Other Resources

Another six months of Monica, have mercy; I don't care if it harelips the Governor. - Molly Ivins, Time.com

Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity - Erving Goffman

There's case law out there regarding people commenting and gesturing against race and religion. But ... there's nothing out there regarding disabilities. - Assistant City Prosecutor Jennifer Fitsimmons

A disability discrimination attorney suggested the Independence Chick blog as a resource for the readers of The Politics of Cleft Palate. As an example of the value of publications written from first-hand knowledge of disability in the United States today, see her post, Your Christmas Bonus: A List of Thought-Provoking Books from the Independence Zone! which includes:

Why I Burned my Book and Other Essays on Disability (nonfiction, author Paul Longmore, adults only)–Paul Longmore gives readers food for thought in this collection of disability-related essays on topics such as why the ADA was not the benchmark movement some thought it was, disability stereotypes in film and other media, and the criminally low expectations of people with disabilities in society.

and

Make Them Go Away: Clint Eastwood, Christopher Reeve, and the Case Against Disability Rights (nonfiction, author Mary Johnson, adults only)–A landmark book exploring the truth behind the ADA, the case against disability rights, the case for disability rights, and the fact that our society, though “enlightened” in many other ways, consistently still fails to see disability as deserving of real civil rights legislation and attitudes.

The Introduction to The Politics of Cleft Palate, last June, agreed with Independence Chick on the ADA:

The Google search site:ada.gov civil rights turns up references referring to the act as a civil rights act (and you will also find "affirmative action" on ada.gov). The ADA is no such thing. The ADA has done good work concerning accommodations for the disabled in the workplace and in public transit; but neither it, nor any other element of our decent society has done anything about defamatory remarks (again, note the passage from a national magazine which begins this post), or about the inescapable climate of discrimination.

Independence Chick also discusses an issue explored in this weblog, the inability "to see disability as deserving of real civil rights legislation and attitudes."

Our treatment began with the "case law" note near the top of this post, which refers to the following news item:

An Ohio man faces one month of jail time for teasing and taunting a 10-year-old girl with cerebral palsy after a video of the incident went viral.

On Nov. 27, Judge John A. Poulos of the Canton Municipal Court sentenced 43-year-old William Bailey to 29 days in jail. ...

William Bailey "was dragging his leg and patting his arm across his chest to pick his son Joseph up," said [Tricia] Knight. "I asked him to please stop doing this. 'My daughter can see you.' He then told his son to walk like the R-word."

We continued, in Courts and the Civil Rights of the Disabled, suggesting that the ad hoc mechanism of "protected class" left out the disabled:

Above, we saw that William Bailey publicly humiliated a defenseless little girl, because she has cerebral palsy. He felt safe in doing so, with reason: This sort of thing happens all the time. After all, the nation's premiere news magazine defamed another group of disabled people, in print, and the nation has tacitly accepted this. It is as if, for the disabled, the civil rights revolution never happened.

How can this be? After all, justice–in this case, the freedom from marginalization and disenfranchisement–is, by definition, universal. As Martin Luther King said, "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

Perhaps the reason is that our civil rights revolution apparently was not implemented, as King thought it would be, as justice–which is universal–but as protected class, which is obviously not universal. (King did not dream that his children would be in a protected class. He said I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.) We–even the infamous William Bailey–know that there are certain kinds of things you don't say about those we call "minorities." That sense–can we call it a sense of right and wrong?–obviously did not kick in where a little girl with cerebral palsy was concerned, and it did not kick in in the case of Molly Ivins' supposed earthy humor regarding a birth defect.

Independence Chick in turn references the site Disability is Natural, whose resource list includes:

http://secondchancetolive.wordpress.com is hosted by Craig Phillips, "a traumatic/acquired brain injury survivor, with a message of encouragement, motivation, empowerment, and hope."

www.sarahstup.com is hosted by an accomplished teen writer and artist who has autism.