The Voiceless Minority

 What comes to mind when you hear the words “physical or occupational therapy”? Most of you who will read this are probably only familiar with the words in the context of rehab. By that, I mean most readers of this post will associate physical and occupational therapy only with injuries or accidents. In my opinion, this is because these services are believed to “fix” a problem. If one hurts their meniscus or knee, as my now wife, Samantha, or as I like to call her “love bug,” did several months ago, for example, you would go to physical therapy with the goal of gaining function back in your knee. Once you get to what is known as your baseline level of functioning, or you stop making progress towards a goal, your therapy comes to an end. In theory, that would make sense except for the fact that most people with disabilities need therapy to maintain a basic level of functionality and are not receiving therapy as a result of an injury that will “get better” over time. The problem co...

Above is an image of President Trump signing a bill into law. He is wearing a black suit with a red necktie and is surrounded by people on either side. His pen is poised over legislation, which is on a wooden desk.  What a worrisome Wednesday it is for the disability community. Steps are being taken to erase the work of great disability champions such as Judy Heumann and Ed Roberts, to name a few. As a relative of mine put it a couple of days ago, laws are made, then they are repealed, so advocates must never stop fighting. Although my relative and I sometimes disagree politically, I could not agree more with her words. Indeed, it looks like it is happening yet again. This past January, Donald Trump became the 47 th President of the United States after a four-year hiatus between his first and second term. While I am registered as a Republican, and I agree with most of his platform, I question what he's doing regarding the voiceless minority. Before his election, he stated that h...

So, I was talking to a couple friends tonight and I realized that I missed another episode of Speechless. For those who don’t know, Speechless is a show about a young boy named JJ with Cerebral Palsy. JJ cannot speak and has a wonderful mom as a disability advocate. The cool thing about this show is that as a few shows in the past, they actually use an individual with a disability to play the disabled character. I wrote a blog early on in the history of this blog that was relevant to tonight’s episode. Tonight’s episode dealt with the idea of “inspiration porn”. I will not go into detail about the episode as I have not watched it fully yet. Towards the end of this blog, I will link the above-mentioned post. Why am I writing about it now? I am writing because it is amazing that a major network like ABC is finally paying attention to disability issues and portraying them fairly. Perhaps if this show gets picked up for more seasons the perception of people with disabilities in societ...