The Third State Has Risen: Literature Foreshadowed It and Now We Are Living It

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 changed even though I am writing this blog piece/letter many weeks later. What has changed is the way I view the overall issue as the climax of an issue that has been going on in America since before I was born. 

I believe that the sudden push by those outside of the disability community to erase the word “disability” from the dictionary is the latest and greatest attempt from the third state to erase individuality from society. You might be asking yourself, why do you say that? The rest of this blog will attempt to provide an answer to your question. 

In 1931 Aldous Huxley wrote a little book you might be aware of entitled “Brave New World.” For many Americans, this was required reading material at some point in their primary education. For those who aren’t familiar with the book or weren’t raised in America, I will attempt to summarize the basic idea behind the book. Huxley’s book depicts a Godless world where feelings are suppressed by pills, and nobody is forced to deal with the realities of life. The following quotes encapsulate this idea. 

“And if ever, by some unlucky chance, anything unpleasant should somehow happen, why, there’s always Soma to give you a holiday from the facts. And there’s always Soma to calm your anger, to reconcile you to your enemies, to make you patient and long-suffering. In the past, you could only accomplish these things by making a great effort and after years of hard moral training. Now, you swallow two or three half-gramme tablets, and there you are. Anybody can be virtuous now. You can carry at least half your morality about in a bottle. Christianity without tears- that is what Soma is.  

“Ford we are twelve; oh, make us one’.

Even though Huxley’s book was written 92 years ago it is scary how accurately this book foreshadowed life today. America is now a society controlled by a silent “third” state which infiltrates all facets of our lives including telling us what and how to feel. The latest assault on language is just another way to continue the same campaign of attempting to erase all individuality from the world. Don’t believe me? Here’s further proof.

The assault on language started several years ago when they pressured a football team in the NFL to change their name from “The Redskins” to “The Commanders.” I’m not trying to come off as a racist, I’m just saying, why did the Redskins have to change their name while the Florida State Seminoles' name has been unchanged? In another example, two country music groups changed their names to get rid of their ties to the South. Again, I am not saying that everything that occurred in the South back before I was born was right or just, I am arguing that by changing something’s name to make it sound better or to make a group feel better, we diminish the fact that it happened. Even though our history has dark periods in it, if we do not acknowledge them, aren’t we destined to eventually repeat them? 

You may be asking what history and language have to do with one another and in particular, your argument about the “third state?” My answer is simple. The current push to change the terminology used to describe the disability community is an attempt to diminish or erase their history and culture. I do not say I have a disability; I say I was diagnosed with a disability but there are others in the community who use the term person with a disability to describe themselves. In short, I ask what gives any outsider the right to define a group of people when they do not belong to that group. The answer is simply this. The third state does not want us to define ourselves, rather, they want to tell us who we are or who we should aspire to be. 

In closing, this blog may at first seem less concise than my previous pieces but upon further examination, I believe you will find that not only do I make a good argument about disability and language but that like Mr. Huxley and myself, you should fear what the future holds for us all. 

Unlikely Advocates: How One of America's Most Influential Families Became Some of the Disability Community's Strongest Allies

Recently I finished a book entitled “Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter” by Kate Clifford Larson. I was turned on to the book by my girlfriend Samantha Lebron. She knows that I love history, especially political history. When I first began reading the book, I wasn’t sure what to expect. The Kennedy family has been written about extensively. I thought this would be another look at the Kennedy family through the lens of politics, and, to some extent, it was, but it was much more than just a book about politics.

As I got deeper into the book, I realized the book was about something more. It was on a deeper level about the history of the treatment of people with disabilities in the United States. Although Rosemary Kennedy was born to one of the most affluent families of the 20th century, unbeknownst to her she would face prejudices not only from the outside world but even from some members of her own family. Without recounting the whole book which I highly recommend you should read, I will say that what happened to Rosemary Kennedy reflected attitudes about disability at the time.

The book does a great job of not only detailing Rosemary’s struggles as a young child, but it also does a great job of using her experiences to highlight the subhuman treatment of people with disabilities that was commonplace during that era. However, Rosemary can serve as an example of how the best characteristics of the human race are often seen during the darkest of times. Not every member of Rosemary’s family saw her disability as a thing that should be looked down upon. In fact, her sister Eunice would become one of the disability community’s most powerful advocates. It is through the work of the Kennedy family and their relatives that two of today’s most powerful and influential disability organizations are even in existence. Eunice took a special interest in a program known as the Special Olympics and helped transform it into what it has become today. If this was not impactful enough, Anthony Kennedy Shriver would go on to found Best Buddies International. For those unfamiliar with the organization, it aims to give people with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDDs) the chance to live fuller and more inclusive lives by increasing socialization and opportunities for growth.

In closing, it is this writer’s opinion that the Kennedy family, a family who is often associated with heartbreak and tragedy, needs to be remembered not only for what they have undergone but also, they need to be celebrated by people with disabilities more than they already are. Without the Kennedys the disability rights movement may have taken longer to reach the goals it has so far.

Until next time, your friendly neighborhood super advocate, 

Jay