Fissures

When I began this blog, I never imagined Id be reporting on hate crimes, but here we are. There are infinite ways for the heart to break over this stuff, a kaleidoscope of faces and stories that flicker across the Internet and are never heard from again. Documenting hate crimes against people with disabilities should be handled with the same swiftness and professionalism as crimes committed on the basis of race, sexual orientation or religion. We know this, so why hasn't the media gotten the message? It's unconscionable for a crime like the premeditated beating death of Brent Martin by three teenage boys to go unnoticed by the major networks.

Meanwhile, my friend "Saul" is concerned about going to a birthday party at a friend's house. He's afraid his sister won't let him go. He thinks she doesn't trust him to be on his own. It may be true that ableism clouds her perspective, but Saul's sister is also influenced by the very real fear that what happened once will happen again. Saul is the survivor of a hate crime. I doubt anyone in his neighborhood would classify it as such. They tell themselves, these things happen. Better keep him home from now on for his own safety.

Punishing the victim, restricting his freedom- this makes sense to some people. As solutions go it is a fairly low maintenance one. Apprehending the assholes who target people with disabilities, prosecuting them and raising awareness about such offenses takes work. It takes a zero tolerance attitude and cohesive action on the part of law enforcement. More importantly, it takes a commitment from the community to assert that these things don't just happen. When a person with a disability is assaulted- this is major news, because we should all be on the same page on this one! Is our culture really so degraded that we're incapable of acknowledging the thugs who do this, which, let me point out, is an attitude that is still painfully, pitifully, far from voicing public outrage?

When my friend Saul is discouraged from going out for fear that he will "get into trouble" or more accurately that trouble may find him, it sends the message that Saul's freedoms are held in lower regard than those of the punks who assaulted him. It suggests that there is no middle ground- no cell phones, for instance, that he could use to call someone if he happened to need assistance? It implies that there is no safe public space for people with disabilities. It smacks of the "women ask for it" myth. I'm loathe to even go into the various ways Saul could achieve his goal of traveling independently because that's so not the point of this post.

Look how easy it is to give into a lie when dissenting voices of those in the know are kept at the periphery.