- By Rene Thompson -
I'm sure that in recent weeks you have seen somewhere, on
the Internet, on the TV some pundit claiming that people with disabilities are merely
scamming the system, "takers" who CHOOSE to live on SSDI, as though
living below the poverty level with severely limited resource and the fear of
homelessness is something everyone would look forward to.
Keep in mind, these are the same people who blamed the long
term unemployed as though they liked being without a job for months, years at a
time.
These pundits are looking for scape-goats and we happen to
be the latest target. They are hoping that people will take the bait and
not pay attention to companies out-sourcing jobs, or getting corporate welfare
while giving their executives massive bonuses or legislators who claimed they
would work on bringing back jobs who instead futz around doing anything but
work on jobs.
But we don't have to accept the role of scape-goat. We
don't have to sit mutely while they claim that we are lazy, shiftless and
criminal. We can and should speak out against these media pundits when
they denigrate and slander the disability community. The disability
community makes up 19% of the US population. That's enough to have an
effect on the media, businesses and politics.
Those who attack the disability community do so because they assume we
will not or cannot stand up for ourselves. I suggest we prove them wrong.
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