The Voiceless Minority

In America, from an early age, we are conditioned to work and contribute to society; well, at least, most people are.  However, when you have a physical disability like Ms. Samantha Lebron does, you are often not expected to work full-time. Even though Ms. Lebron has a severe case of cerebral palsy and is confined to a wheelchair, she has decided to go against the grain and become a full-time worker. Throughout the rest of this article, we will highlight a recent interview I conducted with Ms. Lebron, in which she discussed what it is like to work full-time with a physical disability. We will gain insight into Ms. Lebron’s everyday routine, and she and I will discuss topics ranging from society's expectations of people with disabilities and her thoughts on whether she thinks it is worth the extraeffort she has to do to work full-time.   J: Hello, Ms. Lebron. Thank you for answering the questions on this important topic of disability and full-time employment. Samantha Lebron: H...

  Well, the voice of the voiceless is back. I have taken quite a long break, and during that break, I wondered if the voiceless minority still needed me or if it had learned to develop its voice. While I believe the voiceless minority has made gains on its own, it is clear that it still needs the guidance of its parent and its founder, as illustrated by a series of recent events. Recently, I learned of an individual who was wrongfully treated as if they did not have a brain just because they were in a wheelchair. The rest of this blog is an open letter/memo to my loyal readers and anyone who might stumble across this blog. I hope it serves as a reminder or a sharp kick in the ass to remind people that you can't judge a book by its cover or a person by what you see when you first meet them. I was initially appalled while watching what happened to this individual, but I was not surprised when I thought about it later. Even though it is 2024, and we should be more civilized than w...

Whether this blog goes “viral” or even gets read by anyone else is not why I am writing it. Usually, I write to inform or to educate and maybe I will do both with this piece as well, but this time I am writing out of disgust anger, and fear. If anyone asks, I am not shy about giving my opinion about something, and most of my opinions on almost every issue tend to gravitate towards the middle or the left of the political spectrum, but for this issue, I am sure I will piss off some of my regular allies when I say, “what the hell America?” There is a difference between being accepting of others and sanitizing language to erase History and an entire culture’s identity.  When I originally heard about the change of the name of the agency that runs the program that provides my support services from “the agency for persons with disabilities”, to “the agency for persons with unique abilities” I was angry just like many of my colleagues within the disability community are. That has not chang...

People with disabilities are often infantilized even by those closest to them.  I am 37 years old but sometimes I feel like I’m twelve. I am currently reading a book with my girlfriend Samantha who I affectionately refer to as my “little alien.” The book is entitled The Woman In Me by Britney Spears. Spears’ memoir talks about her early life as a performer and how much she enjoyed it but it also talks about the conservatorship she was under for thirteen years. During the conservatorship, every aspect of her life was controlled by others. My situation is not as severe as Ms. Spears's, but I can sort of relate to her on some level.  For those who are new readers of this blog, you may not know that I have a disability known as Cerebral Palsy or CP, or as I like to call it, T-Rex syndrome. I know some people in the disability community will read this and not like the self-deprecating language I use to describe how cerebral palsy affects me physically. Notice how I didn’t say how m...

Disclaimer: An article similar to this blog post will be published on FSA Central.  The practice of paying disabled people below the minimum wage is still legal in 2023, and now It is time for that to change.  The fact that it is legal to dehumanize and discriminate against people with disabilities this way in 2023 is ridiculous! We are America, we are supposed to be the country everyone looks to as an example but Europe treats its disabled population ten times better than we do. Why is it that just because someone is disabled whether physically, intellectually, or otherwise, it is okay to "throw them a bone"? Does that make society feel all that great?  I'm pretty sure Lady Liberty is crying in New York Harbor and Uncle Sam is disgusted. However, because disabled people have been marginalized in America for far too long and I'm afraid that without a disability revolution, this may never change. It is time for us to stop being good little boys and girls and sitting qu...

Your friendly neighborhood super-advocate is finally back. It has been quite a while since I last posted as my loyal readers will have noticed. The last time I came to you I wrote a post on how to make the voice of the voiceless even louder. While the post got a large number of views, which I appreciate, I want to remind everyone that the best way to follow this blog is to make sure you’re following it on Blogspot. Occasionally I may not post a blog on the Facebook page. Now that that’s out of the way I wanted to thank everyone for their overwhelming support not only in the past but recently as well. I was afraid that when I promised a new direction for the Voiceless Minority and did not stick with my five posts a week, my readership would suffer. Readership has done the exact opposite. I thank you for your support while I was not feeling well. While this post is on the shorter side, come back next week for in-depth investigations into a variety of topics. On Monday we will revisit one...

Your friendly neighborhood super advocate is back with this week’s Spectacular Saturday post. I must begin by thanking you for your overwhelming support for Thursday’s 100th post. Your continued support gives me the motivation, and the ability to advocate even when I am not feeling up to it. I can’t thank you enough for that support. I come to you today with a call to action. The Voiceless Minority is growing. Soon we will no longer be voiceless. Our Facebook page has exploded ever since I started posting five days per week. The amount of views amazes me every day. I am inspired by the overwhelming number of comments for my recent post. Even though I respond to as many comments as possible, some of them are anonymous and not signed by their author. Let’s keep the conversation going and use the power of The Voiceless Minority to further strengthen the voice of the voiceless. There are several ways to keep the conversation going. Firstly, if you see that I have replied to a comment you m...