Category: Disability Perspectives

Once, in

London

I found myself at Westminster Abbey and standing by the gates as the Queen was going in.

As I walked through the crowd people stepped out of my way because of my white cane—and so of course I kept walking toward the sound of bells.

Here is the truth of the matter: the queen of

England

has flat feet. I heard how she walks.

The bells of the abbey and the stubborn feet of royalty make a strange syncopation I tell you.

The queen’s feet were like wet bread and the bells made a music of stars laughing because stars over London can laugh sometimes.

S.K.

Alright, I’m in the woods and my "dial-up" connection is tenuous at best. "What," you might ask, "Have I been doing?" In the spirit of full disclosure I have been kissing my rock and working on an odd little book for the AARP–a "how to have fun" kind of book that is designed to promote the art of conversation. Asking me to write a book about conversation is a silly thing since I’m able to talk to a pine stump with mutualism intact. I am sufficiently self-delusional enough to believe the stump is correspondingly gratified. One lives by the myths that get the job done. Last night I talked to a water spider down on the dock. He was about the size of a hockey puck and he had variegated and complex gray hairs. How do I know that? Oh don’t ask.

Just FYI the water spider doesn’t believe that the movie "Tropic Thunder" is worth two flies since it demeans consciousness in all its forms. My spider also said that he once went on a vacation with Robert Downey Jr. and although he’s sworn to secrecy about the matter he can report that Mr. Downey can really hang from a web. Oh don’t ask.

I don’t like the pejoratibve use of the "r" word any more than I like the ugly employment of other slurs and I freely admit that in a free society one must be allowed to create drivel since this is the admission price for free expression. See Plato. But I don’t have to like it. And in case anybody wonders if I’ve changed my tune over the years all I can say is that when I was a college sophomore and first saw Mel Brooks’ "Blazing Saddles" I was pretty darned uncomfortable with his use of the "n" word throughout that flick–even as I understood that satirical comedy aims to make a democratic hash out of every form of imbecility.

I don’t like the "n" word and I don’t like the "r" word though I will defend the right of imbeciles to say what they want. The larger trouble is that Hollywood has such a miserable track record when it comes to depicting people with disabilities and so the further imposition of demeaning language into an already impoverished cultural misapprehension of cognitive disabilities is unfortunate.

If you protest Dreamworks use of the "r" word you will look thin skinned and humorless. If you don’t protest it you are in essence lying down under a heavy blanket of cultural abjection–a matter made all the worse by the erosion nation wide of public school programs for kids with learning disabilities.

So while I have a spider to talk to, and a rock, and even a beloved yellow Labrador for Heaven’s sake, I’m not a "happy camper" when I think of Mr. Downey Jr. or the pettifogging cold blooded roaylty at Dreamworks.

I say this as a person who in public school was freely called "retarded" because I couldn’t see.

Once, about twenty five years ago, and for no obvious reason, I was invited to dinner with a famous Irish classical musician. We somehow got onto the topic of "the Kennedys" and this world renowned performer said that he’d once shaken the hand of one of the Kennedy brothers–though I don’t remember now which one–and he said that he felt a "large, soft, pillow-y hand that had never pulled a potato!"

Well that’s esentially what I think of Robert Downey Jr. Save that I’m thinking of his head. There’s a head that’s never been troubled by Donizetti’s "Requiem" or Boolian algebra, or much else that stands beyond the vodka shelf over at aisle B.

As for Dreamworks, am I the only one who thinks their pixelated dopey cloying sub-Cartesian two dimensional cartoon allegories for grownups are the epitaphs for critical thinking? Okay. I do sound like Neil Postman. Yes. And I never liked Disney either. I do however like Kate Smith. I love it when she sings "the oceans flecked with foam" and I guess I better stop there.

S.K.

Every now and then we receive interesting electronic bulletins from groups and organizations around the planet and this one, from the Orange County Deaf Advocacy Center in California struck us as being quite timely. The goal of the legislation mentioned below is to make it possible for people with disabilities who are currently being institutionalized to return to their communities. Apparently Sen. John McCain doesn’t approve; Sen. Obama is a supporter of the plan.

From the Orange County Deaf Advocacy Center Newsletter – July 17, 2008

THE TOP STORY OF THE WEEK

Denver ADAPT met with the Republican presumptive presidential
candidate John McCain at a Town Hall Meeting today. Six members of
ADAPT, including teenagers from the Summer Youth Program, sat in the
front of the auditorium to listen to McCain’s policies for his
administration. When he took comments from the audience he handed the
microphone to Dawn Russell. She explained the legislation called the
Community Choice Act and asked him why he was not signed on. Mr.
McCain stated he would not support the legislation. He then offered
several poor reasons for his decision and ended by saying we would
have to let the voters decide that one. Having recaptured the
microphone he did state he supported the ADA, but had no interest in
hearing that the ADA was entirely different from the CCA.

ADAPT encourages you to attend McCain’s campaign events and continue
to challenge him to support the CCA! Show him disability rights
supporters across the USA believe in real choice, believe in CCA and
believe he needs to do the same. CCA supports family values, it
supports putting control in the hands of the individual instead of
Government, it supports states’ ability to use limited Medicaid funds
for community services which people prefer and which are more cost
effective. These are all consistent with Republican values, as well
as consistent with American values.

Presumptive Presidential Candidate Barak Obama has signed on as a
co-sponsor to the bill already.

Brought to you by the Orange County Deaf Advocacy Center

Http://www.deafadvocacy.org

S.K.

I am teaching a film course this summer at the University of Iowa. I imagine that for one or two students the sight on day one of a blind professor entering the classroom (replete with a guide dog) was a minor surprise.

I like to think this was a "minor" surprise because I choose to think that we have come a long, long way as a nation when it comes to how we think about people with disabilities in general and blind people in particular.

When I say that I "like" to think these are the new conditions I’m really saying that I’ve learned to see the glass as being just a little more than half full.

That’s a position rather than a verifiable condition. I recognize the difference.

Speaking on behalf of blind and visually impaired people I know that the struggles that we face are steep and often quite enervating. Doors lack Braille signage; guide dogs are misunderstood by store owners or cab drivers;audio and video technologies are not properly accessible for blind users; the blind have a higher degree of unemployment and a greater likelihood of not matriculating in higher education. There are so many problems. The way forward still appears steep, even in the 21^{st century in America.}

Last evening Katie Couric of CBS News interviewed Governor David Paterson of New York about his experiences over the past 100 days—a traditional period of political "seasoning" in the United States—yet her questions were largely focused on the Governor’s blindness.

The conditional nature of blindness became the true subject of her presentation: Governor Paterson’s "vision"for New York was not under discussion. His assessment of the state’s economy or its pressing difficulties when it comes to assisting the eroding middle class were not part of the interview.

Instead Katie Couric wanted to know how the Governor processes information.

I think the glass is more than half full but really, after almost two centuries during which we have understood in western societies that blind people are indeed literate and therefore are capable of reasoning, this line of questioning or observation was really out of step with the times—"our times"—and by turns, such reporting does a disservice to the blind at large. I wish this wasn’t the case. I like the glass with more Malbek grapes in it. I like the notion that the broader American public is better informed and better educated about disability than this CBS interview would suggest.

And So I choose to imagine that we are farther along the road when it comes to thinking about disability in cultural terms.

In my film class this week we looked at one of the foundational American films concerning blindness—" The Miracle Worker" which is still a great film. That movie introduced to the broad American public the story of Annie Sullivan and Helen Keller. Sullivan fought hard to teach the young Helen Keller the very precepts of language—the foundations of consciousness. That was a profoundly important story "then" and it’s a important story "now"—save with this one difference. We know that the blind and the "blind-deaf" can read, correspond, "talk" and play like other citizens.

We do know that, don’t we?

Let me continue to think the glass is at least a little more than half full.

S.K.

I saw the report this morning about the death of Esmin Green who died in the emergency room of a New York City psychiatric hospital.

Her death was preserved on surveillance tape. If you’re a sighted person you can watch the video at ABC News: http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=5284151&page=1

This is horrifying footage for it shows two security officers and a doctor walking in and out of the emergency room where Mrs. Green was lying "in extremis" on the floor. They ignored her very presence and she subsequently died. It is no exaggeration to say that this woman’s death is a direct result of the corrupt behavior of the hospital’s staff.

Was her race the problem? Was her mental illness and her race the problem? Was her status as an American in question because her home country was Jamaica? Was she the wrong height or weight for medical care? Was she forced to wait for 24 hours in the emergency room because she was insufficiently personable, convenient, clean, soulful, wise, or articulate?

Only the corporate ownership of this Brooklyn psychiatric facility can explain how a human being, a fellow child of God could be treated with such inhumane inaction. 24hours awaiting a bed! And left alone to die on a floor.

Already we hear that the doctor in question has been relieved of his duties. I should say this is not enough. Prison time and the loss of a medical license is the bare minimum for such terrifying behavior.

Or will the perpetrators of this offence against morality and medical ethics be allowed to "walk" because , after all, in American health care circles "you get what you pay for?"

Esmin Green was mentally ill and awaiting a bed.

What did those hospital employees say to themselves upon seeing Mrs. Green on the floor after a full day of waiting for care? Did they say like Scrooge:

Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?

S.K.

Continue reading “Of Medicine and Scrooge”