It hit me the other day. Those things we do in our country to make the playing field level for the disabled has a negative effect. Those things we do to attempt to level the playing field for Minorities has the same negative effect. Maybe it's time we STOP putting people in bondage to the blue mirror hanger.
You know the parking places near the door. The ones where those who have a Blue Sign hanging from their mirror park. If you park there, it's a big fine. There are a lot of things we do to accommodate those who are handicapped in our society. I don't resent the accommodating, but there are times when it is over the top. To be clear, my Brother John was in a wheelchair and this was necessary. On the other hand, there are ramps that are made to accommodate become barriers to the rest of us.
It all revolves around an act of congress 27 years ago, the American's with Disabilities Act. It was needed, but like a lot of good intentioned actions and laws it has led to abuses. It has become a mark of privilege to get a blue sign. I know people who sell them to others. It's illegal. People with a minor limp or discomfort petition to get one so they can park in the close by places.
Here's the part that becomes insidious, identifying yourself as handicapped in order to get special privileges has become a gaming sport. There are selfish people who use this pretend disability to get in first, get the best seats in the house, to be ahead in lines even on airplanes. Then there are the service dogs. People who have figured out how to game the system to have their puppy assigned as a service dog to have it on the airplane or in a restaurant.
These disability pretenders are actually selfish people using the system to get what they want... privilege.
Let me be clear, it's a good thing to make accommodation for the disabled. I may be old someday and need accommodation. I just don't want to go there soon.
The idea of special privilege for the disabled was not part of earlier generations. Thousands of men and women returned from wars missing limbs, eyes, carrying wounds for life and yet they did not expect society to do more than to give them a chance. And we did. Those people were not shoved aside. They tried hard to make their way in society even though actually handicapped. It made them better in many ways. If you were to call them disabled they would have been offended. My father in law from WWII was one such. He carried a war wound that caused him pain for most of his life and he limped till the day he died. Yet if I had said to him, Here let me help you, He would have hit me. He was proud and wore his difficulty as a challenge to overcome.
While I believe we need to accommodate those less able, I am convinced that these accommodations amplify and actually reinforces the disability such that they don't see the nessesity of becoming stronger. If we cut them enough slack.. they can live in comfort without the struggle.
It is said that the butterfly if helped too much in emerging from it's cocoon will die because it never struggled to develop the ability to fly.
When there is a culture of defeat and victim-hood called a handicap culture.
This parallels the Handicap Culture of Privilege that keeps the African American people trapped in bondage in the USA.
There needs to be justice and there has been injustice. Yet the efforts to create justice has created a cultural handicap for a whole race of people. It has also firmly reinforced a culture of white supremacy, white power, white pride, white superiority and white privilege. If you think or believe it was always there, it was but not to this extent. It's not just backlash, but as the African American culture becomes more and more identified as handicapped it manifests in those not so impaired or invalid to recognize they have it better than the other. The result is even if they are sympathetic, they are sent a message, we are not as good as you are.
The USA from the time of the civil rights act and thru the last 50 years has made law after law, accommodation after accommodation all in the name of trying to level the playing field, restore justice and develop equality. It has actually created a culture of people who like the handicap pretender, expect accommodation even if not actually handicapped other than their skin color. Equal opportunity, affirmative action, fair housing, laws about governmental hiring to favor the minority applicant and thousands of other efforts at righting wrongs. The net result is the wrongs being righted were mostly artificial and built of political expediency. Worse there is no sunset law. When do we stop the affirmative action program? It has created a victim mentality, a handicap of the soul. As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. If a person thinks themselves a victim, they are. If you don't believe you can, you won't. Many today with great ability and potential are trapped by believing the lie that they are handicapped, disabled, invalid. What a tragic situation.
I have asked many times of people who are of color when the last time in the last year THEY PERSONALLY were affected by overt racism. It's almost impossible to get a clear answer. Of course they all have stories of this or that person who did, but seldom themselves. They are living on sketchy stories and events that reinforce their mindsets.
The result is what we see today. Black lives matter, they do, but what they want is an expansion of the handicap culture. Special treatment. Black privilege.
While giving some lip service, those who have fought and won never feel handicapped in this way. They laugh at the idea of white privilege and white supremacy. I can point to all kinds of men like Michael Strayhan, Don Peebles, Kanye West, Morgan Freeman, Daymon John and thousands of men and women of color in senior management in business and industry all across the fruited plain. If you think they are feeling victimized, discriminated against or handicapped, they know better. They got there by hard work and drive. Not by hanging out a handicap mirror hanger on their resume.
What we as a nation have done is cause people to find a comfort zone of being less than they created to be. That it's OK to be mediocre if you can get away with doing less and blame injustice for your lack of achievement. We have made it easy to do less. We have destroyed a whole generation that riots, rebels in lawlessness and expects us to accept their selfish actions without question. Many of those who have difficult with cops and sometimes get shot are doing it out of a heart of black privilege.
Can we change this? Yes, but it's not going to get better as long as white privilege is propped up by a victim handicap culture that says, "YES, I'm not a good as you because I'm BLACK and suffer discrimination I can't solve." When the white man agrees.. that's considered racism. How can it be racism when he's agreeing with what they already believe. In this way the handicapped culture feeds the white supremacist.
Black people in America are unique in all cultures in the world. In Brazil there is some low level racism, but for the most part it is a color blind culture. Black folks in Brazil were brought there as slaves by the Portuguese. They have now taken their place in society. Cuba is somewhat like that. I have read all the articles that claim that is not the case.. but they fall apart under close examination.
Kenyans and Nigerians in large part believe themselves superior to Americans. In France the only racial issues revolve around Islam, not color. Before the incursion of Islam, the black Frenchman was common. Many people groups around the world consider themselves superior to the average American. Japanese, Chinese and Lebanese among them. The African American in the USA has been convinced by a parasitic political philosophy that the black man can't make it, can't get it done, can't win, can't achieve nothing other than sing, dance and play ball. That they are helpless without the government and it's masters. Worse the longer the community does what it can to keep the parasites in power, the worse it gets.
I know many who read this will take offense, that's because the indoctrination has created a world view that cannot be easily overcome. This is a 2x4 of truth. It hurts when they are hit.
I can't help being who I am. If you are black, brown, red of yellow neither can you. What I can do is reject the selfishness that creates a demand of something special for you that reinforces the handicap culture.
You are not handicapped. You are not inferior, invalid, crippled or less than. Only those who have lied to you want you to believe it. It is cultural Munchausen Syndrome: Munchausen syndrome is a factitious disorder, a mental disorder in which a person repeatedly and deliberately acts as if he or she has a physical or mental illness when he or she is not really sick. Munchausen syndrome is considered a mental illness because it is associated with severe emotional difficulties.
Time to break free.
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