Of all the bullying Donald Trump has done during his political life, the incident that sticks out in the minds of many voters is the sight of him mocking a reporter with a congenital disease (NBC News online, 8/11/2016). Even when people aren’t bothered by Trump’s bullying of people in general, it seems most of us are upset to think that anyone would bully a person with a handicap.
Perhaps that incident encouraged us to get our act together and become more inclusive of our disabled neighbors. Lately we seem to be better at seeing people for their abilities and their fundamental humanity.
The 2018 Gerber baby is a child with Down syndrome. Kids with Down syndrome are appearing in ads for nationally known brands, clothing chains and toy stores. Fashion shows and beauty pageants this past year have featured women with cognitive impairments.
These are examples of inclusion. They also reflect back to us how much we have been excluding people because of their differences.
A group of young people with disabilities made a very funny video for You Tube to tell the rest of us that “special needs” is the wrong phrase. The message is that people with disabilities need friends, love, education, jobs and opportunities – just like everyone else.
Speaking of jobs, one young man with Down syndrome started his own sock-making business with his dad. In Wilmington, North Carolina and Charleston, South Carolina, you can find coffee shops that employ only people with disabilities. Tim’s Place in Albuquerque is a successful diner owned and operated by a man with Down’s syndrome.
One of the things I have learned about Donald Trump over these past three years is that he is afraid of anyone, anyone who is not like him. He is afraid of ideas that are not his own making, facts that disturb his own concepts of the world. He lives in a self-made universe where he feels is safe and does not have to be afraid.
Except it is terrifying to live there as President. Day after day he is reminded of what he fears: people of color, people who don’t like him, strong women, smart people who know how to read and understand complex information, people who have personal power that comes from moral conviction rather than wealth.
His fears show up in his lack of respect for people in general, for factual information, for the meaning of this democracy and for the history of nations. He is caught up in ensuring that his world is filled with people like him, people who share his beliefs. He tells lies to protect himself from anyone and anything that does not live in his world.
This is the price we, too, pay when we seek ways to barricade ourselves against people who are not like us: people who speak Spanish in restaurants, people who wear turbans or saris, people whose skin is brown or black, people with disabilities. The cost of the barricade is constant fear.
Instead of making us less afraid of “the other,” the one who is not like us, we become more fearful when we try to push them away. Keeping one or two categories of people out of our own immediate world leads to trying to keep more and more people out – out of our schools and neighborhoods, then out of our towns, then out of our country.
As Trump’s behavior shows, you can’t barricade yourself against having to deal with people who are different. Most of the people in the world are different from you. They live in all neighborhoods, all towns, all countries. They are parents, colleagues, teachers, politicians, bankers, waiters and so on.
Did you happen to see the recent You Tube video of disabled youths in Germany who formed an orchestra using iPads? A group of children who could not easily hold and control an instrument were able to produce the sound of an orchestra using technology.
In some places in this country, school bands include children of mixed abilities. Children who are skilled instrumentalists march alongside children with cognitive impairments who can bang on a drum, make loud sounds or otherwise enjoy the noisy beat of a band.
Japan just elected two people with profound disabilities to their government. One is a woman with cerebral palsy, the other a gentleman with ALS (Japan Times, on line, 7/21/19). Someday someone with a profound disability will be elected president. The barriers some people have built against the disabled will be of no use to them then.
It seems as if many of us are moving on to a place where society reflects all of us in all of our differences. We realize we need to get busy living our own lives fully. We need to speak our own truths. We need to let everyone else do the same.
In order to live this way, we expect to be challenged. We expect our differences to create disequilibrium, making us feel a bit uncomfortable sometimes. We even prefer to live that way, rather than building barricades.
Rob
July 28, 2019 1:40 amWell said as usual!
One very slight correction. You mention that someday we will have a president with a disability. We are already dead – the longest serving president ever, Franklin Roosevelt. What was noteworthy, however, was that he believed he had to always cover up his paralysis by rarely being photographed in a wheelchair. Here he was in a perfect position to champion the rights of the disabled and he did just the opposite. From a negative standpoint, what would one have expected differently from a man that totally denied the rights of American citizens by putting them in so-called internment camps. FDR was truly one of our greatest presidents with the social and economic programs he put in place, as well as leading the successful war effort. Yet, for some of his Trump-like policies, myregard for him has severely diminished as the years have gone by.
admin
July 28, 2019 1:38 pmI was aware of FDR as I wrote, but his would not be described as a profound disability, nor would someone today try to cover up the need for a wheelchair for mobility, using crutches, etc. Both politicians from Japan that I mentioned have profound disabilities.
Keep cheering me on, Rob! I cherish your support.