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]]>He knew he was different. From the time he was very young, he knew.
The story his mother told again and again was pretty amusing to Keith. She'd say that when she was pregnant with him he moved around a lot, that he kicked, poked and prodded at her.
She’d smile and make a face of annoyance when she told her story. She’d say,“I knew you’d be trouble,” in her most poetic voice.
By the time he was a toddler she had already taken to making excuses.
“He’s not bad,” she’d tell them, in her most matter-of-fact tone, as the other mothers took their children and walked away from them. “He’s just misunderstood.”
He knew then he was different. I knew, too.
He was just about seven when his mother received the first phone call.
“Mrs. Tifton, we need to speak. Keith is in my office and he’s disrupted the class while they were taking a test. We have tried, time and time again. It’s quite obvious by Keith’s total disregard for authority figures that there are deep issues. This is what we need to address today. Please come in. Keith will be waiting in my office.”
Principal Franchi placed the phone on the cradle and shook her finger in Keith’s direction. “You are in big trouble, Keith.”
Kicking at the sides of the large wooden chair, oblivious to his surroundings, his mind took a journey to faraway places. While music played within his head out of sounds from the past, he looked quite puzzled when he asked, “Why, Ms. Franchi?” He kicked at the chair and fumbled with his hands.
She moved quickly from behind her desk and pointed at him. “You’re a bad boy, and you need discipline.”
Keith was still kicking at the legs of the chair when she moved her foot to stop his shoe from connecting with the wooden leg. Again, Keith was puzzled. He sat with his head down. He began to fist clap into his hand. One hand and then the other, repeatedly. Keith thought it was quite musical.
Clop, Clap, Clop, Clap. Clop, Clap.
When Ms. Franchi approached, Keith did not hear her. Se grabbed both his hands. “Stop it now! Stop it! Can’t you sit quietly?” She squeezed firmly. Keith looked up to see the scowl upon her unpleasant face.
His mother arrived shortly after Ms. Franchi’s phone call. Keith was able to tell by the look on his mother's face that she was not at all pleased. Her usual fun-loving demeanor had turned to bitter frustration. Ms. Franchi approached and told the story of Keith’s disruption. How he had finished the test and handed it in before any other students were done. Nodding her head, Keith’s mother waited to hear about the disastrous deed.
Taking some official-looking papers from her desk, Ms. Franchi said, “I’d like to say that I’m not surprised by this behavior. We have had students in the past with similar problems."
She handed the papers to Keith’s mother. “We cannot have children walking around the classroom whenever they want. We cannot have cheating in our school. Please call the numbers on the first page to make an appointment to have Keith tested for learning and discipline difficulties. We have an excellent Special Ed program that handles students such as Keith.”
She placed her hand upon Keith’s mother's. “There is no shame in obtaining help for a special needs child.”
Keith’s mother seemed to have blanked out during Ms. Franchi’s comments. “I believe you said that my son had finished the test and handed it in," she said. "How then, did he cheat? If he finished before the rest of the class, how then?”
Before she could continue, Ms. Franchi interrupted. “Yes, it is true that Keith completed the test before the other students. What he did after was walk around the classroom giving everyone the answers to the test. This type of behavior will not be tolerated in my school.”
Keith’s mother walked over and took him by the hand. She turned to Ms. Franchi. “You mean to tell me that my son, who was obviously bored, helped the other students in his class after he had completed his test? Is that what this is all about? Your school and your teachers cannot handle someone so bright and curious, you need to condemn him and label him? You have got to be kidding!”
She and Keith walked toward the door.
“Mrs. Tifton, this is not helping matters any," said Ms. Franchi as she followed them to the door. "Keith was wrong. He cannot sit still, he is fidgety and disruptive. How can the other students learn? Keith continues to disrupt the class.”
“Perhaps the children would learn if they had the appropriate materials, environment and qualified teachers!" said Keith's mother, spinning around to face Ms. Franchi. Whatever happened to teachers who actually cared about their students, instead of shoving them into a 'Special Ed' classroom?”
With her finger extended, her jaw twitching as it did when when she got very angry, Keith’s mother told Ms. Franchi that she would be home schooling Keith for the rest of the year.
Keith and his mother continued to walk toward the stairwell, stopping only long enough for his mother to toss the forms and papers into the trash.
“Now Keith, Let’s go get some ice cream,” said his mother, as the color came back into her cheeks and her beautiful smile returned.
This was the beginning of Keith’s nightmare. His punishment for being different.
“Keith! Keith!” Ms. Omado slammed the book down onto his desk. “Keith!”
Startled, he sat straight up in the chair and slowly opened his eyes as he came back to the present. “Yes, Ms. Omado. How can I help you?” He slipped his sly smile at her.
“Don’t get cute with me! You were daydreaming again. Take this math worksheet and complete it. You will be the first person I call on.” She slid the sheet onto his desk and headed toward the other students.
Oh God, she’s got to be kidding. She wants me to add fruit. I need to get the hell out of this class.
Raising his hand, he called out, “Ms. Omado! Ms. Omado…..”
Nothing. She was ignoring him.
“Hey, Teach…”
By the look on her face as she spun around, Keith took it that she was pissed. He could not help but laugh. This she did not appreciate. His classmates joined in, and this infuriated Ms. Omado even further.
Keith sat in the back of the class, where he felt safer and more in control. He looked around at his classmates. Danny caught his eye as he rocked back and forth, laughing and snorting at Keith’s calling out. Shelly grabbed her thermos, looking around, making sure no one could see her sipping at the Bacardi she had mixed in with fruit punch. Tommy picked up his chair and starting swinging it around and above his head.
Oh Christ, here we go again…
As Keith took cover under his desk, Ms. Omado grabbed the two-way and called for backup behavioral techs and security. Peering from under his desk, Keith saw Manny running toward the front desk in hopes of obtaining the stapler that he loved to use on the rest of the class. Keith had been stapled several times.
“Keith, your behavior . . . is the reason you are in this class. I know you think you are better than anyone else here, but you’re not. This is the work you will do when you are in my class." She waved the worksheets in the air.
“Remember, this is a self-contained classroom and the reason that each and every one of you are here is . . . how should I put this to make sure you fully understand? You students are here because you are all predators, and the rest of the students in the school are your prey. . . We protect the others by keeping you here. You students are in this class because you all have one disability or another, and the end result is. . . You need to be locked in until you learn to socialize with the rest of society. Now, do your work.”
Keith did not feel better after Ms. Omado’s speech .Keith was angry.
“Bitch!”
Keith’s mind started to drift. It did that when he was upset or did not want to deal with an issue.
Chucky Cheese….Basketball….Normal classes…Accelerated Classes….Jet Planes…Donna…hmmm…Donna.
Smiling, he snapped out of it and began to do the math worksheet. In a matter of 20 seconds he had completed the worksheet. What a joke.
With a smug look on her face, Ms. Omado called on him. “Keith, what is the answer to question number 5?”
“Fruit Salad,” he replied, pulling out his Honors Algebra math book.
Flinging her hands up in the air, she approached and grabbed his book.
From that moment on Keith could barely remember what happened next. All he knew was that he ended up in the Blue Room.
Blue. Blue seeps slowly from the sweat-stained thick rubber mat. Keith can smell the essence of the color. It travels through his mind like a poison; killing him slowly, that color blue. His face pressed firmly into it. His nose and mouth engulfed by the material. He smells it. Blue. The texture of the mat forms over and around his features. He had become one with this blue material. The musky smell envelopes his face. Between the strong odor and the pressure of being smothered by Him, darkness winds around his mind. He forces his head deeper into the mat with his large hulk like hands. Keith lies limp and helpless. Thinking the entire time: if he hurts me or even kills me, they would find no defensive wounds. Mr. Paul, the descendent of Hitler, would be arrested and tried for my death.
This is the only thought that keeps Keith going; that and the words from 50 Cent’s song. He now thinks of those words, changing them to fit his current situation:
I wish he would just step over the line a bit, just once. He would have no where to hide and this injustice would be brought to light. The Bastard.
Mr. Paul grabs a handful of Keith’s long dark curls. Keith lifts his head off the mat, and as he does, Mr. Paul pulls. Hair falls onto Keith’s face. He can feel the roots ripped from his scalp. The pain, the pain, unbearable.
Each extracted root brought tears to Keith’s eyes. As he gritted his teeth, he breathed in deeper; his nails digging into the mat to hold back the tears.
I will not cry. I will not give him the satisfaction. I need an escape. I need a song to escape this madness. I need a song to escape this blue were his thoughts as Mr. Paul pressed harder.
I need you to pray for me and
I need you to care for me and
I need you to want me to win
I need to know where I'm heading,'cause I know where I've been
He loved the lyrics of 50 Cent. Keith felt he could feel what 50 Cent felt through his music. Keith needed to escape. Please let it take me away from the blue.
Come through your strip, fronting, stunting
It's something you want, 745 chrome spinnin'
Haters hate that I'm winnnin' . . .
With the lyrics of 50 Cent spinning around in his head, Keith feels Mr. Paul’s bulky knee pressing into the middle of his back even harder. The mixture of sweat and tears burns his eyes. He tries to concentrate on the words from the song. If he can just concentrate, he can make this asshole disappear.
Mr. Paul presses his face deeper into the mat. “Say Uncle, you punk, or I’ll make you eat the mat." The words barely reach Keith’s ears as the constant pressing of his head into the mat muffles the sounds. Waves of pain form within and around him. He can hear sounds but cannot make out the words.
Damn. Shit, can’t he just go away? Think. Think, concentrate….
The words come rushing through his head:
Right now I'm on the edge
So don't push me
I aim straight for your head
So don't push me
Fill your ass up with lead
So don't push me . . .
Mr. Paul finally releases Keith and, laughing, pushes him up against the blue mat on the wall. “You’re not all that tough, are you?” He he walks out, locking the door behind him.
Screw you, Mr. Paul. Keith catches his breath.
As he pries his eyes open, the first thing he sees is blue. That damn Blue surrounds him. It covers the walls and the entire floor. He can smell it. He feels it. He sees it. It will never leave him. The color, the feel, the smell, and taste of blue will long stay with him.
As he rolls over, he can see nothing but blue. A nauseating feeling overwhelms his entire body as the wretched foul smell of sweat and thick rubber mixed with industrial disinfectant fills his nasal path. Keith forces himself into a kneeling position to vomit. Crawling to the other side of the room he falls into a fetal position welcoming solace and sleep.
Hours later his slumber is interrupted. A large, rough hiking boot nudges at his face. “Ok, blue boy, the cheese bus is here to take your ass home. Get up, you punk and get out of here.”
Startled, Keith jumps up in one swooping movement and leaves the room. Running to the classroom to gather his belongings, he hears Mr. Paul call out, “Don’t forget to take your meds tomorrow, or you’re back in the Blue Room.”
The tech snickers as he walks past Keith.
Grabbing his backpack, Keith walks swiftly out the door. Grays, creams and pale yellows dawn the halls and are a refreshing sight for Keith. He smiles as he walks out into the gleaming sunshine. Keith embraces the series of colors. He breathes it in. He feels it.
The big yellow bus shines like gold as the light hits it at just the right angle. The light trickles from the sky to illuminate what Keith likes to call his “golden chariot.” Even the high-pitched screech of unfolding doors fails to bother him today. His only thought is, “I’m out.”
Mr. Dixie walks down the three steps of the bus, extending his hand to greet him. His gesture always puts a huge grin on Keith’s face. Hearing the words, “Good afternoon, Mr. Keith. Did you make good choices today?” gives Keith a feeling of familiar comfort.
“Apparently not, Mr. Dixie, and good afternoon to you.”
“Oh, Mr. Keith, what happened this time?” Mr. Dixie asks as they step onto the bus.
Mr. Dixie takes the driver's seat and Keith the front seat. Their routine for the past year has worked well for them both. Mr. Dixie has the utmost respect for Keith. Keith enjoys the camaraderie and the mutual respect they have for each other.
“Well, Mr. Dixie, It seems that the extreme difficulty of Ms. Omado’s mathematical handout got the best of me today.”
“Oh, Mr. Keith, do tell!” Mr. Dixie pulls the bus into the street.
“While trying to interpret the reasoning behind adding several different fruits, I was asked the question, 'What is the answer to adding four apples, two pears and five oranges?'
"I simply answered, 'Fruit Salad.'"
Keith can hear Mr. Dixie’s snicker as he approaches the intersection.
“. . . and at that point," Keith continues, "Ms. Omado snatched the worksheet from me and tore it up, announcing that I would receive a 'failing grade.' Can you believe that?”
Keith raises his arms in disgust.
Through the rear-view mirror, Keith can see Mr. Dixie’s eyebrows rise. “Oh My, Mr. Keith, did this encounter warrant the Blue Room"?
“That particular situation did not . . . but….” Keith moves in his seat as he attempts to continue with his story.
“But?” Mr. Dixie sighs.
“Yes, when I pulled out my Honors Algebra book and attempted a few of the most difficult problems… .”
Mr. Dixie was actually laughing now. “Oh, Mr. Keith, you didn’t! You shouldn’t have! You are way too smart to put yourself in such a situation!”
Gently flipping the edge of his backpack, Keith continues the story. “Well, Ms. Omado grabbed the book from my desk and told me that I would not get it back for two weeks. That's when I stood up said, 'This is bullshit' and tossed the desk. That is what warranted a visit to the Blue Room.”
Keith hung his head down. “I am so sick and tired of being treated as if I were mentally challenged, with them giving me First Grade Work. They want to force me to take my medication. I hate the way it makes me feel. I hate not being ME. I just want to be me.”
Keith wanted to cry. He wanted to scream.
“I know, I know," Mr. Dixie soothed. "But in order for you to get through middle school, you must follow the rules.
"You are going to be something really great one day. You’re a good kid, they just don’t see it yet. You’re really special and one day your name will mean something, something to be real proud of." Mr. Dixie was using his most serious, parental voice and mannerisms. "Just bide your time. You’ll be out of there soon enough."
Keith smiled at Mr. Dixie as he looked at him through the rear-view mirror.
“Mr. Dixie, I have something else in mind, something more positive in regard to my emotional state and less insulting to my intelligence."
Mr. Dixie, still staring at Keith through the mirror, sees that Keith is very serious about this. This was not their usual banter and fluff on the way home from school. Keith was dead serious and Mr. Dixie knew it.
Keith’s mind drifted to the view outside. He was taken in by the vibrancy of color. Color intrigued him. Color stimulated his mind. The greenest grass, the most vibrant meadows pass as the bus flew down the boulevard toward Keith’s house. The row of white and yellow houses seem a smear to the eye and the black mailboxes intriguingly resemble one dynamic line as they speed down the road.
“I have something for Dixie Jr., " Keith continued. "You mentioned it was his birthday today, and I thought it nice to give him something." He pulled out a carefully wrapped package from his backpack.
“Mr. Keith, that is so nice, you didn’t have to,” said Mr. Dixie as he viewed the wrapping and smiled. Keith had used the Sunday comics section of the newspaper for the wrapping, each page layered and placed to form a symmetrical pattern.
Keith explains to Mr. Dixie that this the present is a working model of an experimental airplane that he had been working on.
“It runs on batteries and it is not at all dangerous. It runs quite well and I must say that I am very proud of it.”
As Keith described the small plane, and how it worked -- how he had designed it and put it together -- Mr. Dixie became excited.
“This is amazing. I am honored that you thought enough to give my son one of your original projects. He will love it. The craftsmanship, the design and the aerodynamics of structure -- they're all incredibly impressive. To think that your teacher is giving you first-grade work is astounding, downright shameful.”
Keith rises and shakes Mr. Dixie’s hand as he exits the bus.
Donna is on her porch and calls out to Keith.
“Keith! Hey, want to hang out later?” She is waving and smiling.
Keith looks over at Donna and smiles. That is the girl I’m going to marry.
Keith waves back. “Yes, later, after supper, OK?”
Donna runs her fingers through her hair as she nods and walks into her house.
As Keith reaches his front door it opens. His mother is standing there with a foul look on her face. “Keith! Why, Keith, why? I told you that we are working on a new IEP. You know I've involved the Governor's office -- and my next step would be to contact the newspapers. But actions like the ones today only prove that you have problems. Keith, you need to work with me, not against me."
Keith had a blank stare, but his face had an annoyed look. “Leave me alone! You don’t know anything about this.
"You make your damn phone calls and research your damn IEP’s and 504’s, but what about me? What about me? I’m friggin' tired of being treated like this, real tired of it!"
He stomped through the house and slammed his bedroom door.
The late November rain was thud, thudding on the windshield of the family car. Keith looked up from his gameboy to witness sheets of water falling from the sky. Light peeked from the clouds and formed the most amazing rainbow. Keith smiled as the rain brought beauty to what was to be the worst day of his life.
Keith’s dad slowed the car to crawl.
“Damn it, this will spoil the entire day," his mother shrieked.
Smiling, Keith thought of it as the highlight of his day.
“Don’t over-dramatize everything, Helen,” said his Dad, peering over at her.
“You know I just had my hair done, and the food will get wet by the time we get into my mother's house.”
“Fine. We might as well turn around and go home, then.”
He maneuvered the car with care.
“Jeffery, kiss my ass, you smug bastard.” Her scowl turned into fury on her face.
My father laughed, saying only, “Yeah. Later.”
Keith’s mother reached over and smacked his father on the arm, laughing with him.
Keith never could figure them out. They yell, they fight, then, it’s over. This one was mild compared to their usual outbreaks. He used to be so scared, so upset when they started -- now he finds it awfully amusing. It’s his sister Jenny, who's seven, who cries and hides when they start the yelling and fighting. She’ll learn to deal with it, as Keith had.
He looks over and sees that Jenny has that somber stare upon her face as her eyes fill with tears. Keith reached over and places his hand lightly on hers. “Jenny, it’s O.K., really.”
She pushes his hand away and turns to him with a vicious smug look. "Shut up, Keith, You’re stupid.”
“Die, you little brat.”
Jenny knows how much Keith hates being called stupid.
Their mother turns around in the front seat and smacks Keith. “Don't you ever, ever tell your sister to die -- ever. Do you hear me, Keith?”
The rain lets up and thoughts of an agonizing five or six hours at NaNa’s house are making his stomach churn.
“Yea, whatever…MOM.”
As the car turns onto the street where NaNa lives, Keith’s mother assumes her most direct and order-giving tone. “Pull onto the sidewalk in front of the house. I don’t want Jenny and me walking from down the block.”
“Yes, your Highness,” Dad bellows,
“Don’t you dare start with me, Jeffery. I’ll make your life a living hell if you do.” She slaps Keith’s dad’s arm again.
“As if it isn’t already,” his dad whispers.
Rolling his eyes, Keith tilts his head back, When will this all end?
His dad drove the car onto the sidewalk in front of NaNa’s house. Keith could hear the dog barking and the old screen door open as his mother turned to give them a final warning: “Kids, behave yourselves today. Keith, you just ignore anything said to you and smile. Let’s have a good time today.”
A good time? A good time? Ha! She has got to be kidding. It’s always like a horror show visiting NaNa.
Keith’s great aunt, TiTi, was standing at the door. “Late as usual. Why bother coming at all, Helen? Do you know how long your mother has been standing over the stove?” She grabbed Jenny and squeezed and kissed her cheeks.
“All day?” he heard his Mom reply.
Keith could not help but laugh as TiTi gave his mom a good swat on the arm when she walked in the house. There was a distinct odor, a combined smell of pine cleaner and the spaghetti sauce that had been simmering for hours.
The smell is strong, so strong he can taste the sauce along with a hint of pine in it. There is also a faint smell of dog. One could tell that there is a dog in the house, being hidden by the combined smell of pine and sauce.
As Keith walked past TiTi, she grabbed his long dark hair. “What the hell is this? HELEN, this boy needs a haircut. HELEN, do you hear me?”
She pinched his cheeks and went on about his long curly hair.
“Only girls have long hair. Are you a girl, Keith?” she taunted him, running her hands through the back of his hair.
“Nope. I’m a boy, TiTi. I have all the equipment to prove it." He smiled as he pulled away.
“Carmen! Carmen! Come and hear this fresh kid telling me that he 'has all the equipment . . . " what the hell does that supposed to mean? Do you speak to your father like that?”
“Nope.”
He was walking away and holding his head down. That’s when he heard,
“KEITH!”
Keith lifted his head to the angry stare of an old woman. She was bent over a walker and wore the standard baggy dress and large glasses. Her hair stood up like a white halo. Her face was screwed up in an expression of irate anger. She pointed one long finger at Keith.
“Keith, who do you think you are talking to? Respect your aunt, damn it!”
Turning to his mother, she hissed, “Don’t you teach these kids respect, Helen?”
“Ma, just leave him alone. He likes long hair. He's 'expressing himself.' Just leave him alone, and lets enjoy the dinner.”
By this time, the two old women had gathered around Keith, fingers in his face, their heads bobbing from side to side in disapproval.
Keith tries to dismiss their actions by looking about the room. The pictures on the wall are arranged just so, big one in the middle, two small ones on either side, one on the top corner, the other on the bottom.
Gee, these pictures are weird, he thinks. There is now a disjointed air about him. He had never really noticed how the couch sits, almost as if no one has ever sat on it before, the pillows arranged just so, catty-corner and puffed up, just so. Weird.
The full-length lace curtains at the front window are pulled aside just slightly so that the dog can have access to peer out the window. Weird.
NaNa and TiTi are still bitching at Keith.
“Don’t ignore me, Keith. Listen.” NaNa points her finger in his face.
Looking down, he notices how the carpet is worn from the front door to the far edge of the living room. The color is faded from years of wear. The color used to be Burgundy, I think.
“KEITH, damn it!” she continues, grabbing a handful of hair and pulling slightly, “Snap out of it, Keith.”
All Keith hears is bla, bla, bla, yadda, yadda, yadda.
She pulls at his hair a little harder. OK, I’m back, I’m back. . .
“OK, I’m hungry when are we eating?” says Keith’s dad, walking in the door, smiling.
The three women turn and begin to jabber about what food is ready and what they need to do. Keith’s dad has distracted them.
“Thanks, Dad,” says Keith, as his dad walks over and puts his arm around him.
“Hey, not a problem, but you’ll need to get used to this. Women will be telling you what to do all your life. The secret is…Distract them by telling them you’re hungry. Works every time, that’s the secret.” His dad smiled and slid himself onto the couch.
Keith walked toward the kitchen and was handed a plate with a roast beef sandwich on it and a glass of Coke.
“Here, sweetheart, you look hungry. Eat, eat.” TiTi guided him to the table.
Inside, Keith felt a hungry, suffocating, desperate need for more, more understanding and solace.
Ha, as if that would happen? In this family? Ha.
Keith ate his sandwich.
Keith and his family arrived home later that night. He prepared for the next day, placing all the equipment he would need into his backpack, along with his laptop. He left early the next morning and got a ride from Donna and her mother.
Keith was quiet the entire ride, thinking about how he would place the spy cams throughout the classroom and the Blue Room.
Donna placed her hand on his knee. “Hey, what’s going on in that head of yours, Keith?”She smiled at him. Keith thought her dimples were placed perfectly upon her face.
“Oh nutin' much Donna, nutin' much at all.” He did not want to involve Donna or her mother in what he was about to do.
Donna kept her hand on his knee as she said, "You’re up to something. I know it.” She giggled. “I know you all too well, Keith.”
Keith checked his watch as Donna’s mother pulled the car up to the front of the school. He had an intense look on his young face. I’ve got twenty minutes to set this all up.
Keith ran from the car, calling out behind him, “Thanks Mrs. Opel. Later, Donna!”
He did not hear the disappointment in Donna’s response as she muttered, “How rude.”
Keith began working as soon as he entered the classroom, checking placement of the cameras and synchronizing his laptop to correspond with the school's network. He knew it was illegal to tape what goes on in the classroom, but felt he needed to expose the staff for the best interest of the kids in Special Ed.
All the wiring and cameras were in place. He had gotten into the school network with no problem at all. He placed a cd in the drive of his laptop and checked to see if the recording would also go to his home computer.
Perfect, it’s done, now I wait for it al to happen, and then they are screwed. Royally Screwed.
Laughing quietly, Keith sat at his desk and waited. Ms. Omado and the rest of the class arrived shortly after Keith had everything in place. Let the games begin, he thought as he saw Mr. Paul walk into the room.
“Hey Blue Boy, take your meds this morning? Or are you ready for Round Two?” Mr. Paul half shouted as he passes Keith’s desk.
Keith, in his loudest voice, head held high as he placed his foot out to trip Mr. Paul, yelled, “Screw you, Pig.” Mr. Paul stumbled and the entire class laughed. Most of the children stood and clapped in favor of Keith’s actions. Keith laughed the loudest as Mr. Paul turned and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt.
“OK, smartass, let’s go. You know the routine.” His face was still red from Keith’s practical joke.
“No, I’m not friggin' going anywhere," said Keith, as Mr. Paul began to pull Keith from his desk. "Screw you!"
Mr Paul dragged Keith through the classroom. Keith screamed. Keith screamed and kicked all the way to the Blue Room, something he had never done before. Keith could see that Mr. Paul had worked up a good sweat from all the pulling and dragging.
Once in the Blue Room, Mr. Paul closed the door, “Now, your ass is mine, bastard,” he snarled, as he pushed Keith down and grabbed him by the back of his hair, pressing Keith's face deep into the mat.
Keith fought hard and was up on his feet in a few moments. Mr. Paul grabbed Keith by the arm and threw him against one of the padded walls. Keith felt the mats shake and move. He looked up toward one of the cameras he had placed between the seams of the top and bottom mat. Mr. Paul turned and followed Keith’s eyes to the spot where the camera was placed. The camera jutted out and hung half way toward the bottom mat.
Mr. Paul turned to Keith. “You dumb bastard! You just screwed yourself.” He grabbed his radio and called for backup and to notify the police.
Keith’s perfect plan did not work. All cameras were confiscated, the laptop’s hard drive was erased, Keith’s parents were called in and Keith was arrested for hacking into the school’s network.
Mr. Paul laughed and saluted Keith as he was taken out of the school in handcuffs.
“Good job, blue boy, good job,” he bellowed as Keith passed him at the front entrance.
Keith looked up at the school and saw Donna peering from the second-floor window. He put his head down as he was escorted to the patrol car.
Keith went to the Juvenile Center, spent two days in jail and served sixty days of community service. He used this time to help autistic children and tutor elementary school children at the library.
All of Keith’s efforts were not in vain, though. He had a copy of the incident on his home computer, which he submitted to the Governor’s office, the local newspaper and the local school district.
Keith made his mark early on in his life. He continued with his good work, but in a more productive, mature manner.
Today as I look in the freshly painted two-toned blue room, with illuminating stars on the ceiling, miniature jet planes hanging from the ceiling and Keith sitting in a rocking chair holding his newborn son, I cannot help but feel proud of my son. Through all the problems, the drama and confusion, I knew he was different. My son was different and special. As I look in and see a fine young man with a great future, a tear forms and as I brush it away.
“Hey Dad, come on in and hold your grandson,” Keith says, smiling from ear to ear.
Donna came walking in to check on baby Paul.
“Keith, honey, NASA called. They need the numbers by tomorrow morning. I told them that you'd call them back later."
She touched Keith’s shoulder.
Holding baby Paul, looking deep into his new eyes, Keith's dad whispers, "I can only hope that he is as special as my own son, Keith.”
Susan Rippe attends college in Florida and writes short stories "in hope of making a statements, sharing experiences and helping others." She describes herself as a "self-advocate and individual with a disability."
When I was growing up in the 1960s, most high school students read Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler. The book described victims of Stalin's purges being confined to cells far under ground and forced to sit in groups motionless and in complete silence for hours on end.
Now, in the post 9/ll era, Americans debate the legal definition of torture. President Bush has just signed the Military Commissions Act (S. 3930), dealing with the interrogation of suspected terrorists that allows him and future presidents to interpret the standards of the Geneva Convention. Vice President Cheney recently indicated that he believes that a "dunk in the water" to get a suspected terrorist to talk is a "no brainer."
Disabled people have had experience with what could be called torture. Indeed, there has always been a saying in the movement that torture can be justified by calling it a “corrective procedure."
This past summer, the Massachusetts legislature considered whether to react to claims that students with autism at a special school -- the Rotenberg Center -- were sometimes burned when they were given sharp electric shocks to deter what the staff deemed inappropriate behavior (see stories from Inclusion Daily and from the Boston Globe here and here).
People with orthopedic "deformities" who were clapped in casts with their muscles pulled in impossible directions know about "stress positions". People who as children were displayed and photographed in hospital amphitheaters for all to see may have had memories stirred when they read of the scandal at Abu Ghraib prison.
Disability rights activists should see torture as a matter that involves us -- regardless of whether it occurs here or in the context of the war on terror. Acts such as simulated drowning and induced hypothermia, which may invoke extreme stress and discomfort in a totally able-bodied person, may be lethal for a detainee with a disability or health problem. An interrogator could mistake a prisoner's inability to hear or process a question or communicate an answer for intransigence. Our concerns should encompass these types of specific disability related issues, but also go beyond them.
The right not to be tortured -- regardless of who one is, what group one belongs to or what one may have done -- is a human rights issue. The disability rights movement is a human rights movement. We insist that people who cannot imagine having functional limitations themselves nonetheless recognize that persons with disabilities are full and equal participants in society. By the same token, we must urge respect for the physical integrity of people whose actions and beliefs may be counter to all our ideals.
Torture is uncivilized. Only a country which aspires to be civilized would have enacted the Americans with Disabilities Act or indeed the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Even a simple thing like curb cuts, which are essential to people with impaired mobility and parents pushing strollers, is a mark of a society's values.
The Geneva Convention prohibits prisoners of war from being subjected to physical or mental torture or other forms of coercion. Adopted in l949, it was one of the collective attempts by the international community to create a civilized world order in the wake of Nazi horrors. If in the 21st century, the United States is not exemplary in complying with the Geneva Convention, not only will our troops face greater dangers, asSen. John McCain, who was tortured as a POW in Vietnam, has pointed out; the impact at home will be pernicious.
It has been argued that force in interrogation may be needed to gain information to prevent future terrorism. However the Military Commissions Act itself implies that coerced statements may be worthless. It permits a coerced statement to be used as evidence only if it is determined to be "reliable and possessing·probative value."(Section 948R of S. 3930).
Apart from that, we have much to fear from the idea -- terrorist in and of itself -- that an individual can be considered a non-person in order to achieve a goal. This type of notion leads to acceptance of such views as those propounded by Professor Peter Singer, who believes that it should be lawful to kill children with noticeable physical disabilities within the first month after birth so that their parents, without adding to the population, can try for a "replacement baby" who might have more success in life and cost less too (Johnson, Harriet McBryde, "Unspeakable Conversations" New York Times Sunday Magazine, February 16, 2003).
People with disabilities have also had some familiarity with indefinite detention without charges or access to lawyers, a situation that inevitably produces so much despair that it amounts to torture. Thousands of persons who look different or need the assistance of others have disappeared into institutions.
The contexts and the rationales put forth for the treatment of detainees and the experiences of people with disabilities are obviously vastly different. The point is wholly that the history of people with disabilities should make disability rights activists more sensitive than many Americans seem to be right now to the imperative need to say "no" to the abuse of anyone held in United States' custody.
Although captured Nazi leaders were accused of the most ghastly crimes, the Nuremberg Trials were conducted in careful accordance with the standards of due process. As Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd recently said, "The test was of principle over power and we passed the test". ("Dodd Urges Nuremberg Fairness for Detainees," Hartford Courant, September 30, 2006).
We don't seem to be passing the test right now. As Garrison Keillor stated in a distinctly serious column, if the Military Commission Act is not overturned by the courts, "then our country has taken a step towards totalitarianism". Noting that the act was voted for by 65 Senators, he asserted, "go back to the Senate of 1964 and you won't find more than ten votes for it." (Keillor, Garrison, "Congress' Shameful Retreat from American Values," Tribune Media Service, October 4, 2006).
The country does seem to be at a crossroads. If the disability rights movement is to have credibility as a progressive force and catalyst for social good, it must take a public position against torture and the corruption of the country's principles. Our time -- and it may not come again -- is now.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
Attorney Lisa Blumberg writes frequently for Ragged Edge. Read her most recent article, Life Support in Massachusetts.
This story has appeared in East Side Monthly, May 2005: 42-43, reprinted in American Philosophical Association Newsletter on Philosophy and Medicine, Fall 2005 and in F. N. Ackerman, Bioethics Through Fiction (Rowman & Littlefield, forthcoming.)
Glenda's mother, who had gotten bored with retirement and gone back to teaching social studies, was talking about a student who felt guilty over being sorry for herself when so many people were so much worse off. "I asked her why she felt guilty. Precisely how would it help those people if she stopped being sorry for herself?" She leaned forward, taking a mint from the white dish on the coffee table.
"Tell her to charge herself five dollars an hour." Brian swung his feet up on the maroon leather ottoman he and Glenda had given themselves for their ninth anniversary. "For every hour she spends on self-pity, she should donate five dollars to charity. Don't most of those prep school kids have plenty of money?"
"Oh, she would still consider it a virtue to get over her self-pity," Glenda's mother said. "I don't know why it is so hard to make students these days realize that they get no moral brownie points for something that doesn't help others."
Glenda stood up. "I'll be back in a few minutes." She walked out onto the landing and down the stairs. Then she knocked on the door of the only other apartment in the converted old house and waited.
Five minutes later, she was still waiting. How long would a crippled old woman take to get to the door? Glenda knocked again, heard an uneven tread, then a "Yes?"
"It's Glenda Fletcher from upstairs."
Miss Pratt opened her door but kept the chain on, making Glenda feel vaguely dangerous. "I would like to invite you to have Thanksgiving dinner with us tomorrow," Glenda said. "My mother's here, too. She's visiting," she added after a moment.
Miss Pratt was silent so long that Glenda began to wonder whether to expect a reply at all. What did she know about Miss Pratt, anyway, except that she looked about eighty, used a four-pronged cane, and never seemed to go anywhere but to the porch for her mail? And Glenda, who often spent much of the day in her sunroom that overlooked the street--reading novels, daydreaming, and tending her many potted plants--had never seen anyone come to Miss Pratt's but the grocery delivery service. "Invite a lonely elderly neighbor to your holiday dinner"--it sounded like something from the local paper's Community Matters column. The columnist also wanted you to notify the Department of Elderly Affairs if your elderly neighbors showed deterioration in their personal habits. Surely, uncombed hair and a nightgown and egg-stained bathrobe in the afternoon would qualify, but Glenda was hardly about to turn Miss Pratt in for failing to be all dressed up when she had nowhere to go. Miss Pratt was leaning heavily on her cane now, and just as Glenda was coming to think it might be time to end this encounter, the old woman spoke.
"I already have plans. I will be spending Thanksgiving here with friends," she said, looking away, her voice fading like an afterimage.
* * *
"Feast your eyes upon fair and warmer with winds light and variable," Glenda's mother said the next morning. "If I were a meteorologist, I would be ashamed to show my face today."
"Aren't you glad social-studies teachers can make mistakes without the whole city's finding out?" Glenda was mixing miniature marshmallows into a sweet-potato casserole. She gazed through the kitchen window, seeing trees swaying, twigs breaking off, rain falling like nails. Thrills from a safe distance. "I love to watch storms from indoors."
"You always did," said her mother, chopping pecans for her special stuffing. "You always loved pecans, too," she added, handing Glenda several.
"There's a weather advisory. Maybe Miss Pratt's friends won't be coming. Maybe I should try her again." Glenda ate the pecans, then helped herself to three miniature marshmallows.
"Maybe Miss Pratt's friends exist only as a dodge for her to avoid your invitation. You said you never see her go anywhere or get visitors." Glenda's mother retrieved a pecan that had fallen into her lap; she was wearing Glenda's red apron with "THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON DRUGS" printed beneath a picture of a brain atop a plate of pills.
"She gets mail. Although I guess it's mainly catalogs." Glenda had a sudden, unbearable image of Miss Pratt in a dingy, imperfectly buttoned housedress, snatching catalogs from her mailbox, as if looking through them would be the highlight of her day. "I'm going to--"
"Can't you take no for an answer?"
"I'm just following the wise counsel of someone who told me that the only way to get moral brownie points is to help others."
Glenda's mother covered the dish of stuffing, put it in the refrigerator, and walked over to the sink. "But who could want what is obviously a charity invitation?" she asked over the running water.
Lots of people, Glenda thought. "Believe me, when I was in high school, I would have grabbed a charity invitation. To anything. If you're lonely enough, you don't look into people's motives. Besides, you get pretty good at self-deception, you know." But maybe her mother didn't know, any more than she knew what it was like to be lonely in general, rather than to long for a particular person. Married to her high school sweetheart, widowed at forty, she had never met a man wonderful enough to replace him, although, during Glenda's own high school years, the telephone had rung far more often for her mother than for her.
Now her mother was preparing cranberry relish and suggesting that if Glenda tried approaching Miss Pratt sometime when charity was not officially being practiced, it would be far less patronizing, not to mention more convincing. "Not to mention more time-consuming. She is right downstairs, after all. Who knows how much attention she might turn out to want? Would you be prepared to offer charity friendship several times a week?"
"Well," Glenda said, "it's not as if I had a shortage of free time."
"But you always say--"
"I know." What Glenda always said was that free time was the second-best thing in the world, ranking right after love. She also liked to say she had the least respectable occupation for a professor's wife nowadays: none. Glenda's mother was not retired; Glenda was. Glenda had retired at twenty-six, upon realizing she loved her dissertation director rather than her dissertation topic, marrying him, and dropping out of graduate school. She had never had a job. She was not writing a novel, painting, or sculpting. Nor could she qualify as a traditional homemaker; she had, by choice, no children. She did no volunteer work. She just did whatever she wanted. Each day was an adventure, and there was no need to fill it with things that sounded adventurous to other people. Glenda read novels (lately, Agatha Christie and Sinclair Lewis), watched television (she was looking forward to next week's Alfred Hitchcock marathon), took care of her plants, went to museums, libraries, and malls, met friends for lunch, studied whatever interested her as long as it interested her, and cooked elaborate dinners for herself and Brian. Glenda also defended her way of life when it came under attack, which was often. "What do you do?" people would ask. Then there was the university's eminent sociologist who had recently published an essay criticizing idleness, not so much in people like Glenda, but in offspring of the very rich. His reasoning applied to Glenda, though. He thought everyone needed the experience of holding down a job in order to understand how most of the world lived. Most people got colds, Glenda pointed out to anyone who brought up the essay, and most married couples had fights. Most people in the world, if it came to that, were desperately poor. If you had the great good fortune to be free of those things, were you supposed to catch a cold, pick a fight with your spouse, or impoverish yourself? But the sociologist, like Glenda's mother, also thought everyone should do something to help others. Maybe it was time for Glenda to start. "I've decided to follow your wise counsel," she said. "I'll invite her to lunch next week and take it from there."
"I'm impressed," said her mother, "and I hope you will be rewarded by having her turn out to be such fascinating company that charity is beside the point."
"That's a lot easier to imagine if you've never actually met her," Glenda said.
* * *
The day after her mother drove back to Connecticut, Glenda left the apartment early and went to the Korean ceramics exhibit at the Rhode Island School of Design Museum. She spent the following day watching the Hitchcock marathon. On the third day, she decided to stop procrastinating. She began lurking around the mailboxes, but it was two more days before she saw Miss Pratt.
"Hello," Glenda said, watching Miss Pratt's hand curl around a cluster of catalogs. "How was your Thanksgiving?"
"Fine, thank you, and yours." Miss Pratt recited the last two words without the customary intonation, making them sound like a statement instead of a question. She was wearing a housedress, not a nightgown, but it was dirty and missing a button, and her cardigan had holes in both sleeves.
"It was very nice." Glenda hesitated. "Were your friends able to get here?"
"Pardon?" Miss Pratt's voice had sharpened, making Glenda feel like a snoop.
"I mean," she said, "with the storm. . ."
"They came," said Miss Pratt. "They always come. They come every day."
Glenda took a step backward.
"They come every day," Miss Pratt repeated softly. A shaft of sunlight struck her, illuminating her sparse hair like a feathery halo, and what amazing teeth she has, Glenda thought, how strong and white, expensive dentures, maybe, maybe that's why she can't afford proper clothes, and of course I'm not going to call the Ministry of Elderly Adjustment so they can come and get her medicated out of these delightful delusions that have her suddenly looking so elated, why shouldn't she have imaginary friends if she hasn't got real ones, and--
"To them I am not old and crippled," Miss Pratt was saying.
"I--"
"They come to me in a better world, where there is neither young nor old, healthy nor crippled." Miss Pratt smiled beatifically. "On the Internet," she said, and turned and hobbled back into her apartment, closing the door behind her.
Read Felicia Nimue Ackerman's poems Nettie Denison Speaks with Her Doctor, Rose and Blue, This is for My Grandmother, and Henrietta Pratt, 80, Has a Surprise for You. Her poetry has appeared in English Studies Forum and The American Philosophical Association Newsletter on Philosophy and Medicine. She is a professor of philosophy at Brown University.
"Stupid" centers on a down-and-out guy who befriends a young wheelchair user and winds up moving into his group home. Yes, that kind of group home. The show (well, the British version, at least) is funnier than it sounds. The pilot for the BBC 3 original earned kudos in Britain last year for its multidimensional portrayal, and perhaps even better yet, it's casting of people with disabilities which eventually led to a six episode series last Summer.
Whereas the producers of the original series took great pains to be more mainstream, the Farrelly approach is likely to be quite different if one considers what they've done previously.
Peter Farrelly is set to direct the pilot, and both brothers will serve as executive producers. The Farrelly's have covered disabilities (to both acclaim and derision) in such films as "The Ringer" and "Shallow Hal." Known for outrageous, high-concept comedies, their most recent feature credits include last year's "Fever Pitch" and 2003's "Stuck on You."
Also executive producing is Ben Silverman, riding high with NBC's Emmy-winning "The Office" and ABC's promising newcomer "Ugly Betty," an adaptation of the hit Colombian telenovela. Wil Calhoun ("Friends") will write the pilot.
With Josh Blue winning "Last Comic Standing" and now "I'm With Stupid" set to hit TV screens all across the United States with an A-List of writers and producers, could comedy spearhead the next wave of American crip culture? Moreover, will the sometimes touchy American disability community lambaste or support these programs and will audiences -- disabled or not -- watch?
Stay tuned.
Lawrence Carter-Long is the Founder, Curator & Janitor of The disTHIS! Film Series: disability through a whole new lens which showcases quality narrative, short, documentary and feature films with disability themes beyond clichés. He was interviewed by NPR's Weekend America on the "best and the worst depictions of people with disabilities in popular culture" (including The Farrelly produced film, "The Ringer") in December 2005.
]]>Stephen Kuusisto's recent memoir Eavesdropping begins with an astonishing question: "Why travel anywhere if you can't see?" Kuusisto, a blind English professor and poet at Ohio State, was asked the question while delivering a talk at a nonprofit agency. While Kuusisto was unprepared for the question at the time, this slim book represents a thoughtful and stirring belated reply.
Blindness evokes a constellation of clichés, though perhaps none so pernicious as the imagined emptiness of the blind person's world. People generally imagine blindness as a life-sentence in a darkened cell, a confined universe of black space. Shakespeare, for instance, wrote of "looking on darkness which the blind do see," while Twain joked that to identify with the blind, "get up some dark night on the wrong side of your bed when the house is on fire and try to find the door." If you live near a university or college, at some point this semester you'll likely see these limited ideas in practice: a train of students, surely full of good intentions, will lead partners in blindfolds on some simulation exercise -- as though blindness were summed up and tied off with a handkerchief and a half-hour. Such activities, like the comments above show, link blindness to states of pity, panic and even madness. They undermine the blind way of life -- what Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges called "one of the styles of living." There is no beauty in the imagined nothingness of a black hole and no grace in time-stopped exercises of simulation.
Yet, as Borges observed, "the world of the blind is not the night that people imagine." In Eavesdropping, Kuusisto makes clear how colorful, even visionary, the sensory field of the blind can be. Although damaged retinas left Kuusisto legally blind at birth, he still sees slivered fragments and patterns, "jumping apertures of sight...like a myopic, darting minnow." Closer to visual nonsense than meaningful imagery, Kuusisto's kaleidoscopic visual field compels him to practice the "art of listening," an extraordinarily effortful, creative and refined practice of sight-seeing by ear: "Blind people are not casual eavesdroppers," Kuusisto explains, "we have method...Even when I listen to Manhattan traffic I'm drawing my own pictures of New York -- the streets are crowded with Russian ghosts and wheels that have broken loose from their carriages."
The memoir departs from the conventions of traditional autobiography, neglecting to narrate a linear story of childhood and maturation. Instead, a series of poetic vignettes or, what he calls, "auditory postcards," transmit the many wanderings Kuusisto makes by ear. For example, he tells of a journey to Iceland, where Kuusisto and two friends travel to hear the music of the Buena Vista Social Club. An odd pairing of steamy Cuban rhythms and North Atlantic chill, the concert leads Kuusisto to dizzying registers of auditory experience: "I felt both silly and hot and I sensed that there were thousands around me who were equally feverish... The hall thundered with cheering and foot stomping. I realized that I was happier in this crowd than I'd ever been in a public gathering."
In Venice, Kuusisto gets lost, intentionally. The writer and his piloting canine, Corky, leave behind dogmatic tour guides and ditch their printed messengers: Fodors, Frommers, and Lonely Planet. "Something strange was happening to me," Kuusisto exclaims, navigating piazzas, canales and campos with the compass of his ears. "I'd been drifting through the unfamiliar atmosphere with only the wind for a map. Was this what happened to sighted people as they wandered in churches and museums?" We're not meant to answer Kuusisto's question, only to appreciate the significance of its asking. The architecture, church frescoes and paintings of Venice are not missed without the use of his eyes; instead, Kuusisto registers their beauty in artful descriptions of Venetian sound.
Similar epiphanies on the sounds of cities and space make up the memoir's second part, while the first details Kuusisto's development in creative listening. Denied companionship as a child because of his physical difference, the young Kuusisto learns to commune with voices on the radio. He also finds symphonies in the natural world: "Alone in the woods, I could spend a whole hour listening to a single bird...The thrush produced point notes like strings played pizzicato on a violin. There was the whine of a mosquito, the slow vibrato of a bee."
A long-playing record of Paradise Lost on loan from the Library of Congress delivers the fourteen-year-old Kuusisto his life's calling: poetry. "I'd discovered, without knowing it, the difference between speaking and being. This is what listening is, true listening, the lonely but open mind...The soul's path is in the ear -- not in the mirror." In poetry, Kuusisto realizes the means to express his love for rhythm and tone, and the memoir shares many lines from his favorite poets. Like listening, poetry requires patience and imagination for meaning to emerge; it also depends on a circle of interpreters, a community of participants committed to extending and deepening a poem's reach. Likewise, we learn that Kuusisto's "art of listening" involves the creativity and care of friends, who round out his world with the occasional description of visual tableaux. Rather than a solitary singer, for Kuusisto, the poet is immersed in a network of relationships, valuing dialogue and kinship more than individualist pursuits and triumphs.
Kuusisto offers a literary triumph somewhat at odds with the form of a memoir. He discovers beauty in the conversations, sounds and ideas of people and things other than himself. Not only an issue of perception, the poetry of eavesdropping is also a practiced mode of creative reception, an openness to experience and the multiplicity of the world. To crib the words of Borges, Kuusisto's style of living conveys so much more than what meets the eye.
Nicholas Soodik is a graduate student at Cornell University, where he also teaches literature, writing, and disability studies.
The November 7 “midterm” is a change election. Disability advocates raising issues with candidates for office – especially U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate seats – are discovering that campaigns are paying attention. The next three weeks are critical. By reaching out now -- volunteering, showing up at campaign events, calling in to radio and TV talk shows, writing letters to the editor – our people can place our issues on the table. I know first-hand that office holders long remember constituent concerns that surface during campaigns. The old adage is very true – a friend in need is a friend indeed. Candidates in hotly contested races are “friends in need” – and they will greatly appreciate our help now. Later, once they are in office, they will remember that we were there for them when they needed us.
Back in mid-August, I wrote a piece previewing the Fall elections for the Justice For All (JFA) website. Now, with the election much closer, I update that story and offer some suggestions for issues that advocates might raise with candidates for national office.
In the JFA story, I offered my opinion that advocates should examine each campaign individually, on a non-partisan basis. There are Republicans and Independents who are supportive of our goals. We need to avoid simplistic and reflexive actions such as reaching out only to Democrats.
The most recent snapshot of the national picture is this. In the U.S. House of Representatives, 40 races are competitive. That’s just 10% of the total (435 seats). Of the 40 races, 33 are considered to be vulnerable for Republicans and 7 are seen as vulnerable Democratic seats. For Democrats to take control of the House in January, a net change of 15 seats is required. The number of competitive races is much larger than that, suggesting that a party change in the House is possible. The situation in the Senate is different. While it is true that a net shift of 6 seats from Republican to Democratic would return the Democrats to power in the Senate, only 8 Republican seats seem to be vulnerable (vs. 3 Democratic seats).
For Americans with disabilities, this change election holds much promise. We need to seize the day to push our agenda.
Other groups are active. Organized labor is spending $40 million on voter education and turnout, especially in swing states such as Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Business interests, too, are concentrating on those states and on key Congressional Districts.
What is our agenda? Different people will advance different views. For me, it is a refocusing of policy and resources on long-neglected domestic issues. Here are a few.
1. Medical Insurance. Americans with lifelong medical conditions (disabilities) should have lifelong medical insurance. Today, fewer than half have private health insurance. Many rely on Medicaid and/or Medicare. Our nation should aim for a seamless system assuring medical insurance.
2. Employment. The key to the American Dream, for most of us, is a good job. While many people with disabilities who possess a college diploma and/or other training have benefited from the non-discrimination and reasonable-accommodation provisions of title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act, others with less education and training need more support. A recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report identified more than 100 federal disability employment-related programs, most small, that were poorly coordinated. Again, we need a seamless system. The country needs to make it a priority – especially now as many aging Baby Boomers prepare to retire – to educate and train working-age people with disabilities for employment.
3. Housing. We need accessible and affordable housing. People need a place to live near a job in order to accept an offer for employment. It has to be an accessible home or apartment. And it must be affordable.
4. Television and the Internet. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently has acted to weaken the commitment to captioning on TV. We need to reverse its latest decisions. It is long past time, too, for video description on television. Meanwhile, more and more, the Internet and specifically broadband communications are “the” way Americans seek and exchange information. Congress has debated bills that would take some very positive steps toward accessibility on the web. Nothing has been enacted, though. We need to finish the job.
There are more, of course. Issues vary from state to state, and even Congressional District to Congressional District.
What matters to me is not so much whether advocates press the same agenda items as I do, but rather that they get involved – now. People should show up at campaign rallies and ask questions. They should call in to radio talk shows. They should volunteer to help out in the campaigns.
There are only three weeks to go to November 7. Let’s make them three weeks to remember.
To keep up with the ever-changing electoral landscape, I suggest two wonderfully helpful resources. The first is an election guide in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/ref/washington/2006ELECTIONGUIDE.html?currentDataSet=senANALYSIS. The second is a similar resource, this one by the Washington Post: http://projects.washingtonpost.com/elections/keyraces/map/
Frank Bowe led the 1977 nationwide protest that gave us section 504, worked with Justin Dart and others on ADA, and helped to make TV captioning available everywhere. A professor at Long Island's Hofstra University, his newest book is Making Inclusion Work (Prentice Hall, 2005). Read his other articles for Ragged Edge Online, The Midterm Elections and Us, Disability Meets the Boom and
The Time to Rise Will Come Again.
"You'll live to be 100.
Now, isn't that just fine?"
"It's not enough," said Nettie,
"Since now I'm 99."
Felicia Nimue Ackerman's other poems on Ragged Edge Online include Rose and Blue, This is for My Grandmother, and Henrietta Pratt, 80, Has a Surprise for You. Her poetry has appeared in English Studies Forum and The American Philosophical Association Newsletter on Philosophy and Medicine. She is a professor of philosophy at Brown University.
The traditional "hire the handicapped" month is a good time to spotlight some articles from the Ragged Edge library and archives focusing on this matter of work:
In our July, 2000 issue, in Once again, for the first time, people with disabilities are recruited into the workforce. Prof. Arnold Birenbaum of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine wrote about the kind of news coverage that hasn't changed since World War II -- the amazing crip who works!
The Americans with Disabilities Act, passed in 1990 by Congress, was supposed to help disabled Americans remain in the workforce. But that's hardly been how things have turned out.
In a series of rulings in beginning in 1999, the U.S. Supreme Court has made it harder and harder for people who need some form of a workplace adjustment to continue working to do so. Ironically, that was one of the main intents of the law as designed by disability rights activists.
The lack of accommodation is a recurring theme.
AT&T, oft-praised for disability savvy, showed a different side to computer analyst Dean Olson, who told of his experience in One Man's Story of Discrimination. In My Unaccommodated Career, Gary Roberts tells us that Voc Rehab was a reluctant employer when it came to accommodation as well.
Nancy Foley, who directs the Alliance for Injured Workers in western Massachusetts, writes that people with invisible injuries, such as chronic pain, or have poorly understood diagnoses, like chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia and multiple chemical sensitivity, find that "nondisabled people do not believe us when we say we cannot work. They think we are lazy." Read The Stigma of Not Working.
Researcher John Frank's project examines the lack of accommodation in Stories of accommodation gone wrong.
And then there are sheltered workshops. They're no more than sweatshops, say many activists. Read Kansas group uses radio ads to target sheltered workshops and 'Immorality' in Texas workshop.
You can also use our search feature to find more articles.
]]>Reports from Deaf Weekly
Breaking news via Google News link.
Earlier Ragged Edge Online entries:
What's Fueling Gally Students' Anger?
Protests Strengthen at Gallaudet Over New Prez; Faculty Join In
]]>"During the last century, upwards of 66,000 people considered 'defective' -- those with mental retardation, mental illness, criminal histories, physical disabilities -- are documented to have been sterilized in the United States, Canada and other Western countries. It was all part of a popular movement called eugenics," wrote Dave Reynolds in 2001. "And most of it was done legally." And it might be making a comeback today. Read Reynolds' Eugenics: Making a Comeback?
In the March/April 1998 issue of Ragged Edge, Tom Lee wrote about Nobel Laureate James Watson's beliefs on the matter ( You probably won't like James Watson's ideas about us).
And then there's celebrity bioethicist Peter Singer.
"Peter Singer advocates for infanticide for children with significant disabilities with precisely that term," says Prof. Alex Lubet. Read Advocate for Infanticide.
Singer's appointment to the Princeton University Center for Human Values in 1999 provoked anger among disability activists.
"Although Singer is best known for his work on animal liberation, it is important to understand the consequences of his ethical theories for people with disabilities, especially since he argues that our lives are not always worth protecting," wrote Cal Montgomery in the July/August 1999 issue of Ragged Edge. Read her article, A Defense of Genocide.
Also read our "Peter Stinker" parody, A Modest Proposal.
Disability activists in the U.S. and elsewhere have protested Singer at many of his public appearances. Among the stories reported on Ragged Edge Online:
State Refuses To Pay Peter Singer For Appearance
'A kick in the face,' says Not Dead Yet. (For the quintessential article about Peter Singer and disability activism, check out Harriet McBryde Johnson's Unspeakable Conversations from the New York Times Magazine.)
And be sure to check out our earlier news archives on this or related topics -- or use our search feature to find more articles.
]]>It's fall, it's back-to-school time, and that means it's also time for groups to start planning "disability awareness days."
"Schools, government agencies, and sometimes, deplorably, gimp groups, are still offering the public 'try on a disability' programs -- exercises in which nondisabled people are blindfolded, put into wheelchairs or given earplugs to 'simulate' having a disability," wrote Illinois disability activist Valerie Brew-Parrish on the Ragged Edge website. Brew-Parrish, like many activists, considers disability simulations an atrocity.
In The Advocado Press's new book, Disability Awareness -- Do It Right!, Brew-Parrish and other disability scholars and activists explain the problems with simulations and, more important, how to stage a good Disablity Awareness Day -- one that avoids the problems of disability simulations. Short background articles and planning lists help organizers carry out fun and effective Awareness Day activities, and an appendix includes articles to use with Awareness Day participants.
More about the book.
Brew-Parrish's 1997 Ragged Edge article, The Wrong Message, made people think about the harm simulations can do. Read article.
Read Brew-Parrrish 2004 followup: The Wrong Message - Still.
In 2003, Chapman University professor Art Blaser offered Ragged Edge readers some alternatives to simulation exercises, and Fresno, CA activist Ed Eames showed Ragged Edge readers how his local disability group used the day-in-a-wheelchair tactic to wake up public officials.
Read Some Alternatives to Simulation Exercises.
Read Fresno Official Awareness: When simulations work.
And be sure to check out our earlier news archives on this or related topics -- or use our search feature to find more articles.
]]>From the attorneys' press release:
C.R. joined the Cub Scouts in September 2000. With the help of his parents he flourished for five years and met scouting requirements for promotion to the Webelos and then to Boy Scouts Troop 223 in 2005. Around that time, a scout leader advised the family that C.R. would only be allowed to attend meetings and an overnight camping trip when accompanied by his father. No other child in the troop was subjected to similar restrictions. Because participating in the camping trip was mandatory for moving to the next scouting level, the scouts’ actions precluded C.R. from moving to the next level. This penalized C.R. through no fault of his own. Because of these restrictions, C.R. was excluded from the camping trip and feels humiliated and rejected by the entire troop.
Read press release, Autistic Child Denied Participation in Boy Scouts
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A Berkeley-based disability rights group filed a federal class-action lawsuit Wednesday against Caltrans, claiming state roads are rife with barriers for people with disabilities.Those obstacles include missing and inadequate curb ramps; dangerous slopes and crumbled or uneven pavement; Park-and-Ride facilities with inaccessible paths, non-accessible parking spaces and other problems; and failure to provide accessible alternate routes during construction and accessible information for vision-impaired people when sidewalks are closed, the suit claims.
From the Lexington, KY Herald-Leader:
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid told the state last September that it would yank Oakwood's federal funding after the facility received several Type A citations for failing to protect residents in early 2005. But the federal agency agreed that it would continue funding while the state appeals the termination decision. As a condition of the appeal, residents had to remain safe.But problems at Oakwood have continued. Since January 2005, Oakwood has received 21 Type A citations, the most serious kind. Two of those citations were related to deaths -- one resident drowned in a bathtub, another died while choking on a hot dog. This summer, eight patient aides were arrested on charges that they abused residents.
Read story: Oakwood could lose $43 million
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