The curb cut (下斜路缘). It’s a convenience that most of us rarely, if ever, notice. Yet, without it, daily life might be a lot harder—in more ways than one. Pushing a baby stroller onto the curb, skateboarding onto a sidewalk or taking a full grocery cart from the sidewalk to your car—all these tasks are easier because of the curb cut.
But it was created with a different purpose in mind.
It’s hard to imagine today, but back in the 1970s, most sidewalks in the United States ended with a sharp drop-off. That was a big deal for people in wheelchairs because there were no ramps (斜坡) to help them move along city blocks without assistance. According to one disability rights leader, a six-inch curb “might as well have been Mount Everest”. So, activists from Berkeley, California, who also needed wheelchairs, organized a campaign to create tiny ramps at intersections to help people dependent on wheels move up and down curbs independently.
I think about the “curb cut effect” a lot when working on issues around health equity (公平). The first time I even heard about the curb cut was in a 2017 Stanford Social Innovation Review piece by PolicyLink CEO Angela Blackwell. Blackwell rightly noted that many people see equity “as a zero-sum game.” Basically, that there is a “prejudiced societal suspicion that intentionally supporting one group hurts another.” What the curb cut effect shows though, Blackwell said, is that “when society creates the circumstances that allow those who have been left behind to participate and contribute fully, everyone wins.”
There are multiple examples of this principle at work. For example, investing in policies that create more living-wage jobs or increase the availability of affordable housing certainly benefits people in communities that have limited options. But, the action also empowers those people with opportunities for better health and the means to become contributing members of society—and that benefits everyone. Even the football huddle (围成一团以秘密商讨) was initially created to help deaf football players at Gallaudet College keep their game plans secret from opponents who could have read their sign language. Today, it’s used by every team to shield the opponent from learning about game-winning strategies.
So, next time you cross the street, or roll your suitcase through a crosswalk or ride your bike directly onto a sidewalk—think about how much the curb cut, that change in design that broke down walls of exclusion for one group of people at a disadvantage, has helped not just that group, but all of us.
【小题1】By “might as well have been Mount Everest” (paragraph 3), the disability rights leader implies that a six-inch curb may become ________.| A．as famous as the world’s highest mountain |
| B．an almost impassable barrier |
| C．a connection between people |
| D．a most unforgettable matter |
| A．it’s fair to give the disadvantaged more help than others |
| B．it’s impossible to have everyone be treated equally |
| C．it’s necessary to go all out to help the disabled |
| D．it’s not worthwhile to promote health equity |
| A．Spaceflight designs are applied to life on earth. |
| B．Four great inventions of China spread to the west. |
| C．Christopher Columbus discovered the new world. |
| D．Classic literature got translated into many languages. |
| A．Everyday items are originally invented for people with disabilities. |
| B．Everyone in a society should pursue what is in his or her interest. |
| C．A disability rights leader changed the life of his fellow men. |
| D．Caring for disadvantaged groups may finally benefit all. |
