The Politics of Cleft Palate - An outline of the path forward.

 

The Politics of Cleft Palate is an example of identitarian analysis of targeted minorities.

The problem is that identitarianism itself is a form of discrimination. A contrary formulation, such as liberalism’s “we the people,” avoids such discrimination.

For race, there are many examples of policies to combat racism, and public law to that effect. There publicly funded agencies to combat law violation when it comes to racial prejudice. There are public policies about cerebral palsy. For example www.disabilityrightswa.org mentions “Cerebral Palsy.”

It does not mention Cleft Palate, or any of its synonyms, according to a Google site search.

Our discourse is full of what political commentator Andrew Sullivan calls Neo Marxism. Where for original Marxism, the enemy is the new class, the bourgeoisie, and those targeted are the workers (proletariat), Neo Marxism’s targeted identities are minorities, women, and LGBTQ people and the enemy is those who have “privilege,” generally white or European people, and males. Neo Marxism is essentially silent about clefted people.

Two major differences between Neo Marxism and the Enlightenment Liberalism of the Founding, the Declaration, the Constitution, and the Democratic Party. Liberalism, including democracy, justice, science, and scholarly endeavor, does not assume an enemy; and it includes everyone, not just the oppressed. And its solution to problems is to seek information and devise a better way of doing things.

Liberalism seeks to fix the problem; Left Marxism seeks to fix the blame.

The absence of a public program, with funds, for cleft palate is an obvious area for a new civil rights effort.

Such a program might include:

Identify how many people with a visible cleft are in the jurisdiction. (Attempt to gather a representative sample and find out what they think should be done.)

Create a clearinghouse where clefted people can meet. (Many clefted people have never had a conversation with another clefted person. That standard element of activism for targeted populations, “the community,” is absent for the clefted population.)

Address problems identified by the representative sample.

Problems I personally have encountered:

A Washington State driver’s license photographer prompted, “Cheese, Whisky, Harelip.”

As I was consulting an Employment Office counselor, another counselor nearby teased a mustachioed employee about his “harelip.”

When I was a Ph.D candidate at the State University, the professor kept addressing me as “Jones” (my last name is “Smith.”)

(At many public universities there are obstacles to clefted students because the institution does not want a person with the cleft facial markings publicly identified with them. At the above State University, I also experienced targeting in an adult education program in object-oriented programming, and in their adult auditing program.)

Clefted newborns need surgery. Mine was done, starting during FDR’s presidency, by Children’s Orthopedic Hospital, as charity. (The Depression still lingered, and my parents were quite poor.) We get sown up, because the public would otherwise be horrified. But how is it financed?

What, if any, are the cases at law concerning the constant disability rights (such as the three State of Washington cases above) discrimination we encounter?

Thus, additional suggestions for a pioneer (perhaps first in the nation) program for the clefted:

A number clefted people can call, if merely for consolation - or when our civil rights are violated.

Make competent legal advice available, for example, if being bullied in the public schools, or if a clefted worker is being verbally or otherwise abused on the job.

In theory, we can contact our legislative representatives. We could ask:

What is the public policy concerning people who have a cleft?

Could you print me a copy?

What is the enforcement mechanism when the policy is violated? And is meaningful corrective action taken?

Are any funds at all being spent to improve the lot of people who have a cleft?

Are we proportionately represented in the public work force? In the State universities? If not, why not?

If they don’t have a printed policy, they don’t have a policy. If no policy, they freely discriminate, as in the three specific examples I listed above.

I’ve never encountered a government program for cleft palate people. If, more than half a century after MLK’s civil rights revolution, there is no program for us, no public monies, action is long overdue.

What would have happened if, when the Washington State Driver’s License Examiner used the h-word on me, I had said, “May I speak to your supervisor?”

The Social Changes of Today - Increased Identitarian Thinking - and the Clefted

     Non discrimination once betokened a tolerant, egalitarian outlook. So long as everyone abided by general civic standards, good citizenship meant, Don’t stick your nose in other people’s business. Let them pursue happiness. It is the standard of a liberal society which leaves you alone and lets you be.

     A recent article on how to be an anti racist imposed requirements which go beyond the standard of a liberal society. A selective, some-animals-are-more-equal-than-others standard prescribes caution about those highly ranked in the politics-of-identity hierarchy. Minorities, women, and LGBTQ people are treated with caution. Everyone else, you can probably diss. This is not to the advantage of the clefted.

     What has happened is that today, groups are more likely to think of themselves as a collective. An in-group which has its own group interests. The specific example: Until recently, dwelling in an apartment building was relatively anonymous. Populated by individuals from all walks of life. In this and the previous building I lived in, there’s been something new - the sense that “You’re not part of our in-group. Nobody likes misfits. We have the right to say, you’re not wanted here.”

     The general increase in prejudices that the civil rights laws of the mid-sixties had been thought to discredit - increasing hostility toward minorities, different gender orientations, etc. - is also adverse to disabled people.

     The liberty intended in The Declaration and the Bill of Rights was founded on a non-identitarian outlook. “We the People” is the classic statement that identity should not matter in a free society. The classic opposite was Marx’s announcement that the proletariat was inherently good and the bourgeoisie - their exploiter - was inherently bad. Columnist Andrew Sullivan suggests that we have a “Neo-Marxism” in which women, minorities, and LGBTQ people are good, and the rest are guilty of “privilege.” Born good and born bad, in effect.

     There was already a tendency against those who were born “different”  - tragic Oedipus, whose name means “swollen foot,” and the scriptural “Master, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born thus?” Again, this undoing of the gains of the civil rights laws of the mid-sixties does those who have a cleft little good.

     Identitarianism implicitly elevates some identities at the expense of others, at the cost of the ideal of human equality.

Selections From an Email to a Couple of my Relatives

 Selections from an email to a couple of my relatives:

I’ve been writing a pioneering blog about cleft for almost a decade. Some things that have come up:

If not for private charity, we’d be almost completely neglected.

Society gets us sown up, so we won’t be so scary. For the adult clefted, there’s nothing.

Other minorities have a discourse: Racism. Sexism.

I use the non-existent terms Cleft Phobia. Cleft phobic. So sue me.

Leftism, Socialism, is for those who are “in a state of society.” We the clefted are not, and the left are dangerous to us. Our best chances are with middle class people, who are fewer than before.

Please tell me if there is anything about clefted people, or by clefted people, in the media or the institutions, instead of the charities that “help” us.

One of the things that drew my attention to the prevalent Original Sin assumption of, for example, Saint Augustine, was that Original Sin (which violates Due Process’ “presumption of innocence”), “we are all sinners,” makes it easier to debase, degrade, and humiliate the clefted. It’s ok to target us; after all, we offend people.

/******/

I would like to have a part in initiating a pioneering program for the clefted, although organizing or leading such a public program is not in my skill set.

I’m guessing it would include the following steps:

1. Sociological data such as How many have visible cleft, and are the most stigmatized; and how many simply have speech and eating difficulties. (What percent of the populace are we?)

2. Civil rights cases at law, if any, concerning commenting, gesturing, verbal abuse, rejection by the workplace or higher education (I’ve experienced both - that’s why I’m a (national scholarship) Fellow who was never a professor).

3. Program to provide a clearinghouse, where we can meet and cooperate against the pervasive public discrimination.

3. A number we can call when we feel we’re being targeted.

4. A pro bono attorney cadre.

5. Surveys of our representation or underrepresentation in government agencies, state universities, managerial positions, professional positions, and technical positions.

6. A statement by the opinion makers of our society of the reciprocity principle: If an opinion, attitude, or practice would be wrong in the case of the protected classes, it is wrong for the clefted. We have exactly the same civil rights as everyone else, although the justice system does not act as if we do.

End of selection.