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WE Must Be Ever Vigilant

© William Robb

We Must Be Ever Vigilant

As a disabled person your first priority should be to attack all misinformation surrounding disability of all types. We must do this constantly because if we leave one misconception alive then we may find that it will be used against our disability or that it is being used by the uninformed to misled public. If you allow the public to be misled then you may find that you are being falsely accused of being something which yoaren't't. If ydon'tn't want this to happen then you must read your newspapers, your magazines and watch your television diligently for it may be here where all faulty information originates. Whenever you spot misinformation do whatever it takes to correct the deception. You will most probably find it necessary to write letters, therefore make sure your letters contain no unconfirmed assumptions about disability. Only when all of us do this will we be able to educate a misinformed public on the realities of disabilities.

Here are several examples of misinformation which I had to address. The first dealt with the ADA and implied that it was just an excuse to become disabled. It pointed out its use and misuse and left the reader with the faulty impression that disability is something to be desired. It also left the reader believing that all people with disabilities like government aid.

When I saw this faulty information, I wrote a letter to its author. I pointed out the true realities of disability and asked how it was possible for 70% of the disabled, in my country, to be so disabled that they couldn't perform something useful. I then pointed to Title V of the ADA and asked if this wasn't the culprit that may be causing the high unemployment of the disabled. Essentially this title states that it is all right for one to be written up as a risk for private insurance. How can one be considered a risk prior to employment and expect to find employment? As far as I know no employer will knowingly hire someone who may be a liability to him.

My second example comes from an article whose hidden implications were worse than the first. This article read: militarRitalinno to Ritalin and its subtitle read youths who took this A.D.D. drug will be shut out of the military.

Why was this article misleading? FirRitalinompared Ritalin to one of the illegal mind altering drugs of the sixties. Secondly, it made no reference to prescriptions given for symptoms not related to attention deficit disorder. Thirdly, it made no attempt to state that A.D.D. can vanish as one gets older. Finally it so misinformed its readers that some may have believed that aRitalinho used Ritalin was a potential drug abuser or that their brain had been so altered that they now resembled someone with mental illness.