Do I really understand?

I've been reading "The Disabled God:Toward a Liberator Theology of Disability", by Nancy L. Eiesland. She is a Sociologist/Theologian who herself is physically disabled. I read the following quote last night, and felt challenged for the previous post statement of 'the realization that we are all disabled'.

By spiritualizing disability to argue that all Christians are disabled by sin and therefore, "dis-enabled,"...obscures the concrete reality of the exclusion of people with disabilities from participation in the Christian community. While all people do experience sin, not all people face architectural segregation and discrimination on the basis of disability (Eisland Disabled God 85)

I practically understand her criticism. It is true that those with disabilities have their experiences trivialized all the time. We've all had - (or perhaps even stated ourselves) someone say to us at some point of pain and difficulty, "I understand" - and we know that they don't. It becomes a trivialization of our experience. The sentiment while generally honourable in the attempt to bring comfort -- or thinking that we are helpful by associating closely with the event - but in reality we have not. We've simply minimized the difficult experience of another. Sometimes the most honest answer of "I have not experienced and do not fully understand how you feel, but I want to be here for you" is the best.

I think that is what Eisland is pointing to. Yet, my point - and I need to think this through in light of the above quote, was not to minimize the exclusion and discrimination experiences of those with disabilities - but to lessen the gap between artificial gap between "us" and "them". We place people in categories - or assign labels. We objectify people and make them 'other' from us. We do it in our language and in our behaviour. It's hard not to. Think of all the 'labels' changes that have happened in our field that seek to identify those with developmental disabilities. It can be hard to keep up. Yet a name change alone does not make for behavioural changes. How do we engage, and not create 'other', and yet not trivialize segregation and discrimination experiences of those we seek to support. Any thoughts?