Category: A Sedentary View
Seeing people like the Reverend Jessie Jackson weep proves that all the dedication, faith, and struggles that Reverend Jackson and others, including the “Dreamer” himself, Rev., Dr. Martin Luther King. Jr., and the ultimate sacrifice that Dr. King made for the Civil Rights Movement, has finally paid off.
I recently stayed up until almost 3:00am to watch a compelling 1 hour documentary film called “Rolling.” The filmmaker, Gretchen Berland, who is a physician, likes to give video cameras to people so that they can take us into their personal lives, with the intent of creating films to highlight issues critical to understanding and improving the health care system.
But what if you’re disabled, particularly in a way that is readily evident to others just by looking at you? We live in a world that, for whatever reason, insists that conformity is not only preferred, but required, to be considered a viable part of society.
A person may be judged by the way one dresses, or the amount of cash one has in one’s pocket, or the car one drives, or the neck of the woods in which one lives. Even skin color is historically one of the most prominent barriers to acceptance and integration into the society at large.
Lately, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend in our media, one that leaves me wondering how long it’ll be until the disabled community becomes its next target. Shows like The Insider are doing increasing numbers of so called human interest pieces on the obese.
They pick a person who is exceptionally large, tell their story in the most sorrowful and sympathetic angle they can find, play background music dripping with sadness, and then ration out their stories in small bites, manipulating the heart strings of their viewers to keep them tuned in for days, and sometimes weeks at a time.
July marks the fourth anniversary of Audacity Magazine. I’ve been with the magazine for just over two years, and I’m so grateful for the opportunity that Nathasha Alvarez has given me to express my thoughts and opinions, and to share my personal feelings, desires, frustrations, and triumphs with the rest of the world.
