Retro Rob: Political, Social Commentary on Disability

Looking back at 20 years of blogging would be incomplete without reviewing some of my work on disability. Of course, my best work from about my first decade of blogging is available in my first book, I’m Not Here to Inspire You: Essays on Disability from a Regular Guy Living with Cerebral Palsy. While the book includes essays focused on personal experience, my early posts also included disability related political and social commentary.

My profile pic
from 2015.

I tended to get into politics years ago, much more than I do now. After the election of Barack Obama, I was much more hopeful about our country than I am these days. In 2008, I wrote “A Week Later, Considering Obama’s Victory.” Here’s a snippet:

I was . . . excited to hear what Obama said early in his speech:

“If there is anyone out there who still . . . wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time . . . tonight is your answer. It’s the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches . . . because they believed that this time must be different, that their voices could be that difference. . . . It’s the answer spoken by young and old . . . disabled and not disabled . . .”

For me, the man has already put people with disabilities in a category of full-fledged human being more so than any president I’ve been aware of. He showed an awareness that we exist as full members of society with that one line more than Sarah Palin or John McCain ever did. They simply wanted to refer to people with disabilities as “special” or as if we lived an endless childhood. . . . But what did happen last week was that a lot of people, including those of us with disabilities, were given hope that among other things we may be judged on our abilities as opposed to the minority status we were born into.

Unfortunately, I spent a lot more time calling out politicians for their words about people with disabilities instead of praising them. Here’s part of “Ewing Adds to Slippery Slope Republicans Have Us On” from August 2016: 

Just days after Todd Akin coined the disturbing phrase “legitimate rape,” another Republican, Mark Ewing of Alaska, running for the state House, said*, “We are spending millions and millions of dollars educating children that have a hard time making their wheelchair move and, I’m sorry, but you’ve got to say, ‘no’ somewhere. We need to educate our children, but there are certain individuals that are just not going to benefit from an education.”

I’m sorry, too, Mark, but I’ve got to say, you’re an a--hole. . . .

People are already trying to come to Ewing’s rescue by explaining what he really meant. You know, those “let’s get real” geniuses. . . .

They want the rest of us to believe that Ewing was talking about kids who are so severely physically and mentally disabled that they can’t possibly benefit from an education. . . .

By the way, in my experience most kids who fit the above description are more than likely in school all day with a small group of children with similar disabilities in one classroom – if they get that much. To suggest it’s costing “millions and millions of dollars” in a local race is complete BS, and implies costs nationally that are just as phony. . . .

But, let’s do “get real.” Ewing wasn’t referring to kids with the most extreme disabilities. He referred to “children that have a hard time making their wheelchair move.”

At the risk of validating a suggestion I’ve already heard that I make these things about me, I’m not as adept as some at making my wheelchair move. I essentially use one arm and my legs to move my manual chair, and I even use a power chair to go places independently – like to college, for instance, before I graduated with honors.

No, I actually don’t think Ewing was referring to people with disabilities similar to me. But exactly where would he like to draw the line? Before I was mainstreamed, I went to school with a lot of kids with Muscular Dystrophy who could barely push a wheelchair. Would they have just been sh-t out of luck under Ewing? MD is a progressive disability. Most kids with MD, I believe, are essentially able-bodied at a very young age. Do we cut off their schooling after they need a wheelchair or wait until they can’t push a manual anymore? Maybe Ewing has a speed limit in mind? Slip under 5 m.p.h. and time’s up? 

Of course, people with disabilities can create our own problems at times. In a “Rob’s Rants on Disability” in 2016, I dove into “The Cure Question.”

“Would you take a magic pill to cure your disability?” In varying forms, the question occasionally arises in disability circles on social media. Years ago, I posed the question. . . . I added the caveat that taking the pill caused you to forget everyone you ever met specifically because of your disability — for instance, friends you made while participating in an adaptive program of some kind. Simply put, I didn’t think there would be much debate without it.

I used to think the question was a good way to get into a discussion of how we feel about our disabilities—how much weight we give them in our lives. Yet, I’ve heard and read enough people claim they would not take the hypothetical cure (caveat free) in an attempt to slap the label of disability advocate across their chest that I’ve done an about face on the question. It doesn’t work. I’m calling BS. Obviously, you’d take the pill. . . . Besides, it’s easy to turn down a cure that doesn’t exist.

For the record, hell yes, I’d take the pill. I’d hesitate on the caveat I proposed, but, ultimately, I would still take it. Why wouldn’t I want to be able to play a game of hoops in the driveway or go golfing with my brothers? Why wouldn’t I want every move I make, every word I speak, to be easier? . . . I understand . . . the real message being sent by the “I wouldn’t take a cure crowd” — there is no cure and society needs to deal with disability better. . . . But when the no-cure crowd speaks, people hear an extreme argument that is counter-intuitive. More importantly, it undermines the basic tenant of the “disability movement” (at least as I understand it) that we are equal to able-bodied people, we just happen to have limitations beyond our control. The minute the idea that we wouldn’t want to remove our limitations is introduced, none of that makes sense. . . . Carry the hypothetical out far enough and the no-cure respondents look silly. It’s a well-intended message being delivered terribly.

In a 2011 post, “Dirt Poor . . . or Else!” I took on the accepted model of “helping” people with disabilities:

By coincidence I began dealing with two individuals within a week or so of each other [as part of my employment search]. Each woman was able-bodied with (paying) careers in which they were supposed to strive to make the lives of people with disabilities better. Upon connecting with both individuals for different reasons, each inquired about my financial situation even though the subject was largely irrelevant to the meetings. . . .

Each woman seemed well intentioned when telling me about various sources of funding available to the disabled, which I qualified for as long as I was dirt poor. . . .

It wasn’t until dealing with the two women in a short timeframe that I was struck by how incredibly odd it was – or should have been – for them to bring up my finances. The suggestions to hide my assets should have been, and in reality, were, downright rude. I almost missed the strangeness based on many similar encounters, which I feel completely comfortable saying are not odd occurrences for other people with disabilities. . . .

They couldn’t even turn off the seemingly automated response of “helping” a person with a disability qualify for assistance in meetings that were about other subjects. The real message became clear soon enough – as a person with a disability, my professional aspirations were irrelevant. I was supposed to be someone in need of financial assistance, which could be provided as long as I essentially had nothing. It’s a concept that practically ensures people with disabilities will remain financially powerless. . . . We should no more tolerate the presumption that the American Dream is out of our grasp than the attitude that teaches us not to even join the search for it.

*Quote was from old article at http://foolocracy.com/2012/08/alaska-politician-suggests-that-it-is-time-to-stop-educating-handicapped-children/; the main quote that I site is still available at https://ballotpedia.org/Mark_Ewing.