beige person

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masterding

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Quote from Aimee Mullins' speech "the opportunity of adversity".Aimee Mullins was born without fibular bones, and had both of her legs amputated below the knee when she was an infant. She learned to walk on prosthetics, then to run -- competing at the national and international level as a champion sprinter, and setting world records at the 1996 Paralympics in Atlanta.Here's the quote:
"By not treating the wholeness of a person, by not acknowledging their potency, we are creating another ill on top of whatever natural struggle they might have.We are effectively grading someone's worth to our community. So we need to see through the pathology and into the range of human capability.
...
I think the greatest adversity that we've created for ourselves is this idea of normalcy. Now, who's normal? There's no normal. There's common, there's typical. There's no normal, and would you want to meet that poor, beige person if they existed?
....
See, all you really need is one person to show you the epiphany of your own power, and you're off. "


What does the text in blue mean?
Thanks.
 

Tdol

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1 We are assessing someone's value to our community.
2 Beige is a dull colour, so it is used here to suggest that the theoretical normal person would be dull.
3 You're on your path to progress, find yourself, etc.
 

masterding

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1. I'm sorry, I'm still not so clear what "assess value to community " means, what is the speaker trying to say?
 

Tdol

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Aimee Mullins achieved something extraordinary, but before she did that, she might have been judged more negatively because we fail to see the real value of people.
 

masterding

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Maybe I'm being too slow,but what I really don't understand is the part " to our community", I never see " assess" or "grade " followed by the preposition "to". Can "to" be replaced by other prepositions?
 

Tdol

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The preposition goes with worth, not the verb. XX is worth a lot to the community.
 
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