Category Archives: Dr.King

When it comes to equal rights, it is personal

Posted on by
1

I can think of no better time than now, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, to say a few words to all, including those who, if they abide by the requirements of their respective roles, are bound to the notion that people with disabilities deserve equal rights meaning, they deserve their freedom. There can be no freedom without equal rights. My disability is a brain injury as a result of being held-up and shot in the head in 1984.

In my state  of New York the struggle for equal rights for people with disabilities (and seniors) often finds itself confronting those who are seeking to save money at the expense of those rights which includes the right to live as independently as possible. In some cases this means having access to the services they deserve to make this possible. The struggle is, at times, with some of those who loudly pronounce their support for those of us with disabilities, but, when the forces that seek to deny us our rights raise their heads, they fall silent.

Over the years I have made friends and lost friends because I hold people, companies, agencies, councils, committees, and governments accountable for their actions. There are some who think that I start out holding these folks accountable publicly. Not true. In many instances, and, in some cases, for significant periods of time, I have held the aforementioned accountable in conversations behind the scenes. But when that fails, the dysfunction and the glaring disloyalty to their professed cause must be brought into the light of day. There is no doubt I have angered some and there is no doubt some have taken my actions personally.

I don’t advocate for equal rights to make people angry and I don’t advocate for equal rights to wound someone personally. Has it ever occurred to anyone that having your equal rights denied might make you angry? Has it ever occurred to anyone that having your equal rights denied is personal? When you lose your equal rights, you lose your freedom. For some of us with disabilities, losing our freedom includes losing our freedom to remain in the community! Our freedom to choose where we live, what we eat, what we wear, when we sleep, when we get up, where we go during the day, what we hear, what we see…   This is no exaggeration. I wish it was, but it isn’t. Just imagine losing your freedom in any or all of the ways just mentioned and then ask yourself if it wouldn’t make you angry. Ask yourself if maybe just maybe you might take the loss of your freedom personally.

There are some groups in New York who truly do practice what they preach. The Center for Disability Rights  headed up by Bruce Darling, a man I genuinely love and respect, comes to mind. On the CDR homepage, Mr. Darling writes, “Some people say we are never satisfied. Others try to portray us as complainers. I feel we just call it as we see it.” Thank God they do.  And what is it they do? They hold everyone accountable and, at times,  they do so publically. After all, sunshine is the best disinfectant.

And then too there is the extraordinary group, ADAPT, whose battle cry is, accurately and not surprisingly, Free Our People!  And, in my state, we have NYSILC, the New York State Independent Living Council, along with some  Independent Living Centers across the state who are indeed remarkable. But we need more groups like this. The fledgling Kahrmann Advocacy Coalition has, in a very short time, taken the role as the largest grassroots advocacy group for people with brain injuries in the state. Why? Because it was a huge void that needed (and deserved) to be filled.

If all that’s been said here and other places about the need for public advocacy for equal rights has not swayed you, then perhaps the words of the man whose day this is might help. Perhaps his words might help those who remain silent when the rights of any people are being denied to change their ways and speak out.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said:

  • “Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable… Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.”
  • "A right delayed is a right denied.”
  • “In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
  • “Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”
  • “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
  • “The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict.”

Let us also remember that the reason this day belongs to Dr. King, and therefore all of us, is because, like CDR, ADAPT, the NAACP and more, he called it the way he saw it, and he did so in a way we all heard, understood and believed.

We shall overcome.

     

It’s All Civil Rights

Posted on by
Reply

Anytime anyone is being denied equal treatment under the law they are experiencing discrimination and their civil rights are being violated.

According to statelawyers.com “discrimination occurs when the civil rights of an individual are denied or interfered with because of their membership in a particular group or class.” Setting aside my personal distaste for the context in which the word class is being used here,  the key component of the quote is “all people”. Not just people who live with disabilities, or people who are gay or lesbian or black or Latino – all people.

The fact some do not see gay and lesbian civil rights, or disability civil rights, as civil rights issues does not make them evil. It’s simply testimony to the learning curve or, perhaps better put, awareness curve they need to travel. Many years ago I saw a documentary in which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was attacked by a white man in his fifties. Dr. King was unhurt, the man was quickly subdued and, I would presume, arrested. The audience was angry. Dr. King asked them what they would believe if they had been told every day for fifty years of life that blacks were bad.

Many of our brothers and sisters have been raised to experience people who live with disabilities as being less than others. Many have been led to believe that  people who are gay and lesbian are somehow out-of-kilter on the moral front. The fact that these beliefs are welded into the minds of too many does not give them credence or accuracy. Instead, those that live out and spread these beliefs further poison our culture’s ability to experience each other as equals, which is what we are.

The denial of equality is the denial of civil rights. It’s all civil rights

A SEAT AT THE TABLE

Posted on by
Reply

In one way or another I have been a human rights activist for nearly all of my 54 years. I was raised in a civil rights family. Our minister marched with Dr. King. I can remember the Sunday service after Dr. King was assassinated when the reverend Bill Daniel took all of us to task for Dr. King’s murder. We all play a role in creating a society where things like this happen, he said. He was right.

In his 1963 letter from a Birmingham jail Dr. King wrote, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” He was right. He was right then and he is right now.

When we talk about justice, we are talking about freedom. Each is an appendage to the inalienable right of every human being to be who there are safely in the world around them.

And so it is with an allegiance to freedom and justice for all, along with an unflinching awareness that we are all threads in a single garment of destiny, that I try with all my might and heart to apply my voice to the fight for the right of all people to be who they are safely in the world around them. Safely doesn’t just mean physical, moral and spiritual safety. Safely also means social and cultural safety. To achieve these, equality is required. To achieve true equality, freedom is required. To achieve freedom, a seat at the table of social, political and cultural discourse is required.

For 13 years now I have worked primarily with people who have survived brain injuries. I have worked in both long term and community based settings. There have been times where I have found myself in a position of having to confront patterns of behavior and patterns of decision making that, intentional or not, deny survivors their right to have an equal say in the management of their own lives.

Over the years I’ve seen malicious patterns of oppression. I’ve seen the poison of dishonesty and the insidious tool of threat used as manipulation tactics. These threats are often linked to the person’s ability to keep the services needed to retain their level of independence in the community. Cruel? Absolutely. Illegal? Should be.

Dr. King said, “We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”

I can tell you from personal experience that being one of the voices that demands freedom can take its toll. It can be hard and grueling and painful to endure. But I don’t mind. Yes, I get scared at times. Yes, I am at times deeply worried I will lose everything. But I will not retreat into silence when I am, in some instances, attacked on a very personal level by the forces of injustice.

Here’s the thing. I would be more scared were I to retreat into silence and tuck myself away in some corner of the world and there sit idly by as the forces of injustice had their way. Such a retreat would be tantamount to my enlisting in the forces of injustice. And that, I can tell you, would take a toll on me that I am not prepared to endure.