I'm not an advocate for disability issues. Human issues are what interest me. You can't possibly speak for a diverse group of people. I don't know what it's like to be an arm amputee, or have even one flesh-and-bone leg, or to have cerebral palsy.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the idea that individual experiences and issues vary greatly among people, making it impossible to fully represent or advocate for all disabilities equally.
Aimee Mullins expresses her belief that instead of focusing solely on disability issues, one should acknowledge the broader spectrum of human experiences and challenges. She highlights the limitations of understanding others' struggles, as each person's circumstances are unique, emphasizing a more inclusive approach to human concerns rather than narrow advocacy based on category or label.
In practice
This quote could be used during a panel discussion on disability and inclusion to highlight the importance of understanding individual experiences.
I've had journalists asking me, 'What do we call you - is it handicapped, are you disabled, physically challenged?' I said, 'Well hopefully you could just call me Aimee. But if you have to describe it, I'm a bilateral below-the-knee amputee.'
An athlete experiences the emotions of pain and elation through triumph and defeat, through teamwork and individuality, as nothing more than a human being...that is the true glory of sport.
I think that everyone has something about themselves that they feel is their weakness... their 'disability.' And I'm certain we all have one, because I think of a disability as being anything which undermines our belief and confidence in our own abilities.
I have learned not to overlook the advantages of being me. From when I was a softball player, and I held the stolen bases record. I would slide into second with my prostheses, and the girl on the base could either step aside or meet two wooden sticks.
In sports, I refused to do any interviews that were just going to become human-interest stories. Don't turn me into a tragic heroine.
I'm not an advocate for disability issues. Human issues are what interest me.
How long will it take the citizens of the United States, one wonders, to recognize that the house their country bombed in Iraq is the same one they were living in until it was foreclosed?
Mark you, if you give up spirituality, leaving it aside to go after the materializing civilization of the West, the result will be that in three generations you will be an extinct race; because the backbone of the nation will be broken, the foundation upon which the national edifice has been built will be undermined, and the result will be annihilation all round.
The time has come to realise that an interpretation of the universe—even a positivist one—remains unsatisfying unless it covers the interior as well as the exterior of things; mind as well as matter. The true physics is that which will, one day, achieve the inclusion of man in his wholeness in a coherent picture of the world.
To venture causes anxiety, but not to venture is to lose one's self.... And to venture in the highest is precisely to be conscious of one's self.
People live in sleep, do everything in sleep, and do not know they are asleep.
It does not follow that the meaning must be given from above; that life and suffering must come neatly labeled; that nothing is worth while if the world is not governed by a purpose.
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