Just Wanted to See a Movie
My daughters and I were on our local news nation and have a civil rights law suit and Cinemark for the following reason:
I have had to overcome the public’s reaction to me all of my life. People either presume I am mentally disabled, cannot hear and yell when they talk to me, or think they can catch my disability. My daughters get so angry when we go to a store or anywhere and people ask them whatever question they want to ask me. My girls just tell them that I am the mother so ask me. I overlook a lot and try to teach my daughters that people like that are just not taught any different and we just have to deal with it. But, the incident that we had at our local theatre was uncalled for.
Like many people, my daughters are die-hard Twilight fans. We bought our tickets about a week before the opening. We were there all day. We went to see Precious at 1:30 then waited for New Moon at 4:40. Around 4:00 the line was already almost to the doors. There was no way that I could stand in that line for that long. I do walk but my daughter holds my hand to help with my balance. I cannot stand in a line for any length of time because my back and joints will get too sore, so I sat on the bench to wait for the movie. I knew when they opened the ropes, I was going to get trampled because I had seen an earlier group go in and the people (mostly the kids) were running to get a seat. If I waited until the end, I would have to try to walk in between the seats and fall over people. I needed to go in before everyone.
I asked the boy that was taking tickets if I could go in right before they opened the rope, and I explained why. He was great and said just go over to the entrance and tell the floor manager. Well, we did that and he gets an offensive attitude and says, “No!” and that it is not fair to these people that have been waiting here. My daughter gets angry and says, “Is it fair that my mother is handicapped and cannot stand in a line?!” He actually says that is not his fault and I can sit on the bench and wait until people go through. We try to explain to him that waiting will not work because I need to get into a seat before everyone gets in. He is just being very rude at this point and kind of pushing us toward the bench. My daughter is in tears trying to get her point across and I am trying to calm them down but he is just looking over me like I do not exist. So, I tell my daughters, lets just go sit down. My oldest wants to leave by this point because she is so upset. There is no way I am leaving when we waited for this movie for six months.
We sat by a lady that had witnessed the whole thing and she was appalled. She left and walked over to the crowd and started talking to them. She came back and told us that she asked the crowd if they would care if my daughters and I went first. All of them said they absolutely would not care and they would tell that manager when they saw him. It took a stranger to do what the manager was not willing to do. You would think that would be the end of it and solved it, wrong! We were still on the bench and the boy taking tickets came over and asked if we got it taken care of it. We explained what the manager did and he was shocked. He went over to the entrance because the manager was there, so we followed. The boy asked him why he would not let us do that and he starts his whole speech about it not being fair again. Now, the crowd gets involved and basically starts yelling at the manager to just let us go and asking what his problem is.
Well, he does a 360 degree turn-around and tells all of us that he was going to let us go; and he had told us that the whole time; and he was coming to get us to take us in the movies! Now, my daughter goes off. She is in tears again, yelling at him saying that he never said that, he was never going to let us go, and said we would have to wait until everyone went in and he humiliated us. By then, I was done with it, I said I am going, arrest me, throw me out, whatever he wants to do to me, I am getting a seat! So, we started walking down the hall and I really thought he was going to stop me but some of the crown was saying things like, “go girl” and he would have been crazy to stop me at that point. We waited until the cleaning crew came out, then went in. I barely got to the steps and kids came running past us to get a seat. I stumbled and almost fell up the stairs but my daughter kept me up. We were so stressed and upset by then that it was almost hard to enjoy the movie.
All my daughter and I wanted to do was to enjoy a movie. All we got was humiliation and a feeling that it was my fault for having a disability which prevented me from being able to stand in a line. I understand that there are rules but what about compassion? It is not like it was a law, it was a movie for goodness sakes. He is in the customer service field, he should have weighed my need over him wanting to follow his “rule”, when no one minded. If you ask anyone that knows me, they would tell you that I just deal. If someone treats me a certain way, I let it go but I cannot let this one go. I saw how it affected my daughters and I have to show them that it is not okay to treat someone in my position like that.
There are so many diverse people in the world of different color, sizes, and disabilities and there are discrimination laws in place for these people. But, at what point do you use these laws? What discrimination is to one person, isn’t to another person. Many disabled people do not stand up to the public. In my opinion, this is because we are conditioned from the beginning that we are different and people do see us that way, and we have to learn to deal with it. We try to blend in and not stand out so we let things go. Someone needs to take a stand and let people know that disabled people may do things differently but are the same inside. We have the same hopes and dreams as everyone else. Society can help disabled people by treating them like a real person without any preconceived notions.
If you enjoyed this, buy me a cup of coffee. Thanks so much!Filed Under AdvocacyComments
One Response to “Just Wanted to See a Movie”
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FINALLY, It is about time you stand up for yourself…I am so very proud to call you friend, Li.
I can understand how your daughters felt, cause I too have felt that way the many times I have faught for you when we were young. There needs to be more people like you…that will show all the managers or what have yous not to mess with people just because they are different…Anyway, love you much, you can make a difference; just you remember that..lol.