...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.
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