The Voiceless Minority

  This past September, an article was published in a disability magazine known as Disability Scoop. Michelle Diament wrote the article. It highlighted an incident where former President Trump equated having a mental disability to poor job performance. He did so when he attacked Kamala Harris and Joe Biden at back-to-back political rallies. I will attach the original article to the bottom of this piece. The rest of this piece will not discuss that particular incident but use it as a jumping-off point to analyze the former president and his behaviors as a whole. I am political, but I am nowhere near a politician. In my 38 years on this planet, I would like to think that I have seen quite a lot and know a little something about a lot of things and a lot about a few things. Unfortunately, having a disability in today’s world means you encounter a lot of misunderstanding, ignorance, and discrimination. A recent incident with former President Trump highlights an overall problem that st...

 The movie-going experience has been part of American life for decades now. At the same time, being disabled has also been a part of the human experience since the beginning of time. This piece will address the idea that although we are thirty-four years into the ADA era, movie theaters in Ocala, Florida, demonstrate how little respect people with disabilities have earned in thirty-four years. Over the weekend, I was treating my friend/caregiver, who I will call Jane, on a trip to the movies for her 24 th birthday. She was nice enough to not only drive my van for only the 10 th time since she started working with me but also because my power wheelchair broke several weeks ago and there was a delay in the delivery process of my new chair; she was willing to push me around. The first of many problems we encountered that day occurred when we got to the front door. It was only then we noticed that even though disabled people do go to places by themselves without caregivers or atten...

  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...