A day in the life: Bullied at the grocery store

 A couple months ago the chain grocer where I shop mispriced the hummus I bought. When I brought it to the attention of the employee who oversees the self-checkout area, he said I’d have to go talk to the deli, which sold it. He suggested I might have looked at the price of a different brand of hummus.

I ate the overcharge.

A couple weeks ago I bought six containers of hummus. It rang up at a total of $9.00 more than the advertised price,“Tell me what I have to do to fix this,” I told him. “What do I have to do?”

He told I’d have to go work it out with the deli.

“Do I leave my (mostly rung up) cart here while I do this?” The employee ok’d that.

So I went to the deli and told them this particular brand was deceptively priced. “Come around out here and look at the label in front of it. It’s not the same as what you have in the machine that rings it up.”

They authorized the guy in the self checkout to correct the price, which he did.

The whole process had taken over half an hour and involved two sections of the chain store’s operation. Presumably the chain is now aware that one of its sections is involved in deceptive pricing, and another section has been stonewalling customers who bring it to the store’s attention. They may even be aware that, in addition to violating state law (RCW 19.94.230) regarding “deceptive pricing,” this unethical employee, in bullying an elderly, disabled customer, could have exposed the chain to a civil rights liability.

Clefted people, according to FHA/HUD, which oversees the over-55 apartments where I live, are impaired in “a major life function” in four ways: Appearance, eating, speaking, or considered as such.

The last covers disability stigma, the public prejudice which can cause even elderly, handicapped citizens to be bullied in the course of daily life.

A Partial List of the Disabled Among Us

(See analysis of social attitudes toward disabled characters at end.)

Stephen Hawking, first rank physicist, Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease).

Oidipous Tyrannos, mythical star of the greatest drama (Oedipus Rex) of classical antiquity, talipes equinovarus (club foot).

"Nor is that other point to be passed over, that the Sphinx was subdued by a lame man with club feet …" - Sir Francis Bacon, Novum Organum

A reasonable translation of "Oidipous Tyrannos," following Bacon’s interpretation, is "Clubfoot the Ruler." When a drama has a name of this form, as with "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" or even "Beauty and the Beast," there is a certain hint as to how the plot will go.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 32nd President. A polio survivor, he adroitly concealed that he could barely walk.

Michael J. Fox, who continued his acting career after he developed Parkinson's.

Michael Kinsley, founder of Slate Magazine, Parkinson's.

Helen Keller, blind and deaf.

John Nash, mathematician, schizophrenia.

See movie, A Beautiful Mind

Christy Brown, author, Cerebral Palsy.

See movie, My Left Foot

Demosthenes, classical era orator, stammer.

Vincent Van Gogh, painter, psychiatric illness.

Beethoven, composer, deaf.

Ray Charles, singer, blind.

Stevie Wonder, singer, blind.

Marlee Matlin, actress, deaf.

Peter Dinklage, actor, dwarfism.

Joaquin Phoenix, actor, cleft palate.

Jürgen Habermas, philosopher, cleft palate.

Stacy Keach, actor, cleft palate.

Flanner O’Connor, author, lupus.

Robert Pirsig, author, schizophrenia.

Sartre, philosopher, strabismus (exotropia).

Saul of Tarsus (the Biblical Saint Paul), had a “thorn in the flesh,” which was not described.

Sherman Alexie, author, hydrocephalus

Implied fictional disabled characters (other than Oidipous):

Beauty and the Beast

Boo Radley of To Kill a Mockingbird, psychiatric illness.

Of Mice and Men (Lenny Small, limited intelligence)

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Tiresias in Oidipous, blind.

Forrest Gump (Crooked spine, I.Q 75)

Cyclops ("Circle Eye," i.e., One Eye)

Captain Hook (Missing hand)

Tiny Tim (possibly renal tubular acidosis (type 1), or rickets)

... And many more.

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Apposite comments from the National Council of Teachers of English:
Are disabled people “pitiable, helpless, evil, super human, magically cured at the end, or dead?” Or are they complex individuals who enjoy their lives and have the same values, hopes, and aspirations as the mainstream?

Patricia Dunn:

Whether students are disabled or non-disabled themselves, they absorb impressions about characters like or unlike themselves from the books they read for school. So when they read books that feature characters with disabilities, what messages are they getting about disability? Does the story reinforce negative stereotypes (that disabled people are pitiable, helpless, evil, super human, magically cured at the end, or dead)?  Or does the text challenge negative stereotypes in its depiction of characters with impairments by showing that they are complex individuals, that they enjoy their lives and are as “normal” as non-disabled people, and that they have agency and voice?

She adds:

Works such  Johnson’s Accidents of Nature, Orr’s Peeling the Onion, and Alexie’s True Diary, written by authors with disabilities similar to those of their protagonists, depict these characters as fully developed individuals with agency, voice, and a critical attitude toward  their ableist societies.

Disabled people are America's largest minority, according to the Department of Labor and the website of the Americans with Disabilities Act. As well, a significant number of mainstream people will be disabled in later years, such as former President George H. W. Bush, wheelchair-bound in his last years. Disabled people are widely distributed among us; are powerful symbolic themes in some of our greatest works of literature; and are, in the final analysis, us.

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.”

A casebook on disability: Facial disfiguration

The first selection notes that in discussions of those whose civil rights are commonly violated, disabled people or often left out.
Jonathan Allen, on the deep divisions exposed by the fight over Rep. Ilhan Omar, in the form of “the list of groups targeted by hatred”: “Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., [noted] that Wiccans, Mormons and disabled people had been left out.” (Emphasis added)

Neil Steinberg, on the human discomfort occasioned by disfigured faces:

Disfigured faces can provoke a fear reaction, leading to bullying and other social tyranny:

Fear of people with facial disfigurements is a common phobia, yet, unlike other fears -- of height, of water, of the dark -- it is seldom discussed, perhaps because so much popular culture, from The Iliad to Saw V, pivots upon this fear. Perhaps it is assumed: of course you are afraid of the man without a face. Who wouldn't be?

Or perhaps because, unlike fear of high places, water or the dark, teratophobia -- fear of disfigured people or of giving birth to a disfigured baby, literally 'fear of monsters' -- has a living object: the injured, burnt, unusual-looking people themselves. Drawing attention to the flinching reaction they often receive, the stares and mockery that are a routine part of their daily lives, can seem an additional cruelty, the sort of vileness enjoyed by schoolyard bullies.

Identifying friend and foe has been a survival skill. A disfigured face, perhaps not seeming human at all, can trigger an instinctive fear:

Why are distorted faces so frightening? Freud classified certain objects as 'unheimlich,' a difficult-to-translate word akin to 'uncanny': strange, weird, unfamiliar. Waxwork dummies, dolls, mannequins can frighten us because we aren't immediately sure what we're looking at, whether it's human or not, and that causes anxiety. A surprisingly large part of the human brain is used to process faces. Identifying friend from foe at a distance was an essential survival skill on the savannah, and a damaged face is thought to somehow rattle this system. ...

The psychologist Irvin Rock demonstrated this in his landmark 1974 paper 'The perception of disoriented figures.' Rock showed that even photos of familiar faces -- famous people like Franklin D Roosevelt, for instance -- will look unsettling when flipped upside down. Just as, if you tip a square enough it stops being a square and starts becoming a diamond, so rotating a face makes it seem less like a face. The mind can't make immediate sense of the inverted features, and reacts with alarm. A bigger change, such as taking away the nose, transforms the face severely enough that it teeters on no longer seeming a human face at all, but something else.

The author himself, who thought he was prepared, experiences “horror”:

That isn't a theoretical example picked out of the air. On another visit to the Craniofacial Center, I enter Seelaus's examination room to be introduced to a patient. He turns in the chair, and is missing the middle part of his face. There are four magnetic posts where his nose will go, and below it, a void revealing smooth yellow plastic. My eyes lock on his eyes, I shake his hand and say some words.

A half-hour later, standing on the elevated train platform, I still feel ... what? 'Harrowed' is the word that eventually comes to mind. Why? There was no surprise. I'm no longer a child but an adult, a newspaper reporter who has spent hours watching autopsies, operations, dissections in gross pathology labs. I was expecting this; it's what I came here for. What about his face was so unsettling?

Maybe seeing injured faces compels an observer to confront the random cruelty of life in a raw form. Maybe it's like peeling back the skin and seeing the skull underneath. Like glimpsing death. Maybe it touches some nameless atavistic horror. ...

Randall H James was born in Ohio in 1956. His first surgeries were done over the next couple of years at Cincinnati Children's Hospital by Dr Jacob Longacre, a pioneer in modern plastic surgery.

The teachers assumed I must be stupid.

Randy James, doctor

Our instincts often betray us into making an “automatic connection between inner person and outer appearance”:  “A disfigured person is a retard”:

"He was like a second father to me because I saw him so much," says James, who didn't celebrate a Christmas at home between the ages of 3 and 13. School holidays were for operations. Summers too.

When little Randy began school, his teachers in the city of Hamilton made a common mistake, the sort of automatic connection between inner person and outer appearance that has been the default assumption since history began.

"The teachers assumed I must be stupid," says James, who was put in a class with children who had learning disabilities -- until teachers realized that he was actually very bright, only shy, and missing an ear, which made it harder for him to hear. He was allowed to sit in the front of the room, where he could hear the teacher, and his grades soared. ...

The disability version of the Heckler's Veto: “You might make the students nervous”:

As a student at the University of Kentucky, James applied to be a residence hall adviser, someone who assists other students in navigating dorm life. The supervisor who rejected him candidly told him that his odd-looking ear could put others off.

"'You might make the students nervous,'" James recalls him saying, then paused, the pain still obvious after 40 years. "These were my classmates."

In the past, disfigured people were often subject to genocide: “A couple hundred years ago, people born with craniofacial conditions, they were just putting them in a bucket of water”:

We are a society where people thrive or fail -- in part, in large part -- because of appearance. The arrangement of your features goes far in deciding who you are attractive to, what jobs you get. Study after study shows that people associate good looks with good qualities, and impugn those who aren't attractive. Even babies do this, favoring large eyes, full lips, smooth skin. Billions of dollars are spent on plastic surgery by people who are in no way disfigured, just for that little extra boost they feel it gives to them, gilding the lilies of their attractiveness.

How do people with unusual appearances fit into such a world? For most of recorded history, children born with disfigurements were wonders, portents or punishments. If they were allowed to live. "A couple hundred years ago, people born with craniofacial conditions, they were just putting them in a bucket of water," said Dr David Reisberg, an oral plastic surgeon at the Craniofacial Center.

“Those that we call monsters are not so to God”:

But even then, astute observers saw beyond externalities. Michel de Montaigne in 1595 encountered a child conjoined to the half-torso, arms and legs of an undeveloped twin (what we would now call a parasitic twin), displayed by its father for money. Montaigne noted: "Those that we call monsters are not so to God, who sees in the immensity of His work the infinite forms that He has comprehended therein."

“With malice toward none, with charity for all,” said our kindest president.

The Rights the Disabled Have under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973

If you work for any entity which receives funds from the federal government, the following would seem to imply that disability discrimination by your employer violates federal law:

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973:

No otherwise qualified handicapped individual in the United States, as defined in section 7(6), shall, solely by reason of his handicap, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subject to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance. (Cited in What We Have Done: An Oral History of the Disability Rights Movement - Fred Pelka, 2012)

Wikipedia's article on Section 504 adds:

Codified as 29 U.S.C. 794.
According to this law, Individuals with Disabilities are:
"persons with a physical or mental impairment which substantially limits one or more major life activities."

 where

"Major life activities include caring for one's self, walking, seeing, hearing, speaking, breathing, working, performing manual tasks, and learning."

In a previous post we noted cases "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." The Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund website notes another case where Congress found it necessary to pass a law undoing unreasonably restrictive Supreme Court interpretation of Section 504 and other disability rights legislation:

The longest legislative battle was fought over the Civil Rights Restoration Act (CRRA), first introduced in 1984 and finally passed in 1988. The CRRA sought to overturn Grove City College v Bell, a Supreme Court decision that had significantly restricted the reach of all the statutes prohibiting race, ethnic origin, sex or disability discrimination by recipients of federal funds.

An important decision overturned was a case where the Court interpreted Section 504 as meaning that only clients of the departments of an entity which actually received federal funds had protection from disability discrimination. Under current law, because of the CRRA, protection applies to the entire agency. If a college's engineering department receives federal funds, students in the English department are also protected.

There was also foot-dragging on implementing Section 504:

Section 504 was the last sentence in the 1973 Act. However, initially Joseph Califano, U.S. Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, refused to sign meaningful regulations for Section 504. After an ultimatum and deadline, demonstrations took place in ten U.S. cities on April 5, 1977. The sit-in at the San Francisco Office of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, led by Judith Heumann and organized by Kitty Cone, lasted until May 4, 1977, a total of 28 days. More than 150 demonstrators refused to disband. This action is the longest sit-in at a federal building to date. Joseph Califano signed the regulations on April 28, 1977.

The Reagan administration, in addition to attempting to weaken the Voting Rights Act, attempted to undermine Section 504 when it came into power:

Over the next several years, Section 504 was somewhat controversial because it afforded people with disabilities many rights similar to those for other minority groups in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Throughout the Reagan administration, efforts were made to weaken Section 504. Patrisha Wright and Evan Kemp, Jr. (of the Disability Rights Center) led a grassroots and lobbying campaign against this that generated more than 40,000 cards and letters. In 1984, the administration dropped its attempts to weaken Section 504.

When any governmental agency's employees discriminate against the disabled, they are acting in the name of the taxpayers who fund them. For example, public transit organizations receive substantial federal assistance. So does every state. We know of a case where a disabled person, having his driver's license renewed, heard the state photographer say, "Whiskey, cheese, harelip." That bigoted employee was acting as a proxy for the public. When he attempted to demean, degrade and intimidate a citizen making a required license application, he represented you and me.

Whether the license applicant could have sought redress under Section 504 is unknown. Public action under Americans with Disabilities legislation and Section 504, to date, has been entirely about access, with notable success. Protection from discriminatory attitudes and acts designed to humiliate, marginalize, and disenfranchise the stigmatized disabled, hasn't even begun. As an earlier post cited:

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

The dream of the disabled is an American dream, that one day America will rise up and live out the meaning of its creed, that all are created equal.

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.

Disability Prejudice is Often Exacerbated by Other Prejudices, Such as Race

In a current post on Slate.com, Julia Bascom notes that the emerging humanitarian safety net policies of the president-elect do not augur well for the disabled, particularly disabled people of color. Our previous blog post noted an "incident in which Trump mocked a disabled reporter." Ms. Bascom describes this and other adverse actions:

Our president-elect famously mocked a disabled journalist at a rally (and, implausibly, continues to deny what we all saw happen). But that moment isn’t what keeps me up at night. What renders me sleepless is the fear of his proposed policies: repealing the Affordable Care Act; shuttering the Department of Education; appointing a Cabinet with no regard for civil rights, safety nets, or inclusion, to be overseen by a vice president who gutted Medicaid in his state and a speaker of the House who wants to gut Medicare.

Bascom lists ways in which the current Obama administration has worked to improve the situation of the disabled:

The DOJ also clarified that the Americans With Disabilities Act applies to people with disabilities in the criminal justice system, including in the contexts of policing, prison, and re-entry into society after incarceration—badly needed guidance, given that more than 50 percent of the victims of police violence are people with disabilities, particularly disabled people of color.

and

[The Department of Education] urged schools to move away from restraint, seclusion, corporal punishment, and other forms of discipline that disproportionately target students with disabilities (particularly disabled students of color). In 2014, the department clarified that bullying can be considered a violation of a student’s civil rights, including the right to a free and appropriate education in the least restrictive environment.

The marginalizing and disenfranchising of the disabled, as noted in previous posts here and here, stems in part from the social tendency to regard those who are different as somehow less than fully human. As Julia Bascom remarks, respecting the disabled involves "recognizing our humanity, our dignity, and our fundamental rights." She adds, "Trump ... sees [the disabled] as damaged goods."

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)

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(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)

A Shadow Existence

Imagine that you are an African American posing for your driver's license renewal photo and the photographer, a state employee, paid by your taxes, says, "Cheese, Whiskey, [n-word]." Would it be a civil rights violation?

This actually happened: A person with a cleft palate had the state photographer, in the same situation, say, "Cheese, Whiskey, Harelip." Was that a civil rights violation?

This actually happened: A pwacp was starting to cross a city street when he heard a voice talking. The voice was saying, "Nobody likes you, nobody wants you, go away." It was a guy leaning his head out the window of his van, which he had stopped in the middle of the intersection. Was that a civil rights violation?

Just this last Christmas: A pwacp was waiting in the lobby of his apartment building for his ride to a family celebration. Another tenant went through the lobby on an errand; the same tenant came through on another errand a few minutes later. Then the apartment manager came out, and said "Oh, you're waiting for your ride." The tenant had reported the disabled person (who is elderly) as "suspicious." Was that a civil rights violation?

When it comes to civil rights, the disabled often lead a shadow existence. What would almost certainly be treated as a civil rights violation if it happened to a "minority" becomes a different matter, somehow, when it happens to disabled people, as if justice has two different ways of looking at discrimination, depending on who you are.

Two years ago this blog recounted a case of discrimination against a little girl with cerebral palsy:

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.

On Nov. 27, Judge John A. Poulos of the Canton Municipal Court sentenced 43-year-old William Bailey to 29 days in jail. ...

William Bailey "was dragging his leg and patting his arm across his chest to pick his son Joseph up," said [Tricia] Knight. "I asked him to please stop doing this. 'My daughter can see you.' He then told his son to walk like the R-word." ...

The next day Knight posted the video on her Facebook page while [Knight's mother-in-law, Marie] Prince uploaded the video they called "Bus Stop Ignorance" to YouTube. Within days, the video went viral. ...

A local assistant city prosecutor observed:

"I think when we look at cases, there's case law out there regarding people commenting and gesturing against race and religion. But ... there's nothing out there regarding disabilities ...." [What charge did the prosecutor use? "Menacing." Apparently no civil rights charge applies.]

The law has always been about what happens (i.e., was it a crime?), not who it happens to. Burglary is burglary, for example; and it's not supposed to matter if you're rich or poor, ethnic or "mainstream," able or disabled, a "person of faith" or otherwise.

But the Civil Rights Act (1) was implemented as protected class. It is not a law for everybody. It is a private law (literally, "privilege")(2) for those to whom it applies. Case in point, as reported in an earlier post:

Would the court system of a liberal society, sidestepping universal justice, treat "protected class" as a term at law? One has only to read the news:

Publication: The Spokesman Review - Publish date: March 2, 1996

A state judge supports an earlier court ruling giving Spokane restaurants the right to refuse service to Hells Angels wearing their club insignia.
Spokane County Superior Court Judge Neal Rielly, in a written ruling released Friday, says members of the biker gang aren't a "protected class" under state or federal discrimination laws.

 The enshrining of "protected class" in the law of the land (despite the first Justice Harlan's objection "Our Constitution is color-blind and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens") has had sinister consequences for the disabled. The state driver's license photographer, above, probably wouldn't have used the n-word with an African American applicant. He did use the h-word with a disabled applicant.

The authors of the Civil Rights act probably never dreamed that exclusion from protected class would be taken by many as rendering a certain group of people "a stranger to [our] laws."(3) As Romer v. Evans later went on to suggest, such jurisdictive tactics can tend to "make them unequal to everyone else."

Welcome to civil rights American style. If you're disabled, you're not in the class protected from slurs and slights, "commenting and gesturing," bullying and menacing, and profiling. You're a second class citizen, and the mean and the bigoted (see above) have figured this out. Welcome to constant and pervasive marginalization. Welcome to "life" in the shadows.



(1) The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin, is considered one of the crowning legislative achievements of the civil rights movement. - http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/civil-rights-act [Note that disability is left out.]
(2) The Google search for "privilege," under Word Origins, notes the word's roots as privus, "private," and lex, "law."
(3) We must conclude that Amendment 2 classifies homosexuals not to further a proper legislative end but to make them unequal to everyone else. This Colorado cannot do. A State cannot so deem a class of persons a stranger to its laws. Amendment 2 violates the Equal Protection Clause, ... - Romer v. Evans [Note that deeming "a class of persons a stranger to its laws" is thought to "make them unequal to everyone else".]

Schools Must Offer Communication Supports, Feds Say

On November 13, 2014, Disability Scoop reported:

The Obama administration is reminding schools of their wide-ranging responsibilities to students with disabilities who struggle with speech and other communication difficulties.

In guidance [PDF] issued Wednesday, federal officials said the nation’s public schools have obligations under three separate laws to “ensure that communication with students with hearing, vision and speech disabilities is as effective as communication with all other students.”

An advocate for the civil rights of the disabled warned of cases where this process may be administered in a discriminatory fashion:

Denise Marshall at the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, a special education advocacy organization, said her group welcomes the guidance to schools, but she worries that it is not clear enough and could lead to further hurdles for students.

“Our members have seen a lot of schools try to force a student to use a communication aid or service that is clearly not appropriate just to rule it out. This causes significant delays and makes many students feel like laboratory test subjects and robs them of their dignity,” Marshall said.

From previous posts on the causes of the tendency to subject the disabled to discriminatory treatment:

“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.”

More on the Virginia Declaration of Rights:

Edmund Pendleton proposed the line "when they enter into a state of society" which allowed slave holders to support the declaration of universal rights which would be understood not to apply to slaves as they were not part of civil society.

Molly Ivins' "Governor," if he could actually wake up with a widely scapegoated birth defect, would find everything profoundly changed. He would suddenly find himself outside of society.
And to be outside of society would be, as the framers of the Virginia Declaration of Rights implied, to be denied the "universal rights" which normal, decent people accord to each other. “The person with stigma is not quite human.”

 From Here and There in Disability Discrimination:

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.

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

Civility, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and the Civil Rights of the Disabled

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

Take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, ... re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul - Walt Whitman, Preface to first edition of Leaves of Grass

A human being whose life is nurtured in an advantage which has accrued from the disadvantage of other human beings, and who prefers that this should remain as it is, is a human being by definition only. - James Agee

Those who leverage stigma against those who are different from themselves benefit from the advantage created: It denies others access to goods or status or dignity or respect or civil liberties they themselves covet. - The Stigmatized Disabled and the Silent Privilege of the Normal

Here’s the problem if you are a non-African American parent: how do you voice your concern with these issues without being viewed as a racist by some (though not all) black parents at the school? Is there an underlying cultural issue that makes it more likely that kids who are non-Catholic and who come to the school from outside the neighborhood will end up having discipline problems? ... How do I demand safety for my kids without being tarred with the ugly “racist” label? It really is a tight rope walk. - A Nation Defined by White Supremacy? Ctd

Because discriminatory conduct is usually uncivil conduct, Molly Ivins' "Governor," above, or any other disabled person, has a strong interest in civility. The recent controversy over Ta-Nehisi Coates' "A Nation Defined by White Supremacy?" series of articles is thus of special interest to the disabled because in these articles TNC seems to have discarded functional evaluation of culture—particularly middle class culture—for an ad hominem validation of uncivil subcultures.

In "Other People's Pathologies", TNC writes,

It’s very nice to talk about “middle-class values” when that describes your small, limited world. But when your grandmother lives in one hood and your coworkers live another, you generally need something more than “middle-class values.” You need to be bilingual.

TNC's cite of Yoni Applebaum in "Black Pathology Crowdsourced" clarifies what he means:

Culture of Poverty is a label attached to a wide array of behaviors. There are behaviors—physical assertiveness—well-suited to that environment that may tend to inhibit success elsewhere.

This misleading critique of the civil culture of Western civilization—characterized by notably successful and peaceful societies—is familiar from the turbulent years of the counterculture. As David Lehman noted in Signs of the Times, “In a Marxist model of knowledge, the superstructure—the tangible products of culture—camouflages and reinforces the hidden reality of class warfare.”

"Physical assertiveness," contrary to TNC's subtle misdirection, is to be deprecated not because it is thought to pertain to an underclass, but because it is dysfunctional. Valuable sectors of any society—women, children, for example—can scarcely compete where the criterion is physical advantage. That is why bullying is in disrepute.

As part of this general theme Coates has been critiquing President Obama for calling for black parents to teach responsibility to their children. In Andrew Sullivan's blog The Dish, a bi-racial parent looks at both sides of the "assertiveness" and responsibility issues:

    It seems like the Dish posts on school suspensions and the argument between Coates and Chait regarding [it] are linked. Let me share an example.

    My kids go to a small Catholic school in the south suburbs of Chicago. I personally chose the school because it provided a solid Catholic education and it is diverse. Many of the schools in this area are all white or all black. I didn’t like either of those options for my kids. I grew up in a very diverse area and want my kids to experience the same thing.

    Unfortunately, discipline problems had progressively been on the rise before the principal resigned last summer. Also unfortunately, many of the kids who have been involved in these discipline problems are African American. They range from calling a teacher a bitch to bringing a knife to school to assaulting a much younger (and white) child in a bathroom.

    I’m bi-racial, so I have a kinda distinctive view of the dynamics within the community of the school, which unfortunately is often self segregating. I remember a school function where most white parents sat on one side of the gym while most black parents sat on the other. Since I hadn’t grown up around here and wasn’t used to such a thing, it was very jarring for me. I walk with comfort on both sides of the spectrum, but I would say most here don’t, for whatever reason. It has sometimes been very difficult to get black and white parents together for social events, such as fundraisers.

    The parents of students who live in the neighborhood of the school – which is upper-middle class to downright rich and mostly white – have been very disturbed by the recent discipline issues. There has been a call to be much harsher with punishment, and some want to make the school exclusively Catholic. But that really isn’t workable, because the school has suffered through enrollment declines in recent years due to the economy, and shutting some kids out would probably mean shutting down the school. Catholic schools all over the nation are shutting down in alarming numbers.

    Here’s the problem if you are a non-African American parent: how do you voice your concern with these issues without being viewed as a racist by some (though not all) black parents at the school? Is there an underlying cultural issue that makes it more likely that kids who are non-Catholic and who come to the school from outside the neighborhood will end up having discipline problems? I don’t know the answer, but it is worth thinking about. There are parents here who are racist, who revel in bringing up such issues behind closed doors at parties and such. But I’m not one of them. How do I demand safety for my kids without being tarred with the ugly “racist” label? It really is a tight rope walk.

    This is why I welcome the president making these speeches. He has a credibility that people like me can’t possibly have, despite the fact that I’m very active at the school with both ends of the spectrum. At some point, people like me who are not racist should be able to point out issues like discipline problems at school or poor service at business establishments on the merits without having to worry about the race issue hanging over our heads. I don’t see that happening in the near future. Maybe Barack Obama can help. He’s surely trying, which I appreciate. I voted for the man twice on issues that have nothing to do with this one, but I do like his personal responsibility stance on this.

    I’ve always been a fan of TNC and his writing, especially his historical perspectives. But it seems to me lately that he has fallen to the Jackson/Sharpton point of view, which I find disappointing. Racism is definitely everywhere. I’ve seen it personally, having a father who was DARK brown. I’ve seen it in my own neighborhood from people who I’m friendly with (and from BOTH races). Still, it would seem like blaming the plight of African Americans today solely on white supremacy would be like blaming WWI on one cause. There can be more than one cause.

Coates' position seems to be faux “realism.” The existence of brutish, criminal 'hoods or subcultures does not delegitimize civility or middle class ethics, it illustrates the need for them.

TNC once saw the founders as “reluctant slaveholders.” (In "Why We Fight" he wrote, "Jefferson's generation were, to some extent, reluctant slaveholders. (I shudder writing that.)") He now appears to claim, as one observer said, "that George Washington’s presidency means nothing more than his being a slaveholder."


In Very Hard Choices Spider Robinson wrote, “'The Constitution and Bill of Rights are among the most enlightened political documents the human race has produced so far, and its people are, so help me, some of the kindest who have yet walked the earth. . . . So far nobody's ever been as ashamed of their own racism as we are.'” Ta-Nehisi Coates pretends that one half of the picture does not exist. There are still white supremacists, but to assert over and over, as Coates is doing, that that defines our multiracial society, is to fail to give credit to the most important fact. What he characterizes as a supremacist nation listened to Martin Luther King, then passed the Omnibus Civil Rights Act. If this had not happened, it is unlikely that Coates would be, as his employer states, "a national correspondent at The Atlantic."

Because on balance this is not a white supremacist nation, Coates has the platform from which he claims, as he seems to, that we are always and only racists.