Tag Archives: civil rights

It’s All Civil Rights

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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

DEAR MARTIN – WORDS FOR A KING

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Dear Martin,


I have looked up to you since I was a little boy. I was only 14 years old when you were killed. I cried until my eyes were swollen and when we went to church that Sunday our minister, who had marched with you many times, told all of us that the American family had a role in your death. That this country, my country, had been crippled by the poison of racism, of hatred. He called on each of us to carry your message and work hard for your dream. To work hard for the day when children and adults were no longer judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.


We are closer, Martin. We are closer. This Tuesday, the day after the day honoring you, the first African American will become the president of the United States. My eyes flood with tears of joy just writing that sentence.


The struggle for equal rights goes on on many fronts. You have been my role model in my efforts, although I have yet to reach your place of faith and spirituality. But I have held you close to my heart all these years, and having you there helps me. The price I have paid for my part in civil rights pales by comparison to the price paid by so many good and decent people. some paying with their lives, a price I am humbly willing to pay as well to assure justice and equality for all people.





Not long ago I was pushed out of a health care company because they needed to evict a voice they could not silence, a voice that insisted that the people receiving services there be treated with respect and given choice. In the scheme of things, my price was a small one.


You once said, “Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle.” So true.


I don’t know what remains for me in life. But I do know that I am blessed to be on the board of an association that works with people who have survived brain injuries and I was recently appointed to a council that works heart-and-soul hard to make sure people with disabilities are afforded the chance to be as independent in the world we all live in, which includes equal rights.


God bless you, Martin, wherever you are. If you see my father and my family, give them my love and let them know I am doing my best. Perhaps they already know. I’m never quite sure about that one.


I’m going to include a link below for my readers to go to so they can see your “I Have a Dream Speech.”


Thank you, Martin, for all you’ve done for all. The struggle continues for many, and I will be in it until my last breath.


With love and respect,


Peter



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEMXaTktUfA&feature=related

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BACK ON DISABILITY: SOME REFLECTIONS

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I am going back on disability. I never wanted to say that sentence, much less write it. However, reality is a harsh master at times, and if there is one thing that has never been in the same room with bigotry, it’s reality.

Long ago, I learned that life happens to us whether we like it or not. What was it John Lennon wrote years ago? “Life is what happens to us while we’re busy making other plans.” So true.

If memory serves, I was on disability from 1985 to 1992. In 1992, after my mother committed suicide, I threw my all into getting off the disability rolls and succeeded. Although, when I told Social Security I wanted my benefits to stop I threw them into such a tizzy I began to think I’d asked them to explain Einstein’s theory of relativity by mistake.

My focus now it to do my best to make sure certain things in my life remain stable and strong: first and foremost, my sobriety (without that, all else perishes); my ability to help others by bringing them a message of hope that is based on real truths with real strategies, not just the kind of pie in the sky bullshit; my writing; and my ability to advocate for anybody who is being denied the right to be who they are safely in the world we all live in.

Human rights covers everyone and equal rights belongs to everyone – and I mean everyone: people who are gay and lesbian; people who live with disabilities; people from every religion; people who are poor; people who are rich; blacks, whites, Latinos, Asians, Arabs, Israelis – everyone. Everyone.

You can rest assured I will keep writing too.

I am closing in on the end of my memoir and I am going to send it to some agents. If any of you can suggest a reputable one, let me know. I may well send it directly to some publishers. I’d be open to any suggestions on that front as well. I have two novels churning around and I recently decided to write a book about what it has been like to work in the field of brain injury for nearly 15 years.

I’ve gotten some interesting feedback on the book last mentioned. Some people are thrilled and some are, well, worried, and some are scared. All I can say is I have no targets. My intention is to write it honestly and, as the saying goes, let the chips fall where they may.

Like any field I suppose, the field of brain injury has some extraordinary people working in it. There are company owners and management folks who are great. There are , you may be surprised to hear, people in the government, in the regulatory agencies, who are also great.

However, there are those in the aforementioned categories that belong on the other side of the coin from great, the darker side, if you will. There are those driven by greed and the lust for power. There are others, too many others, who descend on a badly wounded population of people with the sole intent intent of controlling them and manipulating them, in some cases through intimidation, so they can keep them in their programs or in their facilities to make money off them. Sadly, many of our badly wounded in life brothers and sisters find themselves herded into socially-approved corrals where their vulnerabilities coupled with the design of these corrals makes it a near certainty their rights and dignity will be taken away. I have witnessed this and fought this and paid the price for doing so over the years. I am paying the price even today. But this is something I am willing to give my life for. And if that happens down the road, I’ll be in good company.

You need to know that while my pen fiercely abhors dishonesty and distortion, its loyalty to honesty and clarity is unflinching and ferocious. There are some in “high places” today who go through their days wedded to the sadly mistaken belief that they are invulnerable. Wrong. Remember what I said at the beginning of this essay? Reality can be a harsh master. Always it is a just master; it spares no one.

Over the years, we have all seen many of the so-called mighty toppled from toppled from their perches, their eyes glazed over with disbelief, their expressions seem to say, “How could this happen to me? I was in my impenetrable fortress?” We’ve all seen it. Their faces etches in bewilderment, shock and dismay, their tormented expressions crying out, “Poor me! Poor me!”… Oh well…

But for now, it is back onto disability for me. As time goes by the impact of the damage I live with from the shooting changes. However, there is one thing that will never change: my unflinching commitment to doing all I can to advocate for every person’s right to be who he or she is safely in the world in which we all live in.