Cynics say that the belief and reality that people all make and live in one community is an idealist's refuge of theory and abstraction. I believe this point of view is untrue and damnable, and my reasoning is grounded in the progressing injustice being executed in Ferguson, Missouri. Michael Brown has been laid to rest, and the facts and judgments surrounding his death are in dispute, but I believe that the circumstances spiraling out from the gunning down of an eighteen-year-old in the street in broad daylight are less important than the undeniable truth that this young man died violently, his death represents a tragic loss of hope and potential, and the disgusting reaction to his termination by our state and federal governmental infrastructure--those leaders who serve at our discretion, according to our direction, at least in democratic theory--is representative of a wretched, unforgivable failure of our communal spirit. This is why, in a gesture of solid respect as a member of one minority community to another, and as someone living in our single, earthly human community, I'm going to examine hatred and indifference, and the effects each can have on our society and culture.
I touched on an example of the hatred faced by those living and working in the disability community in an earlier blog post, but it bears greater emphasis, and keener exposure. If you can stomach them, read the emboldened words at the top of the page I referred you to. "No imbeciles" is what it says. You don't have to read it carefully, or even read it with both eyes open. It is a bald, terrifying assessment of every person with a disability in the United States of America, and it wasn't made by a Neo-Nazi, or a Klansman, or al-Qaeda. This is a proclamation, solemnly given forth by a Supreme Court Justice; "Three generations of imbeciles are enough." I am an imbecile. You are an imbecile. Your child, spouse, sibling, or cousin is an imbecile. Don't worry, though, the Honorable Justice couldn't be referring to your father or mother, because this Supreme Court decision was designed to prevent people with disabilities from creating life, and, in essence, living. This, my fellow American with a disability, is an example of pure hatred. It's a form of hatred that isn't designed to prevent you from going to school, work, Disney World, or the White House; it's designed to kill you, and it still officially stands as enforceable. Please, never forget this, and do not accept it.
Hatred isn't the only obstacle corroding and deleting our human community. "The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference." Elie Wiesel said that, he who survived the holocaust as a boy, and agonized over chronicling his survival of the holocaust when he was a man, and I believe him. I believe him, because I've hated in my life, and in the expression of my hatred, I felt a liberating, terrible love that was absolutely selfish. I endeavored to dictate and dominate they who I saw as my enemy. I didn't want to destroy them, because that would deprive me of my control of their choices, actions, and consequences, and it's this control which gave such a selfish, ecstatic rush. I don't hate anymore, or I try my best not to (it's difficult, especially when I discover the Supreme Court of the United States of America has authorized the tearing away of my ability to choose, create, and live), but I do choose to do something that's just as bad. I stop caring, and choose to be indifferent as a defense mechanism, because there's so much putrid, revolting, despicability in our one world, and in the disability community. Here's one despicable example of willful indifference. It's hard to care, harder to fight for what's right, and hardest to inspire other people to do the same. I have to do it, though. And so do you. We all have to fight, together, against the power of hatred and indifference in our world, because if we don't, all of us may end up killed, in the street, in broad daylight.
