I received a curious little note from a reader who had come across a letter of mine published in the local newspaper. The note was hand delivered by its writer to my mail box at the college where I teach college students who have intellectual disabilities. In my role as a disability rights advocate, I had written to the editor about the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities. This convention, the first significant human rights initiative of the Twenty-first Century, had been opened for signatures on March 30th of this year. The United States was noticeably absent from the signing ceremony, and has yet to endorse the convention. Along with this clearly reprehensible omission, I pointed also to the disgraceful treatment of veterans by the Veterans’ Administration. However, March 30th stuck in my mind for several reasons, not the least of which being, that it was the third birthday of my grandson, Korbben Concklin. Korbben has autism and will be one of the 650 million people world wide who have disabilities and who stands to benefit from the implementation of the convention. So, in a manner of speaking, I look at the UN Convention as a significant birthday gift for Korbben Concklin. All he has to do is unwrap it. And for that he is going to need a lot of help along the way.
When I first picked up the letter I naturally assumed that it was from someone who had read my letter to the editor and was sending along some encouraging compliments. In the letter to me the writer shares about his mother who had a disability - polio. She had contracted it at an early age. However, the author veers off and takes a pointedly different tack by writing, "
it didn't stop her from getting married, having eight children ... all while continuing to go to school. She earned a PhD. at age 40..." The remainder of the narrative focuses on a family story about his mother's independent spirit.
The author's mother, it seems, asked someone riding in a car with her to get her a newspaper from a kiosk. The person responded flippantly by saying, "What's the matter with you? Are you crippled or something?" Too late. At this point he realized that he had committed a major
faux pas. Of course, by now mother had seized control of the situation and settled matters by saying, "No. I'll just get it myself." And, of course, she preceded to do just that with consummate skill.
As an aside, I am struck by the way this story reminds me of my own mother, who balked for years at the pressure from her physician who repeatedly urged her to begin dialysis treatment. Mom's kidneys were failing. By the time she finally became ill enough to consider it, she was too old to endure the procedure. She told me as she leaned through the railings of her hospital bed: "They tell me I'm too old for dialysis. I finally prevailed."
But to return to this is a narrative, it is about individually overcoming the effects of a significant disability. And we are, in this particular case, privy to a fragment of a life marked by achievements; doubtless the achievements of an extraordinary person. However, the subtext of the note serves to deploy the "grand narrative" of American individualism. That people are individually responsible for themselves. Who can deny that this is a great American value? It naturally follows then, that any supports, be they physical aids or instruments of a social service system, invalidate any success one could have attributed to the individual with disabilities. In essence, the individual person with disabilities is only spoiled by this form of coddling that is emblematic of "big government." We are talking about Medicaid, Social Security and similar social safety nets. In short, regardless of the disability that a person has been born with or has subsequently acquired while navigating through life, she must succeed without legal protections from discrimination or without income enhancements from "the government." Otherwise, I suppose, that would be considered cheating. According to this philosophy, the Americans with Disabilities Act is not really necessary. Likewise, the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities is superfluous overkill. As our Congress Member, Wally Herger, stated, when confronted about his votes for cuts to Medicaid recently by one of my students who was attending a town meeting, "Americans are a compassionate people." And, it would seem to imply, "out of compassion, we will leave you alone to deal with your problem." No government interference.
So what is suggested by this? At the very least, people with disabilities have no need of social supports or international civil rights conventions. The people who "really try" can make it. The others ... for example the 70 percent or so of people with disabilities who report that they would prefer to work, but who are not gainfully employed, are really not trying hard enough. And there are always individuals to whom we can point: these are people who stand out as outstanding examples of the validity of this rugged individualist philosophy. Helen Keller and Franklin D. Roosevelt are two such rugged individualists who really tried. However, upon closer examination, one discovers that each of these public figures was the beneficiary of a multitude of privileges as well as the attendant advantages gleaned from a network of significant social supports.
Helen Keller wrote,
"Not many people have the advantages of background that I have had." Alexander Graham Bell was the conduit through which Helen's family found "the teacher" at the Perkins Institution for the Blind. And, as if that was not enough, Mark Twain financed her Radcliffe College tuition. Nonetheless, Helen Keller was an individual of extraordinary gifts. With these gifts she became a socialist who came to view economic democracy as an effectual path toward empowering people, not just people with disabilities. She became a critic of the social policies that led to poverty and thereby contributed to the preventable forms of blindness. Ironically, she was not able to publish an exhaustive summary of her well developed political views. People only wanted her to write about her disability. The result has been the virtual freezing in time of Helen's image as an innocent little girl. The closest she came to clearing the air about her highly politicised intellectual development was in a compendium of letters and editorial submissions. They were published 1913 in a volume titled,
Out of the Dark. This is one of her books that was burned in the bonfires of The Third Reich in 1936. In the book, she relates that one of her letters published in a major newspaper had elicited a patronizing response from the very editor who had published it.
"It is obvious that her views are the result of her developmental limitations." This is a form of neutralizing that people with disabilities experience through the instrumentality of "infantilization." In this particular case, the ablest assault is twofold. First, Helen Keller is limited because of her disability and, secondly, on account of her gender.
Helen Keller was subject to patronizing dismissals of her radical political beliefs. However, her cultural image has been hijacked and redeployed to support the American grand narrative of individualism. And this despite the fact that her political writings and speeches earned her a personal FBI File that can be accessed on the Internet. A similar analysis of President Franklin Roosevelt reveals that a good deal of time and energy was spent in concealing the degree of his disablement in order for him to be elected to office as governor and as President of the United States. Once again we are dealing with the prerogatives of privilege and power. Hugh Callagher illuminates the degree to which President Roosevelt's public image was managed in his study entitled,
FDR's Splendid Deception. The grand narrative of rugged individualism saturates our culture. The film,
Cinderella Man, is a prime example of this. The film portrays the life of James J. Braddock, a fighter, an historical figure, who, against all assembled odds, earns the American Heavyweight Championship. Thus, he becomes the national hero of the downtrodden masses who can look upon him vicariously, at least, as one bright star in their heavens. At the time of the actual events portrayed in
Cinderella Man, the United States and the world were reeling from economic depression. The ruling elites were doing quite well. By way of contrast, and as depicted in the film also, is a man who is a worker, a radical, a union organizer and a fighter for workers' rights. He is arguably motivated by a counter narrative of economic democracy and power for the masses through group action. In contrast to the Cinderella Man, who provides a welcome relief to the doldrums of despair, unemployment and homelessness, the union organizer is killed in the street in the midst of his organizing activities. The message ... social action is a losing proposition. Don't fight the system. Look to the long shot. It could be you. This is the mentality of the lottery state. A family member recently told me, "At least I live in a country where a person has a chance to become wealthy."
Helen Keller is still making news. I read in the Washington Post this week that Alabama is going to replace one of its two statues that each state is allowed to display in the US Capitol building. For the first time since the states have participated in this activity, a person with disabilities is going to be represented. Helen Keller will be memorialized as the little child at the water pump at the moment when the miracle of language opened up to her. A delegation from Alabama traveled recently to the sculptor's residence in Utah to sign-off on the final design. The article did not say whether there were any people with disabilities in the delegation.
