The Voiceless Minority

Okay, so it’s been a few days. I’ve been busy, and I finally submitted the first round screenplay to the NYC Midnight Screenwriting Challenge along with promoting my friend’s show “My Gimpy Life.” Teal and her team are interviewing five candidates this week to fulfill the position of Social Media Coordinator, hopefully. Good luck to my friend Jessica Rose who has an interview today with MGL.        Over the last couple of days, during my hiatus from blogging, a significant issue has arisen in my life, which has inspired me to write this blog. I have had a couple of hiccups with my aide care. When these issues first occurred, I wanted to blog, but I didn’t because I would have come across as bitter and angry if I had. Now I can blog about it because I am removed from the situation. I am not upset and angry but just disappointed in my generation and their dealings with others. This blog has not only addressed disability issues, but it will handle a gen...

All men were created equal. This is what it says in our Constitution. Discounting the irony in which it doesn’t mention the 3/5 slave’s clause. This is otherwise a good concept. It essentially implies that no matter one’s race, creed, religious belief, nationality, or any other distinguishing characteristic in America, they should be granted an equal opportunity. I have written a blog, which discussed a little bit of a piece of landmark legislation known as the American With Disabilities Act. However, today while doing some early morning reading, I was forced to ask myself this question, “Have we come all that far?”        This year on July 26, The Americans with Disabilities Act will celebrate 23 years. It is almost a quarter-century old. It’s almost at the point where it has to make a significant life decision and stop relying on mommy and daddy but has changed for people with disabilities since the Act? My argument is that on the surface, improv...

It’s been a while since I’ve written. I’ve been busy and am currently entered in the Screenwriting Challenge 2013 presented by NYC Midnight. So I’ve been bouncing around ideas for that. However, I watched a music video today that got me thinking about an old friend. In turn, that got me thinking about the idea of disability and relationships. For this blog, relationships are not talking about friendships but relationships on a romantic level.        I ended up watching Rascal Flatts “What Hurts the Most,” which is a good video, and it got me thinking about someone I used to be close to. In this blog, I will refer to her merely as KB. Those who know me will know the initials, but since this is being read about the world, I want to protect her anonymity a little bit. Anyway, what hurts the most got me thinking about all that was left unsaid between me and this individual and the personal walls and hells I’ve put myself through. Once I was done having ...

"Dreams are never destroyed by circumstance. They live or die in your heart. My dreams come true not in spite of my circumstance but because of it...For those of us in this life who are afraid to change, life will change for us. Then it is always a more painful experience...Dreams new dreams or dream old dreams in new ways. Think new thoughts or think old thoughts in new ways...The miracles of our lives do not come about by grand events, but by the little things we have chosen to do...The biggest problems come about because I avoid the little things too long...The difficult takes time; the impossible just takes a little longer" -Art Berg. I read this quote in a book that I’m reading by Chad Hymas. This is a quote from his mentor.  Yet again, nothing surprises me. Being disabled you are given a unique set of playing cards. Sometimes a few of those playing cards go missing and you find them later. Then you wonder to yourself, where is that when I needed it? This awful card ...

First off, I must thank you guys for the continued support of this blog. It means the world to me. Second off, I’m writing this blog because several people have asked me that they are curious about the issue. There are multiple types of disabilities but they can be categorized in two ways: disabilities developed at birth or disabilities encountered later in life. My one friend who works with the disabled population indicated to me that this is a hot topic for debate and also got me thinking. I have a family member who is going through similar issues at this point in their life. I myself was born with a disability. I have Cerebral Palsy and it is a neuromuscular disability. It is basically like I have the ability to do everything but my brain does not know how to send the signals to the appropriate muscle groups. Due to my circumstance, I have had a long while to adapt to challenges and I have never known what it’s like to walk, even without the assistance of a walker or another perso...

Okay, so many of you who read this have noticed I've written a lot about the severe side of disability. The labels, the misunderstandings, and even the medical jargon but to this point, I haven't written about the humorous side of disability. This will be a little bit more of a personal share for me, but it is important. You know that I can't drive all that well for those who know me exceptionally well. To put it kindly, I am no champion race car driver. For those of you are not aware of my ineptitude of driving my form of legs. Let me explain... I am a 26-year-old lab. Wheelchair, but this does not mean I act like it. I treat my wheelchair like a dirt bike.  I go out to the bars and even ride my wheelchair down the street in the dark, which gives my mom a heart attack. One of these times occurred approximately four years ago. I was conducting personal business at the bank when I had another of what I would call a "Jay moment." I had taken the local public trans...

"Language... .has as much to do with the philosophical and political conditioning of society as geography or climate...people do not realize the extent to which their attitudes have been conditioned since  early childhood  by the power of words to enable or condemn, augment or detract, glorify or demean. Negative Language inflicts the subconscious of most people from the time they first learn to speak. Prejudice is not merely imparted or superimposed. It is metabolized in the bloodstream of society. What is needed is not so much a change in Language as an awareness of the power of words to condition attitudes." ( Saturday Review  1967) When one thinks about the above quote, it doesn't sink in, so we take a closer examination of our surroundings. From early infancy, ours is conditioned by our physical surroundings and the Language we take in. For example, a child in India will learn several dialects of the Indian subcontinent. U.S. Eng...