BURIED FUTURES?
Re the March 17 story “Senate Republicans advance redesign of Bright Futures bill:” State Sen. Dennis Baxley persists in undertaking (pun intended) the revamp of the scholarship program and mold it into a career preparation program, rather than what an undergraduate education is intended to be: a liberal education.
Those four or so years should be an expansion of intellectual horizons. Instead, just like Baxley, the liberal arts major can pursue the strait jacket of career training in post graduate or on-the-job training.
We know where this legislator’s motives are: he conflates liberal education with a tolerant world view, i.e. the antithesis of his party’s ideology.
His bill deserves burial.
– L. Gabriel Bach,
Miami
As the United States continues to lift restrictions on social distancing and wearing masks during the COVID-19 pandemic, disabled people like me are reminded that we live in a country that views us as disposable.
One tally in Britain found that roughly six out of 10 COVID-19-related deaths are of disabled people. Not only are “less severe” disabilities reported less than “severe” ones, but many of these deaths happen in nursing homes, which have been proven to underreport COVID-19 deaths.
The United States will continue to lift restrictions as more low-risk populations are vaccinated.
In early March, the
CDC released new guidelines for vaccinated individuals, allowing them to visit “low-risk households.” Disabled people will die because of it. Our abled peers have made it no secret that they will not isolate, even if our lives depend on it. Lifting restrictions, when only roughly 9 percent of the population is vaccinated, invites those around us to push the limits more than they already do.
The most common phrase you’ll hear if you push back on the country opening up is, “If you’re high-risk, just stay home.” Able-bodied people have become increasingly more vocal in their beliefs that disabled people don’t deserve the same lives as their abled peers.
Not only is this line of thinking blatantly discriminatory, it’s just not possible for disabled people to do.
Disabled people work full-time jobs, go to school, and have children and housemates who cannot be isolated from them. Furthermore, many disabled people require hands-on care and will never be able to isolate entirely.
Another common excuse for refusing to social distance comes from a mental-health stance. Our friends and family members are going to bars, restaurants and hosting dinner parties in the name of mental health, while shrugging off the mentalhealth struggles of disabled people, or refusing to believe we have any at all.
Assuming that disabled people can easily isolate, or that our mental health won’t suffer just as much as yours from lack of social interaction is ableist in itself. Disabled people deserve the same enrichment as anyone else, but moreover, we deserve to live.
Yet every day I wake up and see a new headline that gaslights my experience and tells me that my life is disposable.
I get into arguments, I try to prove my existence to those around me, and then I go to therapy and unpack the fact that society views me as a burden. It’s an endless cycle with no end in sight.
Just because we’ve created a culture where it’s acceptable to voice your disapproval of disabled lives altogether, doesn’t mean that it’s not violent and inhumane.
From higher COVID death rates to triage eugenics to lack of vaccine prioritization, ableism in the pandemic is raging harder than ever — to no surprise to disabled people. Throughout history we have resisted against the systems that have tried to kill us, and we will resist now as our government and peers continue to disregard our lives.