They ain't nobody here but us Cripples.

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When have you reacted to people in a manner similar to how others have treated you due to your disability?

Name: Gary Roberts
Email: jg86@hotmail. com
Date: 03 Dec 2000
Time: 00:19:58

Story

I come here and post often because I think in my head that I am reaching other people with disabilities. There may occasionally be a stray non-disabled person who comes here and they are welcome. In my mind's eye, I think that noncrips tend to shy away from hard advocacy.

Do I dislike noncrips? I remember the regional director of the vocational rehab program I worked for saying to me (in a meeting, "I hear you don't like people who are not disabled." This man was a nondisabled person who was earning maybe $70,000 a year in his position. He had oversight for programs that involved thousands of disabled people. The man was powerful and I had no power. He was using his position and his power to bring pressure on me to stop my advocacy.

Lenny Bruce, who was maybe mentally challenged himself, said that every American needed to do two things: "grow up and sell out." I knew that my position expected loyalty of me for the organization I represented in the community. I was not so naive that I would think that I had a carte blanche to do what I pleased and say what I pleased. This man was clearly uncomfortable with me. I choose to express my feelings and opinions openly and linked myself with the disabled community who he referred to as "the enemy."

In a lot of my writings and opinions, I feel a sense of urgency. There are so many of us who live on transfer payments (Social Security or Social Security Supplementary Income), and I think it makes us very vulnerable. At the same time, society is spending huge amounts of money to reach out to us and bring us back into the mainstream. The sad thing that the effort is mostly wasted and more and more of us drop off every day onto the SS system.

I once had a room mate who was deaf and blind. He was born deaf and became blind gradually over many years. He had a great attitude and, even when his wife left him and took their kids away, he was resolute in his determination to get the best that life had to offer. He set up his own goals and stuck to them. He would not let rehab distract him, and he worked hard and succeeded in the end. This man went against the odds and won. There are many of us who lead sheltered lives and are not exposed to challenges and faced with the necessity to work. Also there are many of us who are unsuitable for employment. I don't want myself to accept the last statement because I have learned where there is a will there is, in truth most of the time, a way. A person with a disability is measured not by his or her disability but by their character and personality.

Every year $60 billion go to support our brethren. I wonder how long before the extremists take after us and try to punish those of us who have not taken a bite out of the American Pie. We need an open and clear dialogue on these issues, and, if we don't have it, we will pay a very heavy price for the lack of such a dialogue. There are legitimate experts in the field of rehab who are not themselves disabled, but we need more disabled representation in the rehab field. The programs have become a giant employment project for the nondisabled.

I know the general attitude that many people working in the field with disabled people hold toward those who they work with. I know it is not very conductive to success because many of these people don't expect success. We see here again and again a legacy of failure and more failure compounded.

My e mail is posted here, and, if you don't agree with me or want to discuss what I have said, drop me a note. I want to see my readers here materialize as real people. IF they don't, I will go away from this page and stop posting. I don't enjoy a monologue with myself.

They ain't nobody here but us Cripples.

Story

Last changed: October 20, 2003