When I was a child and a cripple passed by, my mother would quietly warn me, "Don't stare, Joey." That's not a kindness any more – if it ever was. The physically disabled, especially the severely so, are tired of being invisible. They rightly demand to be acknowledged and have learned to organize.
Justifiably, the handicapped fight for rights that most citizens take for granted. They want to be able to move around public streets and buildings, to take a bus, to reach a pay telephone, to be considered for jobs they are capable of handling, to be treated like the adult human beings they are.
Verily, the plight of the handicapped in the United States has improved greatly. New laws and policies, coupled with court decisions, have increased their access to schooling, jobs, and public facilities. There have been strides in the prevention, detection, and treatment of disabilities. Institutionalization and segregation are out; living at home and "mainstreaming" are in. All this, beyond doubt, represents progress, yet public attitudes toward the handicapped have improved but little.
Americans tend to stereotype disabled fellow Americans. Their mental pictures are negative. The handicapped are prejudged. They are thought of as not being as good or as competent as the non-disabled.
These negative attitudes are cleverly disguised, but betray themselves in concrete ways. The public shows how it disvalues the disabled, for instance, in the unwillingness to have handicapped people – especially those who are mentally ill or retarded – live in the neighborhood, in an unwillingness to have disabled children attend school or associate with "normal" children, and in an unwillingness to contribute tax monies toward making aspects of the physical environment adaptable so that physically disabled persons can achieve maximum possible participation in society.
As welcome as new laws and policies may be, they regrettably do not change attitudes. And attitudes can be as disabling in their own way as any physical or mentally disability.
A superstitious "there but for the grace-of God go I" anxiety causes many so-called normal persons to cringe inwardly and look the other way when confronted by a damaged replica of themselves. Barriers are erected that segregate disabled persons into concentration camps of wheelchairs, white canes and hearing aids. Ostracized by society, the handicapped become intimidated by their misfortunes, gradually grow resigned to their second-class status and come to feel that they somehow deserve it.
Quondam president of the National Rehabilitation Association, Dr. Carl Hansen, believed that the "roughest battle a handicapped person fights is for acceptance in society." Indeed, the non-handicapped often avoid disabled persons because they are baffled about what to say or do in their company. Thirteen percent of the population of the United States is handicapped. An estimated half that number are severely disabled. Their very presence discombobulates the able-bodied who have little contact with them.
To make life worth living, handicapped persons, like all of us, deserve choices that allow them to be as productive as possible, that permit them to live out their days in dignity, without being thought burdens on the society in which they live. Indeed, the disabled have a destiny to fulfill. Their very presence among us becomes a daily reminder of the primacy of the law of love and of the debt of gratitude we owe for the soundness of our own faculties.
An appreciation of one's personal worth, psychiatrists tell us, is the cornerstone of mental health. This proper self-esteem builds up confidence to cope with the problems of life and forms a bulwark against storms that threaten from without, and fears that arise from weaknesses within. The handicapped person acquires those feelings of self-worth and self-respect only from those who love him, care for him, encourage him, and help him to help himself. Their judgment mirrors him to himself, reflecting his own worthiness or unworthiness.
A disabled person once said: "I am only someone, but I am someone. I can't do everything, but I can do something. Because I can't do everything is no reason for my not doing what I can."
The handicapped person himself can help educate the public about his disability. He must hold out his hand and say: "this is what you can do for me." Indeed, he ought not to be shy in pointing out to the non-handicapped the areas where both are very much alike.
Astute psychologist, Gardner Murphy, speaking about the hidden resources and potentials of the disabled, said: "Their abilities may be relatively few. They may be blunted or muted by a difficult life situation, or by lack of sympathy and understanding on the part of parents or neighbors; but I would suggest that if there is a deep core of positive joy in the handicapped and it's important to get hold of it."
Somewhere in every disabled person there is a core of positive joy, of positive potential – and we must get hold of it. It is the joy that the poet Schiller said "Turns swift the wheel of life."
For our disabled citizens we must make the wheel turn more swiftly. We must make possible for them the joy of knowing, of doing and achieving – the joy of leading full and useful lives.
Father Lennon resides at St. Thomas Aquinas Priory at Providence College, and served as chairman of former Governor John Chafee's Commission on Mental Retardation.
