Thought Police, AIDS and the Physically Challenged
Last night I posted an innocent, "thumbs up" salutation on Facebook to a new person I met who lives a robust collegian life in a wheel chair. My post did mention the new friend's wheel chair and expressed my admiration for him.
I have a tendency to reach out to the physically challenged as I grew up immersed in a world with hundreds of people with disabilities. Moreover, it was during an era when they were shunned by society and employers — long before the American Disabilities Act…
But this morning I woke up to a message (from others who read the post) telling me that my post was “offensive”.
Oh Dear, the thought and word police wanted me warned…
Amazing to say the least. Growing up and half of my life as an adult, I was one of those rare people who worked intimately with such people — Special Olympics, annual televised fundraisers for crippled children, a hospital for crippled children, and HIV/AIDS — well before they were accepted into the mainstream.
You see, my older brother was born with cerebral-palsy and is mentally retarded. He sits in a wheel-chair and is the sweetest person one could ever meet. Every morning I got up and looking at the physically challenged.
My family’s life was greatly shaped by these circumstances. We joined social networks for wheel-chair bound people and enjoyed many public social events together when it was considered fairly radical to be seen with 40-50 people in wheel chairs going out to eat, picnicking in the park, attending sporting events, gathering on the beach, long-distance trips or even going to Disneyland.
Yet last night some people in cyber space thought that I needed a little counselling about making an “issue” of someones wheel-chair.
Perhaps the distortions of my post manifested themselves because I am a political commentator published around the nation, but to the dismay of many I write from the Right. Were complainers of my post trying to frame me as insensitive or boorish toward someone in a wheel chair ? Maybe, maybe not.
But what is true is not what counts, what is true is what people think is true…
When I was a political director for the Reagan Administration in Washington, DC I lived with a housemate as many young professionals do in DC.
Stunningly one morning my friend — who had been acting strangely remote — told me he had HIV and that I would be the only person he would tell besides a doctor. He begged me not to tell anybody has he would be cruelly stigmatized.
I told my friend that he was facing his “Calvary Hill”, as back then there were no life-saving drugs for HIV/AIDS. And I told my friend that now I knew why God gave me a crippled brother to raise in life, so that I would have the experience to know how to take care of him. I assured him that I would not abandon him. This was at a time when HIV/AIDS folks were treated like pariahs…even by gay men.
My friend and I had a full-life and when he descended into AIDS, it was visibly obvious. But I always walked him to the subway in the morning and picked him up after work. I didn’t care what people thought. I even took him to several Inaugural events for George Herbert Walker Bush, and we often went to parties for young professionals and made trips to New York City, including the Thanksgiving Macy Parade. Once at a reception for people receiving the Ronald Reagan Medal of Honor, I took my friend to meet cabinet members and also gave him an additional part-time job as a photographer for the paper I wrote for: The American Conservative.
We even started a successful food bank for People with AIDS. And when my friend died I gave his eulogy at the Chapel of Arlington National Cemetery where Presidents and Generals are buried. And I didn’t hide the fact that my friend died of AIDS in the eulogy. In fact, since I am also a veteran and was born in Washington, DC, I told my friend that even though he didn’t have family to be buried with, that when I died I would bury myself in Arlington too…so that he wouldn’t be alone.
My point is this. You wouldn’t believe during those days how many times people reflexively and maliciously accused me of hating gays just because I was a Reagan Republican and routinely did commentary before and after the “Rush Limbaugh Show” for all major affiliates in the nation. They had no idea that my life was deeply involved in helping and living with a person with AIDS.
Back then I couldn’t even discuss AIDS without sanctimonious, liberal-minded people jumping down my throat with stereotypes of being a “homophobe”.
Oh, the “thought police”…
George brother of Matthew Chen
Back to last night’s “offensive post”. If I had to, I could produce a dozen accomplished professionals — judges, doctors, social workers, nurses, American Disability Act advocates from the Clinton White House, former Democratic Congressmen — who would say that the” politically-correct thought and word police” just have no idea what they are talking about. They need to check their own thoughts and words before they deem someone to be “offensive”.
My brother, George, who now lives in a home for people who are physically challenged with severe disabilities. When he was born the doctors said he wouldn’t live past the age of six. Today he is 54 and treated like a King. I am his “legal guardian”. Just goes to show what can happen to someone when you always treat them with love.