When families don’t support a member with a disability

A family which adopts an African American would be expected to stand up for her in the case of racism or other discriminatory treatment. If they responded to slurs or other expressions of social disapproval with the attitude, Why are you always embarrassing us? Why don’t you have the social skills to handle these situations? Why are you such a loser? — They would obviously be in the wrong. They would be failing to honor family responsibility. They would be part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Such a family, having a minority member, would be itself racist because it had the same prejudicial attitudes and behaviors as the mainstream society.

The situation is parallel for a family when one of its children is born with cerebral palsy, cleft palate, or other disability. The family would be expected to stand up for her in the case of derogatory remarks, slights, or other discriminatory treatment. If they responded to slurs or other expressions of social disapproval with the attitude, Why are you always embarrassing us? Why don’t you have the social skills to handle these situations? Why are you such a loser? — They would obviously be in the wrong. They would be failing to honor family responsibility. They would be part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Here’s an instance: The family of a Person With A Cleft Palate (a PWACP) unfortunately has a nearly perfect record of avoiding its responsibility with regard to their daughter’s cleft palate.

To start with, the family refuses to discuss any issue having to do with cleft palate. When someone calls her "pendeja" on the bus, she knows better than to mention it. When the State driver’s license photographer says "cheese, whiskey, harelip," she knows better than to mention it. When a resident who wasn’t even born when she moved into her building calls the manager on her while she’s waiting for a family member to arrive, she knows better than to mention it.

When the family keeps her out of the loop, that’s disability discrimination.

Her email "sent" list contains many items to siblings or her children where she attempts to get feedback on the most important factor in their sister’s or mother’s life, and the response is a disapproving silence.

That’s disability discrimination. Worse, this precludes taking the first step to resolve the problem: bringing the problem up. The attitude is, Why are you always embarrassing us? Why don’t you have the social skills to handle these situations? Why are you such a loser?

But as a PWACP she’s not allowed to defend herself from these implied accusations. She’s not even allowed to bring them up.

For many people with disabilities, particularly those with birth defects, mainstream social behavior expects them to be humble and apologetic, not to make a big deal about marginalizing and disenfranchising attitudes and treatment, not to rock the boat. If the stigmatized disabled yield to social pressure, they perpetuate habitual mainstream discrimination and civil rights violation.

If they resist, if they object, if they speak out, society isolates them as antisocial, as troublemakers. That’s the birth defect Catch-22. A responsible, supportive family helps.

But all too often their families see disabled members with the same cold, hostile attitude as prevailing society.