The New Bigotry
The New Bigotry Bigotry isn't dead, though it has taken on a more subtle identity. The old shrines of passionate ignorance, the Colored Only fountains and washrooms of the South, have been replaced...
...If public transportation authorities attempted to put forth any rationale, economic or otherwise, for keeping blacks in the back of the bus, Americans would properly be outraged...
...Even after living for twenty-eight years with a disability, I continue to run across new variations on the old theme...
...Others view me as subhuman, and my disability becomes synonymous with absolute physical and emotional dependency...
...My purchase is seen as a superhuman feat...
...Mike Ervin (Mike Ervin is a free-lance writer in Chicago...
...The new bigotry isn't easily spotted because it isn't based on hatred for a particular race or sex...
...But cruelty is just one kind of conditioned ignorance that breeds bigotry...
...These sacrifices on the altar of the new bigotry don't spark widespread indignation...
...Sometimes it's absurdly amusing...
...Few trip the blind or make fun of the "less fortunate...
...In a society based on paternalism, independence is radical...
...The disability-rights movement seems radical only because the bigotry it fights is so entrenched...
...surely my disability must be so unspeakably dreadful that only superhuman strength could enable me to pick up a container of Dan-non...
...In a society based on hate, love is radical...
...How remarkable...
...In a society based on oppression, freedom is radical...
...One man set himself on fire in front of a Social Security office...
...Rarely am I viewed as just plain human...
...The old shrines of passionate ignorance, the Colored Only fountains and washrooms of the South, have been replaced by new monuments to intolerance...
...He has muscular dystrophy...
...When the Reagan Administration purged the Social Security disability rolls of what it regarded as lazy freeloaders, more than twenty of the hundreds of thousands who were miraculously cured of their disabilities by Presidential decree chose suicide...
...Bigotry works that way, sanctioning indifference and inaction: It's okay to deny basic dignity to people who aren't exactly human...
...The disabled are seen as orphaned infants who must be fed, hosed down, and protected...
...But the disabled can't even get on the bus, and there is little outcry...
...While buying yogurt in the grocery store, I'll notice someone observing me with a starstruck smile that says, "He's buying yogurt...
Vol. 48 • October 1984 • No. 12
