You know these people. They leave notes on cars like this one or this one. They approach and confront frauds using those placards to just get better parking. They’re doing it to help actual disabled people get the parking spot they deserve, if it wasn’t for these frauds.

Small problem: NO ONE ASKED THEM TO FUCKING TAKE ON THIS ROLE

There was no alien descending upon them to give them this mission. There was probably no Council of Actually Disabled people gracing them with a secret badge. I’m betting good money that they probably don’t even know a person who’s disabled, never mind one who would ask them to police their parking spots.

See, as I pointed out in my previous post about disabilities, there are way too many people who are just ignorant as fuck about what disabilities are, so when they see someone with a placard leaving their car under their own power (no wheelchair, walker, cane), obviously they are a fraud. And frauds need to be called out. No calling the police or the manager of the store to report them or anything useful, just write a nasty little note and leave it on their car to discover. Because writing nasty notes has always worked to make a fraud go “oh dear, I’ve been found out. Time to return this placard.”

Like welfare and SSI, the rate of fakers taking advantage of disabled parking is low. Low low. Very low. Look it the fuck up if you don’t believe me. So the likelihood of the Parking Spot Police actually catching a fraud is next to fucking impossible. All they’re doing is spoiling a person’s day who is probably having it hard enough. All they’re doing is trying to make themselves feel better, puff themselves up at the expense of someone who has a disability they can’t see.

All they’re doing is showing off their ignorance in the guise of trying to help “real disabled people”.

While never knowing what is going on with the so-called fraud.

People have these strange expectations of the disabled, that we much perform our disability for them to prove it. They have to see us struggle, they have to see that walker, that wheelchair, that child who can’t hold their head up and drools a little. They need to see it so they can feel sorry for us, feel better than us. “But the grace of God go I” and all that shit. So when they see someone who doesn’t “look disabled”, it angers them. That person looks fine. That person looks like a “normal” person. Fraud! Faker! Time to write a note and wait until they come out and demand proof (like who the fuck are you?). How can you feel sorry and superior to this person if you can’t see their brokeness?

Are you their doctor? Were you the person who signed off on allowing them that placard? No? Then, if you must patrol the disabled parking spaces, learn about invisible disabilities like EDS and fibro and Crohn’s and RA and a host of others. Learn the difference between good days and bad days. Stop demanding that people perform their disability for your viewing pleasure. Learn some fucking empathy.

I’ll be taking your badge, pen, and scrap paper now. You’re off the force.