What someone targeted for being Muslim can teach those targeted for disability: The silence of the witnesses.

Tarunjit Singh Butalia on being harassed in the name of Christianity at a DMV office: “Despite being in a crowded room and others being able to hear this man harass me, no one intervened.”

“I privately spoke with a supervisor at the agency about the harassment I experienced — in what should have been a safe space open to everyone.

People of marginalized identities frequently experience hurtful and harmful situations when we’re merely trying to live our everyday lives.

I’ve learned from experience that teaching with facts to a strongly biased person in the moment of confrontation does not work.”

“I still worry that my DMV experience happened in public and around dozens of people. No one intervened, no one comforted me, no one confronted the aggressor who was screaming at me. I know these situations can be uncomfortable and, in the moment, sometimes people don’t know how to respond.

But what can you do when you encounter someone being harassed?”

“First, the person under attack needs solidarity. You can stand up and, instead of confronting the bigot, go to the person under duress, face them and block the sight of the bigot spewing hate. You can also offer words of support and ask if there’s anything you can do that would help them in the moment. None of this happened in my case.

Even after I completed my license renewal and walked across the waiting room to the door, not one person stepped up to say “I am sorry for what you went through.” That doesn’t mean folks in the room necessarily agreed with the screaming man. They just didn’t know what to do and how to react.” (Emphasis added)

“Unfortunately, inaction is one major reason bigots feel empowered to harm others. Next time you see this happen before you, step up and be an ally of the victim. The world runs because goodness exceeds evil.

Silence is complicity and feeds the normalization of hate. As is commonly said, “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph in the world is that good people do nothing.” So please don’t be a part of the silent majority — instead, stand up, speak up and be an ally for those marginalized in our communities.” (Emphasis added)

/******/

I recently asked an in-law who works in higher education but keeps their law license current via pro bono cases if clefted people are in a protected class. To my surprise, they indicated that we are. “Sometimes people don’t know how to respond” to cleft phobia - or other disability discrimination - because they don’t realize that people having a disability have the same civil rights as women, minorities, and LGBTQ people.

“Inaction is one major reason bigots feel empowered to harm others.” There are powerful taboos against our speaking up for ourselves (I felt them when starting this blog years ago). We are supposed to be humble and apologetic. Sometimes “teaching with facts to a strongly biased person in the moment of confrontation” does not work. And sometimes they’re just messing with you because they think you’re afraid to violate the taboo, and it works to come back at them in no uncertain terms. Certainly bigots deserve to be surprised. (Emphasis added)

A reciprocity principle: If a remark or an action or an attitude would be seen as discriminatory if directed toward a minority, it is discriminatory for us. We have exactly the same civil rights, even if the justice system does not act as if we do.

Andrew Sullivan’s view of gay stigma often resonates for cleft stigma

 Andrew Sullivan’s Out on a Limb:, Chapter The Politics of Homosexuality:

“There is no common discourse in which he can now speak, …” A beginning: If someone is getting on our case, and pretending that it isn’t because we are different, we can ask, “Are you being cleft-phobic?”

The mainstream, despite the civil rights revolution, still “pursues the logic of repression.”

Like homosexuality, cleft palate “does in fact exist as an identifiable and involuntary characteristic of some people, and that these people do not as a matter of course suffer from moral or psychological dysfunction,” nor are we guilty because of our difference.

One reason a “common discourse” is lacking is because of  “a politics of denial or repression. Faced with a sizable and inextinguishable part of society, it can only pretend that it does not exist, or needn’t be addressed, or can somehow be dismissed.” Ok, just 1 in 700. But name a program anywhere in the United States for adults with cleft palate.

Sullivan describes a gay politics of “theater and rhetoric”; we clefted sit abashed, humble and apologetic, and don’t do anything. “Acquiescence in repression,” Sullivan notes. “A psychological dynamic of supplication that too often only perpetuates cycles of inadequacy and self-doubt. … the notion that [our] equality is dependent on the goodwill of [our] betters. … A clear and overwhelming history of accumulated discrimination and a social ghetto that seemed impossible to breach.” (I don’t care if it h-words the Governor.)

“Facing their families and colleagues with integrity.” Yes. We should. Cleft Pride. “Full civic equality.” Shout out our “existence, equality, integrity.”

“America’s inherent hostility to gay people.” And to us, still: half a century after the civil rights revolution.

“Liberalism properly restricts itself to law—not culture—in addressing social problems.” And since the Equal Protection clause has been implemented as protected class, we must be in a protected class, even if the public doesn’t think so. Make that clear whenever someone insults or bullies you.

We don’t have a community: “A young heterosexual black or Latino girl invariably has an existing network of people like her to interpret, support, and explain the emotions she feels when confronting racial prejudice for the first time. But a gay child generally has no one. The very people she would most naturally turn to—the family—may be the very people she is most ashamed in front of.” Our small numbers - 1 in 700 - make us very alone. One of the first things the so far nonexistent program for adult clefted people should be a clearinghouse to put us in contact with each other.

“The country [should be] forced to debate a subject honestly—even calmly—in a way it never has before.”

Policy towards the stigmatized disabled such as those with Cerebral Palsy or Cleft Palate

[This is an unfinished draft of an email to an official of the 55+ apartment complex where I live, concerning disability discrimination that masquerades as normal social interaction. (As discussed previously in TPOCP, the civil rights revolution has not yet happened for disabled people; mainstream society usually turns a blind eye to disability discrimination; and many in the mainstream are often clever at contriving subtle forms of discrimination that appear to be deniable.)]

Manager:

I am a recent new resident of [your 55+ apartment complex] who has a cleft palate. While you were helping me fill out the application forms I answered the question, Are you disabled according to FHA criteria. An FHA website said people impaired in a major life function, one of which was ’speaking,’ are considered disabled, so I checked ‘disabled.’

A related HUD site used criteria similar to those at ADA.GOV, ‘impaired in a major life function, … or perceived as such,’ (emphasis added) thus including the stigma or prejudice of being perceived as disabled or defective (as in ‘birth defect’) among the criteria.

In order to participate in the life of the [apartment complex] community, I participated in a small group which plays Scrabble in the Community Room on Thursdays. Another group, which as I recall plays Pinochle, also uses the CR at the same time. In one of the games after Thanksgiving, I remarked on a couple of Scrabble linguistic peculiarities, something like ‘gript’ for ‘gripped,’ and not allowing other common inflections such as ’ing’ or ‘ed.’ The game finished. Suddenly the person who sets up the board and and puts it away left, saying they would come back after checking their pet, and close up.

Everyone else left, so I stayed, covering for the leader. After waiting quite a while I asked the Pinochle people, who were still playing, if the Scrabble game went on a certain shelf. By this time I was feeling embarrassed. Obviously something unusual had happened, and it focused negative attention on a resident who has a stigmatizing disability.

Before the next scheduled game I realized that it looked like I had been discredited and probably couldn’t continue participating in the game, so I haven’t.

My disability has its own defamatory tag line, ‘I don’t care if it [h-words] the governor.’ If the governor, after a lifetime in the mainstream, improbably woke up one morning with a cleft palate, they would find that repeatedly, what masquerades as normal social action turns out to marginalize, exclude, and disenfranchise them from the social groups that constitute our lives: the family, the classroom, the workplace, and the diversions of retirement.

This all-too-common disability incident responded to because of viral video

This, it seems, is how the story starts. Joshua Bote:
“"At this point, it is believed that the victim was invited out by some girls who are so-called 'friends' who are eventually the offenders in these disgusting incidents," [Jose] Jara said.”

What did the mainstream offenders instigate?
“"There were some things going on that these young ladies wanted her to do that she didn't," said police superintendent Eddie Johnson in a news conference before trailing off. "We'll leave it at that for right now."”

How did it actually get noticed?
USA TODAY: “Chicago police are investigating an assault after a video claiming to show a brutal attack on a teenage girl with disabilities went viral.”

What action was taken?
“Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told USA TODAY Thursday that two of the suspects are charged with aggravated battery, a felony. One was charged with mob action. The girls, who remain unidentified, are 13, 14 and 15.”

A common story. Mainstream people see a person with a disability, and because that person has a real or perceived disadvantage, somehow feel entitled to take liberties. If the “misfit” doesn't cooperate in being publicly degraded and humiliated, they are a bad sport. Can't take a joke. Offends the community and deserves to be punished.

Only difference, this time: Viral video, police can't dismiss it, and with the public eye on them, investigate.

America's largest minority, according to the Department of Labor and the ADA.

Still doesn't have its Brown v. Board of Education, its own landmark civil rights case.

Still doesn't know, when its members go about their daily business, if this is one of the days when there will be an incident.

Online hate against disabled people rising in England

Amy Walker, today, writes:

The charity [Leonard Cheshire, a health and welfare charity] called on global media companies, including Facebook, to take online disability hate crime more seriously and to protect users. It supported recommendations from MPs for government and social media companies to directly consult disabled people on digital strategies and hate crime law.

According to the report, online offenses are increasing, are under-reported, and disabled people are sometimes reluctant to speak out. Those who are targeted do not get social support; and those who discriminate against disabled people suffer no social consequences:

Neil Heslop, the chief executive, said: “Police are increasingly recording online offences, but we know it remains an under-reported area and that disabled people may have reservations about speaking out.

“We suspect many crimes remain under the radar, with survivors never getting support and perpetrators facing no consequences.”

The effect, Heslop said, can cause disabled people to experience stress and isolation. Mocking remarks and hurtful comments demean, degrade, and humiliate people with disabilities, lower their quality of life, and cause them to have “reduced life chances.”

Hate crimes against disabled people could lead to long-term fear, anxiety and isolation.

Janine Howard, who was supported by the charity’s advocacy services after experiencing online abuse, said: “People I don’t know take my photograph when I am out and about, they post it on social media for others to comment on.

“The comments are nasty, hurtful and leave me feeling frightened and angry. There is no escaping this online abuse if I want to use social media.”

Dwarf “Tossing”: Is it the business of the law to protect the dignity of the stigmatized?

Two days ago, National Review writer Katherine Timpf wrote:

A Washington state lawmaker has proposed legislation that would outlaw dwarf tossing, claiming that “it ridicules and demeans people with dwarfism.”
Dwarf tossing, by the way, is when a person with dwarfism volunteers to have someone throw him or her against a padded surface or Velcro wall, usually while wearing protective gear. Let me be clear: No one is forcing these dwarves to be thrown anywhere. Participation is completely and totally voluntary, and the dwarves who choose to participate are even usually paid for their performances, but the lawmaker — Republican state senator Mike Padden — wants to take this option to make a little extra cash away from them. ...
“There’s nothing funny about dwarf-tossing,” Padden said in a statement. “It ridicules and demeans people with dwarfism, and causes others to think of them as objects of public amusement.”

Timpf added, “I know that the aim of this bill is supposed to be to help dwarves, but I think it’s actually kind of offensive to them, if anything. After all, saying that such a bill would be necessary is basically suggesting that dwarves are not capable of making the decision about whether or not to participate in these sorts of activities for themselves. It’s also taking away from dwarves the opportunity to make a little extra cash — an opportunity that some dwarves might really want to take advantage of.”

In Mother Jones, Stephanie Mencimer reports that the judge nominated to fill the vacancy left by Kavanaugh's ascension to the Supreme Court finds solicitude for the dignity of the disabled coercive:

Neomi Rao, Trump’s nominee to replace Brett Kavanaugh on the powerful DC Circuit, ... has written at least two law review articles and a blog post in which she defended dwarf-tossing. ...
[In parts of France]  a judge upheld such bans because of “considerations of human dignity.” Rao considers these laws an affront to individual liberty that fails to recognize the right of the dwarf to be tossed. In one article, she wrote that the decision in France upholding the dwarf-tossing ban was an example of “dignity as coercion” and that it “demonstrates how concepts of dignity can be used to coerce individuals by forcing upon them a particular understanding of dignity.”

There are real-world consequences. John Sainsbury, in 2012:

In an incident that recently came to light, Martin Henderson, a 37-year-old British dwarf, was out celebrating his birthday when he was suddenly picked up and thrown by a "hooded thug" while trying to enjoy a cigarette outside a pub in Wincanton, Somerset. He is now confined for much of the time to a wheelchair. Police believe the perpetrator was inspired by reports about the alleged antics of [recreational dwarf tossers.]

Sainsbury continues, "There are issues of human dignity involved as well. If you toss one dwarf as if he were a mere object, doesn't that degrade the entire dwarf community?"

Civil rights is the protection of the autonomy and dignity of everyone, even the powerless. The contrary of dignity is humiliation, and the humiliation of the disabled is a familiar form of attempting to degrade, demean, and marginalize those who are different.

Social deprivation of dignity is often the first step in eroding the civil rights of the disabled. “You’re ridiculous, so don’t expect to be treated as if you aren’t.” Humiliation, the process of contriving to rob disabled people of ordinary human dignity, is social murder. Forever after, wherever the humiliation is known about, the victim attempts to participate in society under the burden of a spoiled identity, subject to the slights and slurs and open contempt of those who one once thought were friends.

Other Discrimination Also Masquerades as Normal Social Interaction Ctd. (reprinted)

Virtually everything in the following description of routine (and "socially" legitimized) sexual harassment  is also typical of disability discrimination.

As the United States moves toward its four-year presidential election, routine social abuse of a vulnerable segment of the population has become an issue in the candidacy of one of the abusers, Republican candidate Donald Trump. A recent article by Michelle Goldberg calls him A Human Trigger. Mr. Trump uses the Big Lie technique; projects his bigotry onto his victims; leverages Conventional Wisdom's denial of the reality of gender marginalization; and often leaves his victims' disoriented and doubting the reality of their own experience:

Like many abusers, Trump is so shamelessly, fluently dishonest that listening to him can be disorienting. “One of the hallmarks of an abusive person is that they do not ever take responsibility for their behavior, ever,” [Kristen] Slesar says. “It is always the other person’s fault, or it never happened.” Abusers, she says, can crowd out their victims’ sense of reality: “In conversation and arguments with this person who is so able to change reality or deny reality and shift blame and responsibility, the victim ends up doubting [herself], getting really confused, feeling really unstable.

The Big Lie deserves its own examination, because the phrase originates with another authoritarian who understood that routine bigoted error of conventional social thought can be used to corrupt the political instincts of a large segment of the public. Wikipedia explained:

A big lie (German: große Lüge) is a propaganda technique. The expression was coined by Adolf Hitler, when he dictated his 1925 book Mein Kampf, about the use of a lie so "colossal" that no one would believe that someone "could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously."

The following selection from Mein Kampf describes techniques familiar to those who have followed the rhetoric of the Republican candidate's campaign—appeal to emotion in defiance of evidence and reason; belief that no one could be so shameless as to perpetrate such fraudulent claims; and "sensible" recourse to the opinion that there must be "some other explanation":

All this was inspired by the principle—which is quite true within itself—that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation.

What women experience in the Trumpian abusive subculture parallels what the disabled experience — particularly the denial — but nobody is quoting us. As the previous article in this series argued:

This is all too familiar to those of us who are disabled. We wonder why "funny things" keep happening to us. We feel vaguely guilty—that we must have done something wrong. Eventually, we reluctantly come to realize that it isn't us. The problem is "normal" social attitudes toward those who bear stigma. But when we attempt to talk this over with our "friends" and family, they pooh-pooh our concerns ... It is all in our heads. We are only imagining that we are the target of unjustified social disapproval. To think that way is to be disloyal to the community. Our attitude is antisocial—no wonder those around us disapprove of us (this is the stigma Catch-22).

Ms. Goldberg continues:

Marie, a 30-year-old massage therapist in Virginia [says] "The truths that we experience as women are denied. It really brings out the victim mindset: These things keep happening, but nobody will actually say that they’re happening, nobody will acknowledge anything is happening ..."

Years ago, in Internalized Discrimination: You're Not Supposed to SAY That, this was the situation:

We who write this remember that most of our lives we ourselves kept silent. And there is an internal struggle against convention every time we [feel we ought to speak out]. A struggle, ... against the tendency to feel guilty about having been honest about a situation which is widely covered up.

As the emergence of a 2005 tape revealed that a major political party's presidential candidate treats half the population as a group of people who may readily be subjugated, demeaned, degraded, and abused, what On Liberty calls "social tyranny" (approximately page 3) is still alive and well.

 

For women, and for the disabled.

Dear majority, please stop telling me you stand with me

Two years ago Umair Haque wrote:

I hear it a dozen times a day. “Don’t worry!” say the kind and good people. “We’ll stand with you when the registries/camps/oppression come!”
What a noble sentiment. It is supposed to reassure people like me  —  a disabled brown guy. And yet. It doesn’t. Why not?
Let’s do some quick moral accounting, so we can see whether this grand declaration of solidarity carries any water.
Every single minority of any kind can tell you stories. Not just one, but many. Of being ridiculed, tormented, heckled, harassed, bullied, demeaned. From the very day that they entered the classroom, the playground, the boardroom, the office, the bus, the train, the cafe, the restaurant.

Haque does not resort to the easy condemnations progressives deploy — you’re evil because you’re white, able-bodied, privileged — but because as a member of the mainstream, the CW, the Conventional Wisdom tacitly allows you to discriminate without fearing any consequences; and you haven’t thought about it. You didn’t know you were doing it.

Well, you were, it was wrong, stop it. Haque continues:

Every single person — whether they are a woman, a person of color, a disabled person, gay, whatever — can tell you about countless incidents of abuse, big and small. There is not a single minority in this country that hasn’t experienced it.
Now. Where have you been, the good and kind majority, when all this was going on? There are three possibilities — and only three. You turned a blind eye. You egged it on. Or you were part of it. The incidents happened, right? So by definition, you did nothing to stop them, prevent them, mitigate them, ameliorate them.
You didn’t step in then. The millions of thens. And now you tell me that you will finally step in? Am I to believe this with a straight face?

Unfortunately, in the case of derogatory remarks, slights, or other discriminatory treatment, the mainstream responds 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? Umair Haque adds:

The sentiment that “I will stand with you!” is just that. A sentiment. It is not a reality. You haven’t done it so far. So why would you start now? … But how good have you really been? As I said, you’ve failed to stand with me, us, a million times before, every single day of your life. ...
We got here precisely through the way of your negligence, and no other way. Through all these little dehumanizations. The grade school bully that cries “kike!” is not so different from a Trump. You stood by and watched then. Maybe you laughed. That is how we got here.
So how do we heal? We heal not by avoiding the truth, running away from the painful reality of our mistakes. But by facing them. ... I don’t want your kind sentiments. I don’t want to hear that you will stand with me when we both know you haven’t so far. I want something truer and harder. The admission, the acknowledgement that you did not, could not, would not, when you should have.

Other Discrimination Also Masquerades as Normal Social Interaction

A few days ago Vince Grzegorek wrote about discrimination in university astronomy research which is happening right now.:

Katherine Alatalo, a graduate student in astronomy at the University of California–Berkeley, spent months wondering what was wrong with her. Why did she feel anxious and unfocused? Why couldn’t she get any work done? And then, a late-night G-chat conversation with a fellow student made her realize what was causing her such distress: Her friend relayed a conversation she’d had with other students and a professor, where they had discussed a different professor and how he had a “fascination with” Alatalo’s breasts. That the professor mentioned his colleague’s “obsession” at all, let alone in casual conversation, made Alatalo’s friend furious—“it was totally inappropriate,” Alatalo’s friend wrote. It was then—with the help of her friend’s outrage—that she realized the problem: She was being sexually harassed.

This is all too familiar to those of us who are disabled. We wonder why "funny things" keep happening to us. We feel vaguely guilty—that we must have done something wrong. Eventually, we reluctantly come to realize that it isn't us. The problem is "normal" social attitudes toward those who bear stigma. But when we attempt to talk this over with our "friends" and family, they pooh-pooh our concerns (Alatalo’s friend above being a welcome exception). It is all in our heads. We are only imagining that we are the target of unjustified social disapproval. To think that way is to be disloyal to the community. Our attitude is antisocial—no wonder those around us disapprove of us (this is the stigma Catch-22).

Virtually everything in the following description of routine (and "socially" legitimized) sexual harassment  is also typical of disability discrimination:

• Life of fear: "She felt belittled in their professional interactions, hopeless and trapped as goals and directions shifted, seemingly out of nowhere. “The meaner he is, the less I resist,” she noted in a running diary of sorts she kept at the time. She told him she felt she couldn’t speak up or disagree with him out of fear."
• Discrimination is invisible: “Instead of feeling like my concerns were being heard and considered, I was a liability that they were trying to figure out how to address.”
• The community is complacent: "The people in power have no interest in addressing the problem"
• "Institutional betrayal"—denial of the concept that experiencing harassment from a faculty or staff member could “create a pervasive sense of vulnerability extending beyond one specific classroom or carrel in the library.” "The researchers found that for female students, harassment perpetrated by a faculty or staff member was significantly associated with experiences of institutional betrayal. “For female participants, faculty/staff sexual harassment was the sole significant predictor of institutional betrayal when accounting for all other traumatic experiences measured,” the researchers wrote in the paper. “This finding is consistent with Freyd’s (1994) betrayal trauma theory, which holds that abuse is more harmful when perpetrated by people one is close to or depends upon for survival.”" (Emphasis added)
• Discrimination by those one should be able to trust: "Abuse is more harmful when perpetrated by people one is close to or depends upon for survival"
• The effect of the "spoiled identity"(1) of stigma means that the social system militates against the stigmatized: "Dependent on access to resources that are levied by just a few in power"
• Be humble and submissive: "Be quiet and behave or else"
• Pressure to accept workplace discrimination: "it “got so bad I didn’t care about keeping my career, because it was so miserable.”"
• Fear of retaliation: "Contributors to the blog and friends warned her she could still be sued by the person she was describing, or the institution, despite the fact that she did not name names."
• Defamation of character/witchhunt: "One of her harassers began to badmouth her abilities to others in her department—and down the line. “For someone in the position of decision-maker in a small town, if they think ill of you, they can do some serious and real harm by saying a word or not saying a word,”"
• Not much like this for the disabled: "Astronomy Allies, a group that provides judgment-free resources and assistance to victims and anyone else who inquires looking for help" ... "The members of the group are trusted ears, confidants for anyone who wants to discuss her experience with bullying or harassment, and they help navigate the oftentimes complex process of filing formal complaints."
• Ditto: "“It was something that left me with the ability to deal with my harassment that didn’t leave me feeling sick to my stomach,” [Alitalo] says."
• The invalidity of "social justice": "“Frankly, it is not worth the social happiness of a majority if just one of our attendees is made to feel uncomfortable, under pressure, or damaged enough to leave our profession or to attend future conferences in a fearful state,” [Kevin Marvel] wrote." (Emphasis added)

Note that this analysis proceeds from the standards of Enlightenment liberalism: Human equality, universal ethical standards, equal rights and equal protection under the law, and the rejection of the majoritarian doctrine that the community, rather than universal justice, is the final arbiter of moral behavior. It upholds liberalism, which is public and civil, against left ideologies which assert that the merely social should hold supremacy. New York Magazine writer Jonathan Chait, for example draws this distinction in speaking of "the illiberal left."(2)

-*--

(1) Spoiled identity: In Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity, Sociologist Erving Goffman wrote:

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)

(2) Jonathan Chait:

It is the expression of a backlash on the left against liberalism — with all its maddening compromises and deference to the rights of the enemy — which fetishizes success as the by-product of cataclysmic struggle. ...
Liberalism sees political rights as a positive good — rights for one are rights for all. “Democracy” means political rights for every citizen. The far left defines democracy as the triumph of the subordinate class over the privileged class. Political rights only matter insofar as they are exercised by the oppressed. The oppressor has no rights. ...
Such a “victory” would actually constitute the blow to democracy it purports to stop, eroding the long-standing norm that elections should be settled at the ballot box rather than through street fighting. ...
But the campus was merely the staging ground for most displays of left-wing ideological repression because it is one of the few places the illiberal left has the power to block speakers and writers deemed oppressive. (Emphasis added)

The Stigmatized Disabled and Medical Discrimination

Among the conditions which the medical profession treats are the various disabilities. The lay public sometimes makes moral judgments or otherwise discriminates against such medical conditions (see a previous article's mention of cerebral palsy), but health care professionals should be above such prejudices.

In reality, disabled people need to realize that disability discrimination in medical care often happens, and that the disabled need to take measures to prevent this from impacting the care they receive.

Mention of the problem is readily found online: A Wikipedia entry notes:

The disabled remain at a disadvantage with respect to health and health care.

An article last September in The New England Journal of Medicine by Georgina Peacock, M.D., M.P.H., Lisa I. Iezzoni, M.D., and Thomas R. Harkin, J.D. observes:

Many factors may contribute to these disparities, including physical barriers to care (e.g., inaccessible medical diagnostic equipment such as examination tables, weight scales, and imaging technologies); noninclusive health or wellness programs designed for people without disabilities; transportation problems, especially in areas with poor public transportation; inaccurate or inadequate knowledge or stigmatizing attitudes of clinicians about disabling conditions; competing priorities in the health care system; prior difficult or unpleasant experiences getting health care; and communication barriers, such as failure to accommodate deaf patients who require sign-language interpreters.  (Emphasis added)

A Disability Rights Washington staff bio includes:

[David Carlson] was ... awarded the TASC Excellence in Advocacy Award from the National Disability Rights Network. This in response to the first of two reports addressing discriminatory practices of medical professionals against people with disability, for which he was the lead author. (Emphasis added)

When the disabled go to the doctor they need to

• Select their personal physician carefully. Some are equitable and professional. Others may condescend, talk down, assume the patient should be humble and apologetic, expect the patient not to question the doctor's decision, treat the patient as mentally limited or uncooperative, or assume the patient is an ideal candidate for experimental procedures.
• If necessary, include a friend or family member in contacts with medical staff, so that they understand they are not dealing solely with a person they may consider to be at a disadvantage.
• Make sure no medical treatment is undertaken without informed consent. (What are the alternatives to the proposed treatment? What outcome can be expected in each case, and what are the tradeoffs?)
• Be willing to ask for a second opinion.
• Ask for complete information after a procedure has been completed. (What did the physician encounter when s/he began the procedure? How well did it go? What can the patient expect during the recovery period? What medications or self-care procedures will the patient be responsible for? How long will these be in effect?)
• Expect to be treated with consideration and respect. Contact the facility's patient relations staff (whatever the facility calls them) if necessary.
• Contact disability rights resources in your community or state if necessary.

The "stigmatizing attitudes of clinicians about disabling conditions" and the "discriminatory practices of medical professionals against people with disability" have been publicly documented in the above cites, which also note that the disabled often have "prior difficult or unpleasant experiences getting health care." This is the reality of being disabled in our society, and you who are disabled need to be prepared.

-*--

A previous post, What Others are Saying, contains links to Independence Chick's blog and other online resources for dealing with disability discrimination.

A Recent Book on the Civil Rights of the Disabled

This is a collection of notes, with comments, from What We Have Done: An Oral History of the Disability Rights Movement - Fred Pelka, 2012

In the first post of this weblog, we wrote:

A reciprocity principle: If a remark or an action or an attitude would be seen as discriminatory if directed toward a minority, it is discriminatory for us. We have exactly the same civil rights, even if the justice system does not act as if we do. 

 As Pelka writes, "People with disabilities are an oppressed minority with protected rights." (p. 3) He continues:

Robert Funk . . . has recounted the history of what he calls "the humanization of disabled people" in America as the journey of individuals with disabilities from "objects of pity and fear . . . who are incapable and neither expected nor willing to participate in or contribute to society" to a "disability rights movement" which maintains that "disabled people have the constitutional and human right to equal citizenship, that is, the right to be treated as a person worthy of dignity and respect." (p. 4)

Our first post continued:

People with cleft palates bear two stigmas: the stigma of disability; and the stigma of birth condition, which is considered guilt by many. An example of the latter from the 1st Century: Paraphrasing John 9:2, "Master, did this man sin . . . that he was born thus?"

Pelka:

Americans with disabilities have generally found themselves, as the activist Justin Dart Jr. put it, the nation's "poorest, most oppressed group." ...

"The persistent thread within the Christian tradition," writes theologian and sociologist Nancy Eiesland, "has been that disability is either divinely blessed or damned: the defiled evildoer or the spiritual superhero." ... [In parts of the third world] religious tradition regards disability as a form of "divine punishment" for alleged sinfuless. (p. 5)

Social attitudes can render the disabled the scapegoats of our society:

Rosemarie Garland-Thomson: "According to [Melvin] Lerner, the human need for order and predictability gives rise to the belief that people get what they deserve or that the way things are is the way they should be....if something 'bad'—like having a disability—happens to someone, then there must be some 'good' reason—like divine or moral justice, for its occurrence." ... it results in victim-blaming and scapegoating of those who are different. (p. 6)

In This is the Son of Kings, we suggested that the classic tragedy Oedipus the King paralleled the traditional treatment of a baby with a club foot disability in some Greek city-states. Pelka:

According to [Henri-Jacques] Stiker, the religious systems of Graeco-Roman antiquity were even less tolerant . . . In both ancient Athens and Sparta infants with disabilities were "exposed," taken "outside to an unknown location and [left to]...expire in a hole in the ground or drown in a course of water." The birth of disabled infants was believed to "signal the possibility of misfortunes and are [sic] explained by the anger of the gods. Deformed infants are exposed because they are harmful, maleficent. They implicate the group." (pp. 6-7)

In Internalized Discrimination: You're Not Supposed to SAY That, we suggested a powerful social pressure to remain silent. Pelka:

Robert Garland: "[The disabled were generally held in disdain] both by their families and by society at large. ... The disabled themselves were encouraged to feel a certain shame for their own physical condition." Disability rights activists today would call this "internalized oppression"—the absorption by oppressed people of the judgments and assumptions of the majority culture. p. 7

In the last note taken so far from Pelka's book:

Tim Cook: "Persons with disabilities were believed to simply not have the 'rights and liberties of normal people.'" (p. 11)

In a post November 26, 2014 we wrote:

“Spoiled Identity”: When the Disabled Are Not In “A State of Society” - 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)

The post continues:
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). [1] 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.”

Today's Invisible Man: The Powerless, Outsider Disabled

I'd like to be assured that if I stand up for myself against an aggressor, I'm going to be supported, not judged. - Sarah Neilson, below

Kenji Yoshino last week in Slate:

The Supreme Court has deemed “political powerlessness” to be a factor in determining whether a group could receive the heightened judicial protection that women or racial minorities currently receive. ...

The paradox of political power is that a group usually must have a massive amount of political power before it can be deemed politically powerless by the Supreme Court. Groups that are truly politically powerless usually cannot garner the attention of any branch of government, including the judiciary.

Professor Yoshino was talking about gay marriage jurisprudence, not the litigative status of the stigmatized disabled, but the situation he describes applies to us: we are not even powerful enough to be considered worthy of care as politically powerless. "A State cannot so deem a class of persons a stranger to its laws," said the Supreme Court in Romer V. Evans, but in the current situation discrimination against the disabled is largely beyond legal regard*.

Being Invisible: When the Disabled Are Not In “A State of Society” - 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)

The disabled are also largely beyond social moral regard*: Society, instead of objecting to public discrimination against the disabled, pretends that discriminatory conduct is normal social action. Sarah Neilson, in The Stranger, described incidents she experienced:

When I remarked to a bookstore owner about the proliferation of memoirs in this age, she told me she had tired of, in particular, cancer memoirs. "Cancer is a reality," she said. Then she looked at me with sad eyes. "But cerebral palsy is a reality, too." I said, "Uh, yeah, and I don't write about it," and left the place in a daze. I've never had anyone assume I was sick, so at first I didn't even realize that she was comparing cerebral palsy to cancer. I've never felt comfortable going back in; I'm a little uneasy walking by. The worst part is knowing that she thought she was being nice.

So did the spandex-wearing passerby who told me on a steep street, "You are so brave." I told him I was offended; he said, "I wish I could help you." He didn't take in a word I said. ...

One night, after a beautiful day of hiking, we passed a guy on the way home who hassled my boyfriend for money. I was prepared to ignore the question. But when I walked by, he didn't ask me for money. He shouted, "WHO DID THIS TO YOU?! WHO DID THIS TO YOU?!"

I kept walking. Then he shouted, "WAS IT HIM?!"

That scared the shit out of me. He'd accused my boyfriend of violence and looked quite ready to commit some himself. From all my fear, and my anger, and the burning insult of the accusation, I yelled back:

"BIRTH! I WAS BORN TWO AND A HALF MONTHS EARLY, YOU FUCKER!"

He ran.

I was relieved. Then I noticed several people across the street, all staring at me. Were they on his side? Did no one see the potential danger of the situation? Remember the crutches? If someone goes after me, I'm fucked, y'all. I'd like to be assured that if I stand up for myself against an aggressor, I'm going to be supported, not judged.

It's no better, though, to be simply ignored. A Sea-Tac Airport TSA agent fixed his eyes on my boyfriend while asking for my boarding pass. When I asked him to address me directly, he said, "Oh!" and apologized. "I'm used to talking to... you know," he said, gesturing in inscrutable circles.

"To what?" I asked.

"Talking to people and... talking to their caretakers."

Helplessness is an offensive assumption, but one I can swiftly disprove. How, though, can I convince people that there is nothing tragic about the way I walk? I ran into a pair of sweet parents with three adorable children, and the youngest child said, "She has a owie," so I explained that I was born this way and didn't get hurt.

"Some people need tools to help them," added the mother. "It'll heal."

"No," I said lightly, "it won't heal, but that's okay." I don't get a body other than this one, so it has to be okay. Why can't we tell our children, and each other, that all bodies are different, that some need more help with certain things than others, and that's fine?

Is it because it's not?

A comment to Ms. Neilson's article scolded her for objecting to this sort of disability discrimination:

So you reject:

empathy
normal Seattle passive-aggressiveness
an obviously crazy homeless person
someone who mistakenly talks to your boyfriend instead of you
a mother who was caught in a sudden confrontation
Honey, those are all things we all deal with. It's called the real world.

No, these are things which, in the context of the person who is different, are intended to marginalize them. "Being treated as different" is a recognized indicator in anti-harassment guidelines. Remarks and actions which would be innocuous in ordinary circumstances are instantly recognized as singling out the disabled person. They are not part of the ordinary rough-and-tumble of social interaction. They are intended to demean and degrade the disabled.

Ms. Neilson was not being overly sensitive in calling out disguised discrimination. She was subverting a smelly little orthodoxy which says the disabled are not supposed to stand up for themselves against an aggressor.

Some of the epigraphs to an earlier post, Internalized Discrimination: You're Not Supposed to SAY That:

And my feeling wasn’t righteousness or pride in having told the truth, it was horror that I had committed such a faux pas, and that if things like that happened you just weren’t supposed to talk about them. And you certainly weren’t supposed to announce it at a dinner party. - Kate Christensen

The political sphere is where you engage with your humanity. You have not merely a right, you have an obligation to participate, to make sure the people, as a whole, are able to make good decisions, and pass good laws and treat you as a human. And if one group subjugates another, if it says 'You can talk about anything you want, except everything that matters to you,' then you are not a full member of the polity. - Eric J. Miller (Emphasis Added)

The averted gaze and a smothering of empathy - Matthew Scully

The just-world hypothesis works, in part, by blaming the stigmatized disabled for the pervasive social targeting which marginalizes and disenfranchises them. A familiar experience of our people is the case where our family, friends, or co-workers imply that we should have done better, considering our background; and completely ignore the crucial fact of our lives: Discriminatory social attitudes reduce our life chances. It is considered divisive and socially unacceptable to speak out about our situation.
 
We who write this remember that most of our lives we ourselves kept silent. And there is an internal struggle against convention every time we add another post to this weblog. A struggle against the tendency to feel guilty about having been honest about a situation which is widely covered up.


 (*) In Age of Ambition Evan Osnos speaks of "a deeper problem underlying China's rise: pervasive corruption and a moral disregard that had already led to milk tainted by chemicals reaching the market." (Emphasis added)

Here and There in Disability Discrimination

Poet Stephen Kuusisto of Planet of the Blind writes:

Every day I wake up and read horror stories about the disabled—some stories come my way via social media, others from traditional news sources. Whatever their source they all have the same sub-text: whether the abuser is a policeman, a social worker, a family member, a bureaucrat—disability life is still imagined to be reduced life even 24 years after the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Note the word “imagined”—all of the abusers in the articles below imagined their victims were negligible people, or worse, weren’t people at all. The sheer breadth, the legion of these stories, tells us that these ugly imaginations are fed like bacteria in a petri dish. I’ve heard ugly sermons where disability is a metaphor for lack of faith; heard ugly radio where social services for the disabled are described as nothing short of fraud; heard college professors demeaning students with disabilities; heard bureaucrats and physicians and merchants all say in varying tones of disgust or approbation that they don’t have time for disability—this human condition thing is so inconvenient.

Concerning medical discrimination, William Peace of Bad Cripple writes:

I need to find an internist in the Syracuse area. With a working cell phone I made dozens of calls this morning. I contacted 20 different internists--not one physician would take me on as a patient. The reasons varied.

"The office is not wheelchair accessible".
"Dr. So and So does not accept patients who are paralyzed. You need to see a specialist".
"We do not have an accessible exam table".
"We do not take your insurance carrier".
"Dr So and So is not accepting new patients. The office cannot recommend another physician ".

... Within 90 minutes the proverbial light bulb went off--cold calling an internists office was a waste of time. ... for much of my life I have been refused as a patient. ... The sad fact is well over 20% of people with a disability are turned away from doctor offices.

Cerebral palsy writer Independence Chick writes:

But then I realized that on the other side of the coin are people who scream, “Entitlement!” whenever the PWD [Person With Disability] is given any latitude at all, or any particular help that the temporarily able-bodied population can’t access and in fairness, should not access. These are people who claim PWDs shouldn’t have SSI because it’s “living off the government.” It’s teachers who claim that, “Yes, Melissa has dyslexia, but she shouldn’t be read aloud to during tests–that’s an entitlement and unfair to the other kids.” It’s county social workers who claim adults with disabilities are “entitled” to group home placement, but not to lives of their own. That’s being “uppity” and “entitled.”

That's what disabled people are called if they are not humble and apologetic. “Uppity.” One of us worked the last few years before retirement as administrative support for a public transit vehicle maintenance shop. A co-worker told him the mechanics considered him “stuck-up.” (Since he spent decades, before he confronted the climate of discrimination, playing what Spike Lee calls the “minstrel” and making self-deprecating remarks in order to buy acceptance, he considered “stuck-up” a complement.)

Some time ago ABC News reported another cerebral palsy discrimination case: “An Ohio man faces one month of jail time for teasing and taunting a 10-year-old girl with cerebral palsy after a video of the incident went viral.”:

Jennifer Fitzsimmons, the chief assistant city prosecutor for this case, says in the three years she's been in this role, she's never seen anything like this.

"I think when we look at cases, there's case law out there regarding people commenting and gesturing against race and religion. But when there's nothing out there regarding disabilities, it took me a little bit longer to come to a decision."

After Fitzsimmons reviewed the Knight family's complaint, a police report based on a phone call from the Knight family, and the video captured by [her mother-in-law] Prince, she decided to press charges. ...

Bailey, who works as a truck driver, was charged twice. He was originally charged for aggravated menacing, a misdemeanor of the first degree. In this charge, the victim was Knight, an incident she says took place the same day as the bus stop scene.

Bailey, she said, "was swinging a tow chain on his porch, saying he was going to choke me until I stopped twitching. I sent my kids with my mother-in-law to leave with them. My husband called the sheriff." ...

"I don't think this sentence will change things because it hasn't so far," said Knight.

Knight says living next door to the Baileys affects their everyday lives.

Just last summer, said Knight, 9-year-old Joseph Bailey came over to play with Knight's children and brought over a pocket knife, threatening to "cut [Hope] up," followed by name calling. That harassment continued into the school year.

Since the bus stop incident, Knight has spoken with the bus driver and the school's principal. Knight now drives Hope to school every day while her other two children ride another bus to school.

Hope was born 29 weeks premature after Knight was involved in a head-on auto collision. When she was born, Hope weighed only two pounds, 12 ounces, which caused several medical problems resulting in two brain surgeries. Knight says her daughter fought for her life the first two years.

As for whether this case presents a new precedent in Ohio is another debate.

"I don't know if it sets a precedent so much maybe as it begins a conversation between people," said Fitzsimmons. "I think conversation starts progress, and I think if it can bring something else to light, it would be good." (Emphasis added)

We reported on previous cerebral palsy cases here and here.

We noted the double standard in respect to the civil rights of minorities and the civil rights of the disabled here.

Here we asked for a landmark disability civil rights case.

Another six months of Monica, have mercy; I don't care if it harelips the Governor. -Molly Ivins, Time.com

The Targeted Minority that Got Left Out

Another six months of Monica, have mercy; I don't care if it harelips the Governor. - Molly Ivins, Time.com

Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity - Erving Goffman

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

First, tentative conclusions about the formal (omitted from civil rights) and informal (lax or hostile social standards) situation of the stigmatized disabled:

• Disability is not a protected class.
• Protected class sensitivity has largely substituted for the moral obligation to be just no matter who is being targeted.
• If a group isn't in a protected class then it is not necessary to worry about discriminating against its members; that is, Open Season on those (disadvantaged people who aren't a race or a gender) not covered by the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
• Social standards (see Time Magazine's defamatory remark at the top of this article) have been substituted for the ethical standards of universal justice.
• The true significance of society's acceptance of the above Time Magazine remark isn't that is defamatory. It is that just about everybody understands that to be inflicted with the disability it refers to (or certain others) is to become a social outcast.
• For them, it is as if the civil rights revolution had never happened.

From About Dwarf Aware:

Here are some myths:
• Little people love poking fun at how they appear to others.
• Little people only date other little people.
• They must agree with being called a midget or treated as one because they are always on t.v. dressed up as funny characters.
• Dwarfs cannot handle themselves in the workplace; they scare clients away and are always absent. They need too much special equipment.

From a previous post about an article by a person with cerebral palsy:

Many of those who quickly object to minority discrimination deny disability discrimination even as it is happening right in front of them. As commenter jacalope observes "The prevailing attitude seems to be that":

1. My disability isn't real
2. My disability is my own fault
3. If I tried harder I could just get over it
4. I'd magically get over it if I only tried my new acquaintance's latest diet/supplement/acupuncturist/exercise regimen

Why are these discriminatory attitudes alive and well in what Sarah Nielsen called a "progressive city?" Because, since the civil rights revolution, discrimination against minorities is subject to punishment under the laws. Social attitudes followed. "No colored need apply" notices were replaced by affirmative action. Society got the message. No one would think of telling a person of color, who described a discriminatory incident or attitude, to "just get over it."

From "Maxwell," a person with a cleft palate:

He was renewing his driver's license when the state employee taking his picture said, "Cheese, whiskey, harelip."

He was attending a party in the home of his son and daughter-in-law, who are community college employees, when a guest who teaches at a community college started asking derogatory rhetorical questions about where he worked before retirement. The questions were such that other guests started backing away from the person the public college teacher was targeting. But none of the guests, most of whom were de facto state employees, objected to the teacher's discriminatory remarks, even when the teacher compared the disabled person to someone else they knew who was, in the teacher's words, "funny looking."

Not-in-a-protected class Open Season means that disabled people find themselves at risk of being publicly humiliated when they attend parties. In "Maxwell's" case, this meant that a party can prove unsafe even when it is comprised of two classes of people—his family, and employees of public institutions with strict anti-harassment policies—of whom one would expect better.

The above Dwarf Aware site lists facts which reveal prevalent derogatory expectations:

• Around 80% of babies born with dwarfism come from average stature parents.
• They are of the same intelligence as the more general public.
• They are surgeons, lawyers, teachers, athletes, artists, journalists, and almost every other profession you can think of.
• The unemployment rate is higher than any other able-bodied group of people.
• The “M” word, or “midget”, is offensive to most little people. It does not refer to any one type of dwarfism. It is just a bad word.
• My son has a disproportionate type of dwarfism, that means his upper arms and legs, for instance, are shorter than average. He is perfectly proportioned for who he is, but is not the same, proportion-wise as taller folks.
• Persons with Achondroplasia, (Achons), compare equally in intelligence, talent, and ability to get the job done.
• Achons have medical issues, but rarely ask for assistance. They do have the same life expectancy as anyone else.

Remedies suggested in earlier article Imagine That America Had Its Consciousness Raised:

Needed:

• A landmark disability discrimination civil rights case. ACLU, where are you? Ada.gov, where are you?
• Anti-defamation campaign (Time.com, take note!).
• A civil rights act for the disabled, since the disabled were omitted from the Civil Rights Act.
• A disability ombudsman in each state and each school district to which any adult, and any student, respectively, can go when disability discrimination occurs.
• The addition of specific disability harassment language to the existing anti-harassment guidelines.
• For Shame! campaign.  
• Ad showing a minority being bullied beside one showing disabled being bullied, saying one is just as wrong as the other.
• Spots showing celebrities saying “I'm against disability discrimination, are you?”
• Ad showing teacher rebuking student for slighting disabled classmate. 
• A speech by a national leader citing instances of disability discrimination and calling for change. 
• National leader describing incidents such as [Time Magazine's] remark as the product of irrational animus and calling for change. 
• Counseling for the disabled, to deal with the pressure to feel shame, guilt, social inadequacy, etc.
• Proactive response training, such as how to respond if someone says, “How nice you're in the choir—it must help with your speech.”
• The addition of ethical training to the training of physicians and other medical staff, to remind them that it is unprofessional to treat disability as a social sin rather than a morally neutral medical condition.
• Institutions (meeting places, organizations, "meet people like you" events, etc.) to counteract the social isolation of many disabled people.

Medical discrimination is a surprisingly widespread problem. Not only support personnel but physicians themselves, in many cases, do not treat stigmatizing disabilities as morally neutral medical conditions (which is what their professions require). They treat disability—particularly when resulting from birth condition—as a mark of shame. In such cases the disabled patient is treated as if he or she should feel guilty, and anticipate substandard medical care as all they can expect under the circumstances.

Example: The visibly disabled elderly patient who found that his new physician, without giving a reason or offering a substitute, refused to continue his sleep medication.