The only person who has been present in my life with any consistency is me. I may not understand my illness and I may not understand how it affects my behaviour but I am the person who has access to a history you may not know. That history may help in my recovery, so let me share in the decisions regarding how it is best cared for and encourage me to share in my treatment. We sometimes cannot reason as well as others but we are seldom stupid. There are no more unintelligent people under psychiatric care than running loose in the general population. This might be a reason to respect me. It could also be a reason to include me in my treatment. Many decisions would benefit from client input. We could uncover fears at least so we can not only keep our units safe but make the client feel safe. Some have been abused or traumatized, don’t add to it or assume it is minor.
Brett Batten
Author. Advocate. Educator
Brett Batten 
I think you need to be both a race and a face. I used to ascribe to the whole “I don’t see colour” but then a a guest social work professor in my second year made an interesting point: To say that you don’t see colour is too remove the person’s identity and experiences that comes with being from that group. We need to acknowledge that black individuals experience racism because of their colour, that LGBT individuals experience homophobia because of their sexual orientation etc. We should be seeing colour, seeing disability, seeing the inequalities because they do dictate how we as members of those minority groups interact with society and ourselves.
Well said. I guess some of my experience comes from having a girlfriend who is Chinese and two nieces who were adopted from China. I recognize they are different and have experiences that only they could have because of their race. I have also seen them smile and cry and I can recognize that we are the same. Many of their experiences are simply human experiences. We all put our pants on one leg at a time.