I was reading this news article today about a South African athlete who had both of his legs amputated below the knee as a child. He was charged with murder today in the shooting death of his girlfriend. Though I'm not familiar with him (I don't keep up with sports much in general), Oscar Pistorius was apparently something of a famous name in the Paralympics and the Olympics as the first person with prostheses to be allowed to compete in the Olympics. In reading this article, it strikes me that he is treated the same as any other athlete who gets caught in a crime-related news segment. There is very little discussion of his disability but a much stronger focus on his alleged personality quirks.
I clicked through a few more stories about Pistorius and found this one, in which he reports some of the pranks and bullying he experienced while at boarding school. I'm sure that his lack of legs caused him to stand out from his peers, thus making him a target. Catching his bed on fire seems a particularly cruel prank, and so does hiding his "day legs" on a regular basis. I get the sense that pranks and bullying were a regular part of boarding school, but I also get the sense that he received more than his fair share of abuse. I wonder more than a little if that adolescent abuse contributed to his reported personality difficulties. Different people respond different ways to such cruelty, but we are all affected.
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