During my summer on the East Coast, I have one profoundly negative memory. I was riding the bus to a doctor’s appointment in Virginia and two men boarded the bus. One of them had a cane, and the other had cans of paint. The man with the paint began to complain about how the man with the cane paid less for his fare. The situation escalated and the man began to curse and spout disdain for disabled people, who he believed were taking advantage of hard working Americans like himself.
What this man could not see is that I am disabled myself. Thankfully, if I manage my medication well it is all but invisible. But it made me think, while the man with the paint was clearly an extreme example of ableism, which is discrimination against people with disabilities, he was a clear personification of a far subtler phenomenon.
America has a problem with ableism. While most people think of hate crimes as something that applies strictly to racial minorities or women, there is a less known category of hate crime –hate crimes against the disabled. While they are rare — representing less than 1 percent of the total number of hate crimes reported in 2011– that doesn’t make them something to be taken lightly. Thirty-two states and the District of Columbia have laws covering crimes against the disabled, and I for one would like to see every state put something on the books to protect the disabled from hate.
But there are more sinister manifestations of ableism in this country. For example, the persecution of those receiving disability benefits from the government.
Recently in Portland, Ore. a man calling himself “Artemis of the Wildland” has been distributing fliers threatening to publicly name those who receive disability and food stamp benefits. This is detestable to me. A hidden disability is often an individual’s most intimate secret, and the thought of being publicly shamed for something beyond one’s control, to have the public decide whether or not you are worthy of benefits disgusts me. “Artemis” is essentially calling people like me a liar. It almost reminds me of the outrage gun owners felt when The Journal News released their identities. While I believe it is an invasion of privacy to out lawful gun owners, the case can be made that the public has a right to know this information, after all guns are deadly weapons. The chances I’m going to murder someone with my dystonia are significantly lower.
Thankfully, “Artemis” is likely bluffing, it is quite unlikely that he actually has the information to release in the first place.
Still, one wonders why the poor and the disabled are constantly scapegoats for the ills of society. In contemporary American society, we are not the ones who cause the most harm. According to Forbes, disability spending is approximately $200 billion, representing less than 6 percent of federal expenditures in the Fiscal Year 2012. That really isn’t that significant, and while there is without a doubt some level of abuse in the system, I doubt you could find one legitimately disabled person who would turn down the opportunity to work if they were able rather than collecting disability insurance.
I don’t collect disability insurance at this point in my life. Luckily, I can manage my condition well with medication. But should I be unfortunate to become too disabled to work again and need to collect disability, I would hope my country would help me survive rather than leave me on the side of the street to die. Last time I checked this isn’t Sparta, but if I’m wrong feel free to kick me into a pit.
Andrew Deskins can be reached at [email protected]