Obama’s Papers and Human Legitimacy: It’s Human Rights, Stupid

As a person with a disability I’ve been told all my life that I don’t belong in certain settings. I wrote a book about this. Every person who hails from a historically marginalized position knows this story. As a university professor I have sought to integrate disability issues into the broader multi-cultural dynamics of diversity on campus, largely because I believe that discrimination against any one group generally creates the conditions for broader discriminatory activity. These are my views, tested over time, views qualified only to the extent that I have compassion for people who discriminate owing to insufficiencies of experience or education rather than calculation. The professor who doesn’t understand the ADA or his duties to teach in an accessible way can be excused for an initial mistake. It’s the repeated and acculturated manners of discrimination that trouble me, both in my role as an educator and as a citizen.

When I was in graduate school many years ago a professor of English told me I didn’t belong in his class because of my blindness. That professor is long dead but I remember that ugly moment as though it was yesterday. I also recall going to the chair of the department and reporting this. He in turn told me that I was a “whiner”. I then went to the campus Ombudsperson who managed to do nothing. Finally I hired an attorney and extracted a formal apology from the university. This was long before the advent of the ADA. But even today, twenty plus years since the signing of that law, students with disabilities experience similar painful expressions of faculty intolerance. Unfortunately these stories remain legion. As an educator I remain mindful of the de-legitimization of people with disabilities because I know full well that this kind of “ranking” suggests broader problems of discrimination. When a kid with an intellectual disability is told to go away it’s also easy to rationalize doing less for other students whose “difference” places challenges on traditional teaching.

Donald Trump’s demand that President Obama produce his birth certificate has logically “morphed” into his ever louder denunciation of Mr. Obama’s intellectual achievements. Both of these subjects are really the same subject—they speak to a starkly racist mind set, a racist construction of social hierarchy that resents inclusion. I have always believed that de-legitimizing an African-American president through overtly discriminatory rhetoric is the sole enterprise of the “birthers” and their circle. I’m in no way remarkable for saying this, plenty of good writers and public figures have said this all along—my only deviation from the general condemnation of the ugliness comes from my experience as a person with a disability. I too have been told to show my papers. Being asked to demonstrate your legitimacy is never a value neutral matter. As a legally blind person I’ve had to produce paper work for professors, paper work from Ophthalmologists saying I can’t see though I wear glasses. I still have to produce an ID to prove that my guide dog is a real guide dog. People with disabilities know a lot about being made into conditional citizens. In this way all people with disabilities share the experience of African-American citizens. You never know when you’re going to be devalued. But its ugly and always painful.

When I saw Donald Trump yesterday speculating about President Obama’s academic legitimacy I saw a man whose discriminatory judgments are not the products of a deficient education—they are purely a calculation. Call it what you will. I see it as blanket racism. It’s so close to ableism it gives me the shivers.

S.K.

Author: stevekuusisto

Poet, Essayist, Blogger, Journalist, Memoirist, Disability Rights Advocate, Public Speaker, Professor, Syracuse University View all posts by stevekuusisto