ALL I WANT FOR INDEPENDENCE DAY

IS FREEDOM FROM ABLEISM

Ableism is vile, repugnant and a threat to people with disabilities.

It’s as insidious as racism

If you don’t know what it is, it’s basically nasty bigotry – but based on a person using a wheelchair instead of racism discriminating based on the color of skin.

I learned of a government department head emailing other department heads to warn that the "Americans with Disabilities Act office is on the warpath and picking on noncompliance."

The ADA protects basic civil/human rights.

Standing up for them is NOT on the warpath.

This mean-spirited and hateful alert sender serves hundreds of thousands of constituents.

Would he whine and push back on protecting civil rights based on race or gender?

Probably not.

So why are the human rights of people with disabilities constantly under attack?

AUTHOR WIL HAYGOOD IS A NATIONAL TREASURE

COLORIZATION, HIS LATEST BOOK, IS A MUST-READ

Wil Haygood is one of America’s finest writers.

With each book, his storytelling grows more confident. His way with words that much more enticing and entertaining.

In addition to being an outstanding newspaper journalist with the Boston Globe and Washington Post, Haygood has produced several biographies of African Americans.

Colorization – One Hundred Years of Black Films in a White World, is not a book solely focused on racism. But racism in the film industry resonates all through the book. 

And spoiler alert: institutional and obscene racism didn’t end during World War II, during the great 1960s Civil Rights Movement, not with the rise of Spike Lee and frustrating – not well into the 21st century. 

Read my full review on Medium at:

https://stevewright-1964.medium.com/author-wil-haygood-is-a-national-treasure-colorization-his-latest-book-is-a-must-read-abefc83de686

THE FACE OF TURKEY

BURSA

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.

Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.

--Mark Twain

TRUMP SUPPORTER DECODER

In case you have a friend that you thought was sane and decent – but doggedly sticks to supporting Donald Trump…

You know, the people who cling to pathetic excuses like “we need a businessman to shake things up” or “we need to turn back the clock and make America what it was.”

Well, we’ve been up all night coming up with a decoder for what they really mean:

THEY SAY
“Hillary is a liar.”

THEY MEAN
“Women should be barefoot and pregnant, how dare they be leaders.”

THEY SAY
“The presidency is a disaster.”

THEY MEAN
“I couldn’t stand the thought of a black man in the White House and I can’t wait for it to end.”

THEY SAY
“Trump speaks his mind and we need that.”

THEY MEAN
“I would like to go back to the ugly period in America when Hispanics were thought of as janitors...I long for the days when you could beat up a person just because they had a same sex partner.”

THEY SAY
“Trump is defeating political correctness, thank goodness.”

THEY MEAN
“I wish we could go back to calling folks with developmental disabilities “retards,” hearing impaired folks with speech difficulties “dummies” and those with mobility impairments “pathetic cripples.” And while we’re at it, I wish I could deny those half humans access to jobs, housing, marriage, child birth and all other human rights.”

So just in case you were ready to give the benefit of doubt to your Trump-defending business associate, neighbor, colleague...this is what they really feel in their black hearts.

They had a year to process hundreds of examples of bullying, hate, bigotry and pure evil.

They can claim they are simply voting for the “Republican nominee” because in their world, it’s the GOP way or no way.

But by this point, they have to be full of BS. If they defend trump, they despise diversity.

So to recap, if you are black, gay, disabled, female, just plain different…or if you love, care for or support the rights of anyone in these groups…you are a stinking piece of crap in the eyes of a shameless Trump supporter.

They would allow your daughter to be sexually assaulted, so long as the monster committing the assault is white and rich and powerful and famous. Their leader said so himself. And they have no problem with this.

They think you should be mocked, even if you lost a brave son in the war, if you faithfully follow a religion based on peace and love.

They might use slick words. Speak in code. But bigotry and hatred thrives in their heart of darkness.

They might be polite in public, but rest assured, if you do not fit their Aryan Nation view of what America should be, they are mocking you and wishing the worst on you as you turn away from the conversation and walk back to the family and community you love and respect.

You have been warned.

These views are my own (though I can't image they are not shared by every decent, diverse, humane person I know)

DISABILITIES, BAD ATTITUDES...

...AND MENTAL FLIGHTS OF FANCY

By Heidi Johnson-Wright/The EarthBound Tomboy

I try to live my life by a few simple maxims:

“Strive for balance in all things.”

“Never eat more than you can lift.”

“The only disability in life is a bad attitude.”

It took me years to see the wisdom in that last one. I mean, severe pain and joint damage of rheumatoid arthritis – my particular challenge – are pretty darn dramatic. Having shoulders, hips and knees severed from me and new ones bolted in have proven to be a bit of a distraction.

But I think I’ve finally seen the light and rehabilitated my attitude.

Now when I go to a new restaurant and all of the tables are high with bar stools, I focus on my attitude. Even though I spend the meal staring into my companions’ knees, I mentally try to levitate. That doesn’t actually allow me to socialize with my friends or even hear much of the conversation, but it cleans out all of the “badness” in my mind.

My rehabilitation also comes in handy when I’m traveling and need to catch a taxi. Whether I attempt a street hail or try to schedule a ride by phone, getting a wheelchair-accessible taxi is next to impossible. But that’s OK. Although my trip then requires numerous buses and is four times longer than a cab ride, I’m zipping along through traffic – only in my mind, of course.

If I stay in a hotel or at a relative’s home and there’s no wheelchair-accessible roll-in shower, no problem. As I take my sponge bath at the sink, I imagine myself under a luxurious rain-style shower head. Ah, the lovely flowing water…

You see, I’ve come to realize that being marginalized from society happens not because humankind continues to build restaurants, malls, theaters, offices, transportation and housing with physical barriers. Oh, no. The problem lies within the mind of each and every person with a disability. Fix the attitude and you’ve fixed the problem.

Excuse me -- must run. I need to adjust my attitude up a flight of stairs now.

http://earthboundtomboy.blogspot.com/ 

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY

SIMPLE THOUGHTS ON WHAT THE FOURTH OF JULY MEANS TO ME

In November, we can take to the polls and endorse bigotry, bullying, anger and hatred.

It is within our rights to elect a leader of the free world who firmly believes:

Whites outrank blacks, Hispanics and all other non-whites

Able bodied people rule over disabled folks.

Straights are more valued than gays -- as are traditional families over non traditional households.

Men are tenfold superior to women.

Religious freedom no longer is a guaranteed right in the U.S. Constitution, thus Christians have the right to abuse Muslims and all other non-Christians.

I reject all of these insane, anti-American views.

I find them every bit as dangerous as Nazism, Fascism and the KKK.

Yet we have a 50-50 chance of having a president who not only holds these beliefs dear, he angrily flaunts his dangerous hurtful words to anyone who will listen -- via dozens of media platforms.

I was in Orlando this week.

I visited the aftermath of a person ruled by anger, hate, bigotry, violence.

Though I am not a formally religious man, I pray we do not desecrate the White House with a man ten thousandfold more dangerous than the Orlando shooter.

Happy Independence Day to all.

ON INTERNET MEMES...

...AND OTHER UNQUESTIONED ACTS OF BIGOTRY 

by Heidi Johnson-Wright

EarthBound Tomboy

Perhaps by now you’ve seen the Internet meme making the rounds of a drawing of a guy in a wheelchair. He’s looking back over his shoulder, a sad, pathetic expression on his face. Surrounding him are the following words: “If you're (sic) spouse became disabled for the rest of there (sic) lives, would you still be with them???”

Yes, dear reader, it is taking all of the strength I can muster to resist calling the meme’s creator a moron incapable of knowing the difference between "you're" and "your" and “their” and “there,” or even knowing how to use a software grammar check function. And, yes, I am irritated with the use of the pronoun “them,” as if the question poses the hypothetical situation that this is a pluralist marriage that includes multiple partners who “became disabled” all at once. Perhaps it’s implying the crash of a plane on which the multiple marital partners were flying, or they all contracted a rare tropical disease while on safari together.

I also believe it is quite likely that anyone who uses three question marks in a row probably dots every letter “i” with a tiny heart. For that reason alone, the meme’s creator should be placed a stockade in the village square and bombarded with rotten produce.

 

Nevertheless, it’s not the meme’s grammatical atrocities that have inspired me to write this post. It is the sheer butt-puckering bigotry of the question being posed. Why is it an acceptable question worthy of an answer?

 

Would it be appropriate to ask: “If your spouse sent in DNA to 23 and Me and learned he/she had African ancestry, would you divorce him/her?” Or “If your spouse told you his/her grandparents emigrated from Uruguay, would you make him/her relocate permanently to the guest bedroom?” Or perhaps “If your spouse converted to Judaism, would you toss him/her off a cliff?”

 I’d like to think that most decent human beings would be appalled by questions about whether a spouse remains worthy of love even if he/she is of a different race, religion or country of national origin. Yet when it comes to disability, many people – such as those that actually answered the question on Facebook – feel it’s fine to weigh the option of giving walking papers to the person they married.

I’m not sure whether to be pissed off or profoundly sad that a quarter century after the passage of the ADA – the most comprehensive civil rights statute ever enacted to protect disabled folks from discrimination – societal attitudes remain in the Dark Ages. We continue to deny that illnesses and health issues are inextricably part of the human condition. We still cling to hierarchies, to notions of “us versus them,” to assigning value to other human beings based on their ability to meet an often unattainable ideal.

 Perhaps I should buy a more comfortable mattress for the guest bedroom.

http://earthboundtomboy.blogspot.com/2016/01/on-internet-memes-and-other.html