In Pauline Maier's American Scripture we find:
In June 1776 the Virginia Convention ... amended the ... draft so it
said that "all men are by nature equally free and independent" and had
"certain inherent rights" ... "when they enter into a state of society."
The statement ... freed the state of Virginia from an obligation to
recognize and protect the inherent rights of slaves since ... slaves had
never entered Virginia's society, which was confined to whites. - Pauline Maier, American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence, p. 193 (Emphasis added)
In Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity, Sociologist Erving Goffman wrote (synopsis):
The
dwarf, the disfigured, the blind man, the homosexual, the ex-mental
patient and the member of a racial or religious minority all share one
characteristic: they are all socially "abnormal", and therefore in danger of being considered less than human. Whether ordinary people react by rejection, by over-hearty acceptance or by plain embarrassment, their main concern is with such an individual's deviance, not with the whole of his personality.
"Stigma" is a study of situations where normal and abnormal meet, and
of the ways in which a stigmatized person can develop a more positive
social and personal identity. (Emphasis added)
What is significant here is that the basic human rights—normal human rights—are not guaranteed simply because a person is human, but only if society accepts the person. The "spoiled identity" which sociologists recognize in such stigmatized people as the disabled, and especially those with birth defects, often means a specific lifetime exclusion from society. The results, as implied by the following defamatory passage from the Time Magazine web site, can be devastating:
Another six months of Monica, have mercy; I don't care if it harelips the Governor. - Molly Ivins, Time.com
The sociologist notes that the effect is reduced "life chances":
Goffman [says] “The term stigma, then, will be used to refer to ... a special kind of relationship between attribute and stereotype” (2). Observing
that “the person with stigma is not quite human” (3), Goffman explains
that the our unconscious assumptions lead us to “exercise varieties of
discrimination, through which we effectively, if often unthinkingly,
reduce his life chances.”
More on the Virginia Declaration of Rights:
Edmund
Pendleton proposed the line "when they enter into a state of society"
which allowed slave holders to support the declaration of universal
rights which would be understood not to apply to slaves as they were not
part of civil society.
Molly Ivins' "Governor," if he could actually wake up with a widely scapegoated birth defect, would find everything profoundly changed. He would suddenly find himself outside of society.
And to be outside of society would be, as the framers of the Virginia Declaration of Rights implied, to be denied the "universal rights" which normal, decent people accord to each other. “The person with stigma is not quite human.”
For example, Independence Chick says, in I Am Disability,
What if, instead, we gave Disability some new lines to say? I would rather hear it say something like:
“I am Disability.
I know I look scary, and it’s true that I will influence, to a degree, what the person with me can do. However, I hold within me many surprises, dreams, hopes, and expectations.
I will challenge you to think in new ways. I will teach you that there are no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answers–only options. If I make it hard for your child to write with a pencil, there’s no need to apologize for or fret about that, because there are computers. If I have taken away your child’s physical voice, I can show you how to get it back through assistive communication technology.
I can teach you and your child to stand up for yourselves. Along your journey, you will meet people who believe I am a monster or a disease and that your loved one is infected, defective, or ‘less.’ I never wanted these people to do so, and I am sorry. But I can also teach you to respond to them–gracefully, assertively, and yes, angrily if you must. I will give you and your loved one courage that you never knew you had.”
An article in Andrew Sullivan's The Dish mentions the “social entitlement” of those who conform to standard expectations.
Another article in The Dish discusses tactics the disabled use in online dating:
Elizabeth Heideman examines how wheelchair users and others with visible disabilities navigate the world of online dating:
Because of disability trolling, some people may hesitate to disclose their differences right away. Wheelchair users may only post photos that show their bodies from the waist up, or people with visual impairments may not mention their guide dogs and white canes in bios. Only when they schedule an in-person date with someone do they mention their disability.
Tiffiny Carlson calls this “dropping the D-bomb.” Carlson, a writer who uses a wheelchair due to spinal cord injury, has been online dating since 1998. “I always disclose my disability right away in my profile and photos,” she says via email. Just like a messy divorce-in-progress or the fact that there are three kids under the age of 10 waiting at home, Carlson feels that disability is an important fact that potential partners should know from the beginning.
At the end of July a Department of Labor employee wrote:
Earlier this year, the LBJ Presidential Library in Texas held a summit to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act. In President Obama’s speech at the event, he reflected on this continuing legacy, to both America at large and him personally:
Because of the Civil Rights movement, because of the laws President Johnson signed, new doors of opportunity and education swung open for everybody — not all at once, but they swung open. Not just blacks and whites, but also women and Latinos; and Asians and Native Americans; and gay Americans and Americans with a disability. They swung open for you, and they swung open for me. And that’s why I’m standing here today — because of those efforts, because of that legacy. And that means we’ve got a debt to pay. (Emphasis added)
But as noted in several previous posts, there is little civil rights action as such in cases of disability discrimination:
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
And the following defamatory remark remains on the web site of a major national magazine:
Another six months of Monica, have mercy; I don't care if it harelips the Governor. - Molly Ivins, Time.com
