In the early days of the disability movement, we talked a lot about the lack of disability awareness. Back then there really was a lack of awareness. In the 1960s and ’70s — and for decades before that — people with disabilities were actively discouraged from participating fully in mainstream culture. In the eyes of the general public, we were oddities — scarcely seen, rarely heard, often stared at. At that time lack of familiarity could be cited as justification for lack of awareness. Ironically, to us the absence of it was as palpable as a flight of concrete steps.

The missing awareness took on a name: attitudinal barriers. Today, 50 years later, 25 years post-ADA, those barriers still exist. Not in everyone, and not everywhere, but they are still here. In the beginning, lack of awareness was the cause of attitudinal barriers, but today it is the opposite: Attitudinal barriers now perpetuate lack of awareness.

Let’s face it. Certain people simply refuse to acknowledge our abilities, our needs, our existence. They seem to be in a perpetual state of denial. They don’t want to consider hiring an employee who uses a wheelchair or someone who has cerebral palsy and talks with difficulty. Cripples are far down on the list of desirable employees, and their place on the list has nothing to do with their abilities or skill levels. This exclusionary attitude is the equivalent of entrenched racism. It digs in its heels and refuses to move — an extreme attitudinal barrier.

This is just my observation, but I think this kind of attitudinal barrier varies from person to person. Some people have a lot of it, some a medium amount, some have just a little, and some are completely free of it. What interests me most is how we acquire it and how we get rid of it. Is it inborn or learned? Can it be influenced positively by a single meaningful experience with a disabled individual? How do media representations of the disability experience affect it — and us?

I fear that like most biases, there is no simple explanation for what causes disability prejudice. Most likely it is learned, yet people may also be born with a predisposition for it. From our earliest days, we fear what is different, strange, foreign, unfamiliar. As we mature, we have to overcome a natural tendency to stay apart from people who speak a different language, who look and act differently, or who are obviously disabled. We spend a great deal of our lives learning how to accept people and situations that are unfamiliar and strange to us.

This is why the effect of media images and stories is so important to our future. We are increasingly immersed in media imagery. We are the Screen People. Each generation becomes more and more dependent on virtual images to form our impressions, conclusions and biases. We are besieged by digital images of Photoshopped perfection, skin-deep beauty.

But until we come face-to-face with our differences in the real, flesh-and-blood world, attitudinal barriers will continue to exist.

They will remain as always, hidden.