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?”
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