Gordon C. Cardona's Posts

Top: A photo of a younger me in my school uniform taken for the class album. In this second and concluding part of this series, I continue to talk about how awarding a prize for kindness affected me and my friendship. I argue that such prizes go against the value of inclusion and a misunderstanding of what friendship and a wrong idea of what charity and compassion actually require of us. And instead of promoting equality and friendship, such awards risk to reinforce the idea that inequality is inevitable and that friendship with a less valued member of society is always a personal sacrifice and an unbalanced relationship based on power and status. I fear that other children today may go through what I went through if society and the organisers of this prize ane similar initiatives ep not consider the implications their misguided good intentions they might have. For, they mustn't forget that friendships between disabled and non-disabled children, for all intents and purposes, just like a