An article in today’s New York Post, that deleterious rag, offers the provoking headline: “Rich Manhattan Moms Hire Handicapped Tour Guides so Kids Can Cut Lines at Disney World”. Gotcha! By God! What a scandal! Something’s rotten in the Magic Kingdom! I smell perfervid mendacity and liniment. Christ! I’m about to faint. And then I read: “Some wealthy Manhattan moms have figured out a way to cut the long lines at Disney World — by hiring disabled people to pose as family members so they and their kids can jump to the front, The Post has learned.” “Hortense, get the smelling salts! The cripples are conning Minnie and Mickey! Help, Hortense, I have the vapors!”
Yep, there’s some real investigative journalism. Forget the dubious claim that people with disabilities are posing as family members–it might actually be true, but let’s be clear–the tour guide in question who uses a wheel chair, has the right to earn an honest living. If her wheelchair gets her and her charges to the head of a line, well, whoop dee do. The article is piffle, jazzed up, electrified, powered by the oldest ableist outrage of them all–the notion that there are people faking disability.
But on the other hand, a wheel chair using tour guide has a right to work. Period. Who says there’s a real scandal? Judge for yourselves. I think the reporting is rather weak when it comes to supporting its claims. All of which leads me to my point: there’s a lot of able bodied outrage going on right now in the US. It’s all over the place. The cripples are getting all kinds of advantages. Whether the source is NPR or Planet Money or creepy editorials arguing that children with learning disabilities are amateur criminals tricking school systems into giving them unwarranted accommodations–the list is legion and growing.
The Post? Not a reliable source when it comes to disability. Trust me.
Planet of the Blind 