My good friend and fellow mother Erika of The Flight of Our Hummingbird said this, yesterday, in a brilliant post on sociopathy and our current political/economic climate:
Anybody who is masochistic enough to read through the comments after disability-related articles is keenly aware that a frighteningly large number of our fellow humans consider people living with disability a mere fiscal burden on society. There is an apparent tendency to assign value to people based on their profitability or their financial contribution to society. I find it rather ironic, or flat-out hypocritical, that there is so much disapproval and railing against "wasting" our scarce resources on accommodations and services for people with disabilities who allegedly don't contribute to society but there is little protest against the outrageous amount of money paid out to basketball players, movie stars and unscrupulous CEO's, whose societal contributions are questionable. I wonder how someone can find it completely acceptable that a person is paid millions of dollars for being able to skillfully throw a ball, yet suggest that it would be better to euthanize people with severe disability so taxpayers wouldn't be burdened by the 8-dollar hourly wage of the caregiver providing In-home supportive services.
Read the rest HERE.
It is amazing how this mentality has permeated our society, isn't it. Americans have lost the sense of community, the idea that we are all one and how the least among us is treated is a gauge of how we as a society are functioning. We had a brief period in the US where we were civilized, but we are once again reverting to what appears to be our barbarian core values. I wonder, where is the outrage? What will it take?
ReplyDeleteI was listening to news driving yesterday. The second big "crisis" (or, maybe it is the no. 1 crisis) is the NFL. I thought about their already outrageous salaries! It's mind boggling to think about what all the ball players make and that's just the tip of the iceberg! I hope they don't find themselves struggling to make ends meet on fewer millions. Of course, Elizabeth, you don't have time to worry about that. You're too busy trying to deal with your insurance company to give dear Sophie the best chance at life.
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Bonnie
I wonder how much of this has to do with our fears of who we are. We would much rather see professional athletes paid tons of money because we want to identify with them and believe that we might be capable of that sort of activity. On the other end of the spectrum, we are uncomfortable with people with disabilities because we don't want to entertain the notion that we might someday be affected by disability ourselves. We have this collective "contagion" consciousness.
ReplyDeleteI am presently reading "The Sociopath Next Door" which Erika recommended in her last blogs. Definitely very high on the "must read" list of books!
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting this! Makes me feel all special :)
ReplyDeleteYesterday I spoke for a long time with an MD friend of mine who took her 2 kiddos to a special needs camp recently. Her daughter and son have the same disease but daughter appears "normal" is ambulatory and intelligent. Her son is non-verbal, in a chair and makes odd noises. Her son was ignored and singled out in activities lumped with the other "wheelchair kids" and no one volunteered to be his camp mentor while her daughter had three mentors. Ironically, her daughter noticed on the daily videos (along with another girl who is also "normal" looking with the same disease) that there were never any photos of the two of them. Apparently they looked too "normal" for fundraising purposes. The hypocrisy of this crisis goes on and on.
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