People with disabilities are discriminated against and oppressed when people, especially those with power and influence, develop ideas, practices, and policies based on misinformation, myths, and misbeliefs about people with diverse disabilities.
An example of a misbelief would be when mainstream society believes that people with disabilities don't contribute to the community, that we are only a burden to the community!
This practice of discrimination and oppression is not limited to people with disabilities. It is done to other groups of people as well, such as Black America, other people of color, and other marginalized groups such as older Americans, as they age.
There is a term used referred to as Truthiness that better explains this thinking, I refer to it also as "stinking thinking." Truthiness ( Stinking Thinking) is defined by Merriam-Webster, as a truthful or seemingly truthful quality that is claimed for something not because of supporting facts or evidence, but because of a feeling that it is true or a desire for it to be true. Stephen Colbert puts it this way, "They are gut thinkers, and they put forth their ideas, beliefs, and policies regardless of the facts by asserting the defense "that is how I see it. I have a right to my opinion, and we will just have to agree to disagree." (The Colbert Report," October 2005).
And as I mentioned earlier, this "stinking thinking" becomes very harmful when people with power and influence start developing practices and policies based on this "stinking thinking," which leads to the traditions, customs, and behaviors that direct our day-to-day lives.
We start not to even to see discrimination and oppression. It becomes a way of life. It is how White America became used to separate facilities, drinking fountains, etc..., in the Deep South.
Discrimination and oppression became invisible to them!
Even today, only a few see it with Black America and other people of color and also other ethnic groups.
Even today, we are used to treating people with disabilities differently, and it has just become a way of life — it becomes okay to do these things below:
- Put young people with disabilities into nursing homes; to separate children with disabilities in our schools (special education), away from other children without disabilities (normal students as you refer to them)
- Students with intellectual disabilities are cheered for by the whole school when we make a special effort to let them play in a basketball or football game — but the same students are shunned and left out the remaining 364 days of the year.
- Should I dare mention the Special Olympic — I sense your disappointment in me (how could he dislike the Special Olympic — that's another blog);
- We create senior and disabled high rises or living group facilities so that we know where the marginalized groups are kept similar to knowing where our prisons are located.
- We built our homes and stores with steps and stairs, with narrow doors and without other accessible features, knowing this will leave out a certain segment of undesirable elements (people with disabilities). Did you know that the supreme court, at one time, referred to people with disabilities as "undesirables elements?"
These things are done because of the "stinking thinking" of believing people with disabilities are not as valuable as societies' abled bodies (normal) people.
As society genuinely begins to believe that black lives matter (you are getting there), and they do! Start also considering that people with disabilities matter! Or, Is this too much to ask?
