I May Appear to Be Broken In Your Eyes... But I am WOKE

Recently, due to what appears to be my belief system, I have been written off by a person I have known my whole life, no worries, I am sure there are several more that feel the need to use that as a weapon to shut me down, and shut me up. Just an FYI, how is that working for you? Love you all still. But here are a few things that has been gnawing at me from the inside out this last several years.

I have been trying to figure out and unfortunately, there is not a lot in the literature on disabilities and the role that religion, culture and beliefs play in sustaining discriminatory practices against persons with disabilities, but it has become even more blatant in the past couple years. O, and try asking someone, yeah, you will get no where, they are so blind in their justification of what they do, and because you don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, you find yourself stuck in another prayer session where you are the one they are praying for. No I have not been fully healed yet, and no it hasn’t gotten better. Thank you for thinking it though. Many of these practices are exclusionary in nature and unfair. They are either embedded in or sustained by religion, culture and beliefs about disability and persons with disabilities. Everything in religion screams at a person with a disability and trains those who attend, that “hey look, someone who is worse off than you.” It is sometimes hard to take the high road when every day there is someone pointing their fingers and telling a person with a disability or other life challenges, that it is their fault they are the way they are based on their culture, practices and belief system.

Some how we believe in a just world, which is the idea that all things happen for a reason, and that people like myself have a disability or became disabled, because they do not have enough faith, or They must have done something to deserve what happened to them, or maybe they didn’t pray enough or they have hidden sins. Well I am curious to know what people think I did that was so bad that it justified a 20- ton boulder on my leg. Also, I would like to know where all these people who think they can cure me by touching and praying over me came from overnight. Not to be hurtful to those I know who believe this, but I am sorry, O, Wait, Sorry, I am not sorry, because what you do is hurtful, and although you mean well, you inflict shame, pain and self-proclaimed dominance upon me every time you think you are doing me a service. Love you, but

24 years, 1 ½ months and 2 days, I have come to terms with my disability, my feelings regarding those involved, and the pain I wake up to every morning. O and for those people who would like to lambast me, or before someone decides to blast me about whining or using my disability to get sympathy, or that I don’t know real pain… You don’t get to trivialize my experience or anyone else’s experience because you still haven’t worked out your anger and feelings of loss regarding your experience in life. So just don’t, walk away, scroll down. Now where was I, o yeah, Over the better half of the last 4 years I have notices a steady growth in the lack of empathy, which has been taken over by an all-out mixed sick twisted, love and joyful celebration by those who look down upon those who are less fortunate. The sound of people nudging each other because those who didn’t plan or made mistakes early in their lives are now getting the shaft and will have to pay for their mistakes. I see posts daily, that read like this “You can’t live off the backs of us hard working Americans anymore.” “Go get a job, and pay your own way!” Who are they talking to? Does anyone even know who they are talking about, or who these lazy people are who are sucking off the tit of the government, do they even know who they are referring to? I recently saw a post that resonated with me regarding the Gay Pride month and I posted it… it said. “Be careful who you hate, it could be someone you love.” This holds true among those who you are hating on that you haven’t even given a face to.

It is really hard to not get angry, and yeah, the F word has been coming out of my mouth more frequently, because one, I have really had to consider buying a cane with a taser in it, just for protection due to several incidents in cities out side my home town. Why you ask, because I had a man come at me in Seattle spewing this exact hate, he stopped the minute he saw my husband, but what about next time when my husband isn’t there? And what about all the other disabled people out there who have been attacked based not on whether they get SSDI or Medicare or Medicaid… Which by the way they paid into, or their families for generations paid into, and how many of us really know what we pay out in taxes that goes into these programs. well today is your lucky day, because I am going to tell you, drum roll please! As of 2012 the average American making $50,000 per year paid just $36 towards the food stamps program and about $6 a year for the rest of the social safety net programs, which include the following Social Security, Medicare and Unemployment. Yeah I looked it up. You know what, I will gladly pay my total of $42 so that someone can live with dignity. Now for the disgusting report regarding the attitudes and behaviours of people these days per the FBI hate crime page, As reported by the FBI’s newly released 2017 Hate Crimes Statistics, hate crimes committed based on disability increased from 70 reported incidents to 116 reported incidents between 2016 and 2017. That is a 65 percent increase in a single year. When considering hate crime statistics, however, it is important to know that hate crimes are often under reported, due to factors ranging from reporting protocols which vary greatly from state to state and victims hesitating to report a crime to the police or not knowing how to do so. Why do you think these hate crimes have increased? Anyone care to venture a guess. So if you think I am angry, damn straight I am angry… because of callused individuals who point fingers assume they are guilt free of ever needing help or a hand up, or they forgot about the hand up they got when they were down, or they think they will never be in that position why because, their god is better than mine, or they pray more than I or maybe they are way better than me. But what about your loved ones? Those who you forgot who rely on these programs, need these programs, who will go without food because these programs are being wiped out? Who will be responsible for the care of our most vulnerable? Have you stopped to think how much will we being paying out in emergency care when these programs go away? As for me, I haven’t been on a program since 1997, I went back to work, it was hard work to get there, because of the discrimination in the work place regarding people with disabilities, but that’s another story.