Are the practices of the left Cleft-Phobic?

The Politics of Identity isn’t about identity as you would understand it. It’s about Who’s Oppressed according to neo-Marxist doctrine. And The Community.

As a result, neo-Marxists don’t show solidarity with what Americans apparently think is the worst identity you can have. Neo-Marxists target what is actually considered the worst identity:

What was the last time you heard, “I don’t care if it h-words the Governor?” This familiar saying means that the worst thing that could happen to the Governor wouldn’t be to wake up black. It would be to wake up having ”a split upper lip,” “a cleft,” “funny looking,” a “misfit,” as a friend of my grandmother said; hence offensive to The Community.

And thus, under the coin of the realm of the Politics of Identity, victim status, the worst identity isn’t to be among those subject to the claimed structural racism of modern civilization — it’s those who offend The Community by being born with a birth defect that makes them funny looking to many in mainstream society.

Marxists say, I’m told, “In order to defeat the master you must use the master’s tools.”

Using progressives’ own terms — Your Politics of Identity doesn’t advance your cause because The Community isn’t a universal standard. It is a vested interest which practices “social justice” and group aggrandizement, instead of seeking the public good. The Community is social, tribal. “Our truth.” Being social, rather than public and civil, it practices what Mill identified as “social tyranny.”

The Politics of Identity is not about the liberal proposition that all “are created equal,” the universal principle that finally rendered slavery unthinkable, that made it “a crime against humanity.” No, the Politics of Identity continues the Marxist obsession with classes. Unequal classes. The Politics of Identity selects classes it believes victims of a power imbalance — women, minorities, LGBTQ people — and proclaims that some classes are more equal than others because they have victim status.

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“Our Constitution … neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens,” wrote Justice Harlan in Plessy, because class is whac-a-mole. Doesn’t provide “the equal protection of the laws,” but always leaves something out.

The catchphrases of the left, communitarian, segment of society support the class ranking system of the Politics of Identity rather than the equal protection provisions of the Constitution, to the disadvantage of socially despised classes having stigmatized disabilities.

What is the policy toward cleft palate people where you live? Who created it? Who administers it?

This morning, it occurs that this fundamental question hasn’t been answered in my city, my county, my state, my country. Are the clefted an interest group, a needs group, an identity, a resource, a “problem?”

A possible starting point. In my Pacific Northwest city, if you go to a dentist needing an upper plate, they direct you to the Faculty Prosthodontics center of the medical division of the state university. Parents having a newborn with a cleft are directed to Children’s Hospital in this city.

By contrast, the Disability Rights Washington website, according to a Google Site Search, does not mention “cleft,” “palate,” “hare,” “lip,” or any combination of these terms.

The United States has public programs structured for needs groups, such as the elderly; and members of an identity having perceived needs, such as minorities, women, and LGBTQ people. The first is general, public, and neutral, such as the statement beginning the Constitution: “We the People.” Social Security and Medicare do not suggest that elderly people are more worthy than the young; only that their reduced earning capacity and increased medical expenses need the general solution government can provide.

The second solution, in terms of identity, is less desirable from the standpoint of democracy.

The first problem for clefted people is that there is little or no unified social or governmental response to our civil rights needs, or our economic needs. By contrast, the civil rights needs of minorities are addressed, for example, by the Civil Rights Act of the sixties, by directed court attention, and by minority assistance programs. Do Faculty Prosthodontics, Children’s Hospital, and Disability Rights Washington coordinate? It is left up to the clefted person to figure out where to go.

Cleft people’s civil rights problems are suggested by the public attitude of the familiar “I don’t care if it h-words the Governor”(1) slur. I asked an attorney who specializes in “disability discrimination cases in higher education” if she knew of any cases where the courts had addressed the pervasive public discrimination against clefted people. Her emailed response evaded the issue. A 2013 post in this blog cited an ADA: “There's case law out there regarding people commenting and gesturing against race and religion. But ... there's nothing out there regarding disabilities.”

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Initial thoughts concerning what an initial program for the one in seven hundred who have a cleft might address:

1. Provide a clearinghouse where people having a cleft can contact each other

2. Provide someone clefted people can contact to evaluate incidents which may be discriminatory

3. Provide a resource for determining if effective action can be taken to counteract discrimination

4. Resources who can intercede for targeted disabled people. Could pro bono legal assistance be leveraged when civil rights may be being infringed?

5. Counteract the pressure clefted people are under to keep silent

6. Develop a cleft discourse (example: Should pervasive negative reaction to clefted people, where found, be described as “cleftphobic?”)

7. Promote public awareness that cleft people have exactly the same rights as minorities, women, and LGBTQ people

8. Determine what legal precedent exists where cleft civil rights may have been violated

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(1) In this slur, the American public doesn’t imply that the worst fate for the Governor would be to wake up as a person of color, but to wake disfigured by a cleft.

In the politics of identity, victim status is what counts. The public seems to regard disfigurement as a greater disadvantage than race.

What Happens When the Supreme Court of the U.S. Gets It Wrong?

Angela Van Etten: “When Congress enacted the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990 they adopted the same definition of disability used in the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. They expected that courts would follow Rehabilitation Act caselaw when deciding who is disabled. Shockingly this did not happen. Instead courts narrowly interpreted the disability definition leaving many ADA claimants without justice.

As a result, discrimination against people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, bipolar disorder, blood cancer, major depression, diabetes, epilepsy, learning disabilities, multiple sclerosis, and sleep apnea went unchecked.

A diabetic could be denied coverage due to the mitigating measure of taking insulin leading to the absurd result that an employer could refuse an accommodation request to take a break to administer insulin because the employee was not disabled!”

The Court has failed to give disability due consideration before. In 2013 this blog’s post In Retrospect: The Supreme Court and the Disabled noted, “ These … articles described case after case where the august Court cruelly denied protection to disabled individuals even though the intent of the Americans With Disabilities Act should have been clear. As the Times noted, The court went wrong by “eliminating protection for many individuals whom Congress intended to protect” under the 1990 law. Senator Tom Harkin: “The Supreme Court decisions have led to a supreme absurdity.” The question these articles brings to mind is, Why the needless cruelty of these excessively narrow interpretations?”

Reference: ADA Amendments Act of 2008 (ADAAA)