Donna Speaks: Oh, ADA, why don't you work?

The American with Disabilities Act  ADA) was passed in 1991.  That was, do the math, 24 years ago.

The ADA prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in employment, transportation, public accommodation, communications, and governmental activities. It also establishes requirements for telecommunications relay services. Why then are we, the handicapped, still fighting battles day after day when the war was allegedly won in 1991?

For 24 years, the ADA has mandated that certain federal agencies enforce this law.  The following is a list of those agencies and their responsibilities under the ADA.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)

The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP)       

The Civil Rights Center  

                                                                                                                       

These agencies are supposed to enforce regulations covering employment. The EEOC is known mainly for its work in the area of sexual harassment.  The next time you have an opportunity to converse with an individual with a handicap, ask about the help they've received from the EEOC.  To receive assistance from the EEOC, handicapped individuals can only hope to be sexually harassed.

The Civil Rights Center cries underpaid, too few employees, and all the other normal complaints of every government agency that ever existed in the whole wide world.   

                                                                                                                                  

The Department of Transportation                             

DOT is supposed to enforce regulations governing transit.  How many buses, trains, planes, etc. have you been on since 1991.  Did you/do you see accommodations made for the handicapped to get on/off or in/out of any form of transportation? How many bathrooms in these "transit thingies" had/have the high toilet, the hand rails, the low sink, an ease of entry/exit?  Where is DOT when you need her? And how many of the DOT lifts are installed and how many of the ones that are installed actually work?

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC). 

    

The FCC is supposed to enforce regulations covering telecommunication services. Almost all phones are equipped for the deaf to use.  But how many are made for the hands of an arthritic, the eyes of the blind, the brains of the electronically compromised, e.g., me? Calling Ma Bell (and Yelcot, the local phone company…)

The Department of Justice                                         

The DOJ is supposed to enforce regulations governing public accommodations and state and local government services.  When I was in graduate school in the mid-90's, a fellow wheel-chair bound student had to sue Tulane university.  Why, pray tell, you may ask?.  Their School of Social Work inhabited three floors of a building with only stairs to get from 1 to 2 to 3.  Wheelchairs cannot negotiate stairs.  Please note: this was the School of Social Work, violating their own Code of Ethics. 

The courthouse in Mountain View has a one person chair-lift from the first to the second floor.  In order to use this chair lift, you have to find the "Keeper of the Keys" to unlock this device.  You could get to the second-floor faster, easier and more comfortable if you crawled on all fours. 

The Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board (ATBCB)                                       

The ATBCB is supposed to issue guidelines and ensure that buildings, facilities, and transit vehicles are accessible and usable by people with disabilities.  Where do they hide those guidelines? Maybe hidden somewhere in the pages of ColorRama.  

Reserve a handicapped room at a hotel/motel, you could get anything from only a flashing light by the door/phone to a walk-in shower with a seat.  Ask the handicapped social worker who got stuck in the tub in her hotel room at last year's Arkansas State Conference in Little Rock at the Wyndham Hotel.  Please note:  this was a social worker at the yearly State Conference for Social Workers.

Winning a War is Highly Over Rated.

Oh, Dear Althea, have a good day.

An Outsider No More.

Do you know what it's like living your life as an outsider?  Often hated out loud by institutions that call themselves religious, but preach hatred and exclusion.  

• I marched in the 1963 Civil Rights protest in Washington DC because I believed in the United States Constitution.
• I participated in the Detroit riots on 12th Street in 1967 because I believed in the United States Constitution.
• I was hosed during the Democratic Convention 1968 in Chicago because I believed in the United States Constitution.

I was not alone. Thousands of citizens who were disenfranchised or segregated or just not recognized as existing marched. We were called 'Nigger', 'Spic', 'Greaser', 'Wop.' 'Kike', 'Faggot', 'Diesel Dyke', 'Aggressive Castrating Bitch', 'Too Big for our Britches', and much worse, but we continued.

We were beaten, some were killed. We were arrested and jailed.  Local government officials and police stood in the streets and clubbed us with billy clubs. And those officials were applauded, cheered and they swore we defectives would never grace their facilities. 

I was one person out of many thousands.  Slowly the barriers disappeared or started to disappear.  Inclusion was slow, so very slow.

We wrote and printed underground newspapers and surreptitiously distributed them on campuses all over the country. We held women's consciousness raising groups in basements, in kitchens, in bars, wherever we could so women finally realized they were people in and of themselves and did not have to submit to anyone or get approval from anyone else to be a self actualized human being.

Women have broken the glass ceilings imposed by corporations.  Minorities are being freely elected to government positions. Segregation is officially a thing of the past. (Unofficially, we have a long way to go.) Homosexuals can serve their country, again officially.

And on Monday, 21 January, 2013, I was officially recognized by the president of the United States, who said, "Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law — for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.”

For the first time ever, I am a part of this country and recognized as such.  The rest of you have no idea what that means.

Thank you, President Obama. May the citizens of this country agree with you.

And on June 26th 2015, SCOTUS declared us citizens of the US with full rights and privileges. Finally!

Times, they are a changin'

This was originally published on a friend's site: Sage Companions

Accept things like they are. Don't make waves. Don't draw attention to yourself. 
Hush. The teacher/minister/clerk/doctor/dentist wants you to be quiet and not interrupt.  Don't ask questions.

I hear that or a version of that all the time. Parents talking to their children, spouses talking to spouses, adult children to elderly parents. People who think they have authority speaking to people they perceive as not having any.

If it were not for resisting what is,
we would never change our lives for the better

In my lifetime we have seen women come from employable only in menial jobs to most any job they wish, albeit only at 77% of what men make. But we are working on that. When I finished undergrad school, an employer could say, "Sorry, we don't hire women for that." And not realize what he was saying. And we could do nothing about it. When I finished grad school things had not changed.That was 1969 and I was finished listening to that drivel

When I was an undergrad at Michigan State University women could not wear pants on campus. In Michigan where temps reach below zero in the winter. We had to dress for dinner. We had curfews. I mention that not to assess value to their standards, but to say that men undergrads had no dress rules or curfews. Women could not take technical courses like engineering and I wanted to be a civil engineer. Wasn't gonna happen.

My niece is a chemical engineer and doesn't even think it's unusual. Female doctors and dentists outnumber males doctors and dentists. It only took 30 years.

We fought, we resisted, we sat-in, we marched, we demanded and yes, we complained. We made noise. We were not quiet and did not accept things as they were.

And things changed

I have seen people of color exist as second class citizens, relegated to the back of the bus and not allowed to sit at a Woolworth lunch counter, stay in a motel of their choice or get more that a menial job.
We now have a US president who is a person of color.

We fought, we resisted, we sat-in, we marched, we demanded and yes, we complained. We made noise. We were not quiet and did not accept things as they were.

It took Harry Truman one signature and the military was integrated. That was 1948. In 1956, it took a landmark decision by the supreme court in Brown v the Board of Education to integrate the schools. Stonewall happened in NYC in 1969. We came out of our respective closets and are demanding equal rights.

We are still seeing conditions in the US that need changing. It's perfectly OK to hate homosexuals and shout it to the sky. (Written before June 26, 2015, but it's still OK to hate and be applauded.) You might even be applauded. Civil rights are not granted to 10% or more of our population. Entire churches are built around refusing this right and preaching hatred to their parishioners. And believe it or not, the electorate of the US is VOTING on civil rights for gay people. That may have happened in this country before, but not in my memory.*

It's just fine to hate our neighbors to our south and wish them anywhere but in our country of  100% immigrants except for our indigenous peoples. I'm not sure why our neighbors to the north are just fine. Could it be the color of their skin? Would be presidents are using that as a plank in their perverted platforms.

We will fight, resist, sit-in, march, demand and yes, complain. We will make noise. Will not be quiet and will not accept things as they are.

* Thanks to the efforts of thousands and thousands, look what happened on June 26, 2015.  The country changed. We made noise and the country changed.