Hi,my name is Joseph Scamardo and I am an assistant professor of philosophy
and associate Director of the Institute in Public Affairs
at San Diego State University
I specialized in philosophy of disability and bioethics.
I also identify as disabled, I have a spinal cord injury as well as a rare kind of dwarfism
So you get two for the price of one with me
So, my first memory of discrimination was, well, it's hard to say.
I have lots of memories as far as the experience of stigma
or bigotry, mostly around my dwarfism
and so, you know I have lots of early memories
around that with children staring and laughing and that sort of thing
from a very young age.
Then as far as sort of a more systematic discrimination that sort of excluded me from something
that I wanted to do,
I had a pretty good experience as a child,
mostly because my parents really did a lot to make sure that I was included
I can remember being in boy scouts and cub scouts when I was a kid
and my father, really doing a lot with me
to ensure that the inculsion of my disability