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July 27, 2005
Happy Birthday Anyway
A final note: This came from California crip activist HolLynn D'Lil and I thought I'd share it. She writes on email:
Happy ADA, everyone!
Happy ADA, in spite of the fact that our efforts to acheive compliance with our civil rights law has begun to scrape away the thin veneer of civilization,
the "I-don't- have-anything-against-the-handicapped-but. . ."看businesses that cry foul when they are held accountable for violating three decades of disability civil rights laws;
in spite of the fact that the ugly看face of bigotry appears daily in our newspapers, i.e. the coach who paid to have a child with a disability injured so he wouldn't slow down the game because winning is everything (Winning what, coach? #$$%^%head of the Year?),
in spite of the fact that Tennessee Governor Bredesen is incarcerating people with disabilities for the crime of having a disability,
in spite of the fact the Olmstead decision still has not been enforced,
in spite of the fact that the U.S. Congress is proposing a bill requiring 90 days of notice for ADA violations, whereas we all know that if 15 years isn't enough time, 90 more days won't help and is just a disguise看for a way to legalize infinite delay. The 90-Day, Shine-You-On, Pat-You-on-the-Head and #$$%^you Bill.
in spite of the fact that Title I has already been gutted by the U.S. Supreme Court, Title II is on their chopping block again看(with O'Connor out and Bush's appointee in!) and Title III is in the gunsights看of看Congress,
Yes, in spite of all that, Happy ADA!
BECAUSE at least we have the ADA.看看Threadbare and ragged though it is, the看ADA and disability civil rights laws看represent the high point of our civilization. No matter that our civil rights may not last, at least for a shining moment, the most disenfranchised, the most despised, the most feared and hated minority ever in human history has achieved human status.看看Hurray for us, for this moment, for the看future which看can never forget that once we were equals, and that a law, The Americans with Disabilities Act, said so.
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Posted by mjohnson at July 27, 2005 01:42 AM