang out with me and have any ind of relationship with me, I will tell them I am a sick girl. I have to 'warn them' about what they are getting themselves into. It is only fair. I would want to know if someone was ill. I wouldn't reject them, obviously, I mean I started a Chronic Illness organization on my college campus last month. I never even thought of having a disability or illness as a diverse issue until this year. I have been hearing more and more diverse issues around the world. I am posting this because it is important for people to know that there is a forgotten minority out there and it is people with disabilities and chronic illness.