The Dark Side of the Liberal Movement

So far my blogs have been about LGBT relationships, only somewhat alluding to another issue that is near and dear to me.  Long before I came out I was an LD student living in conservative Indiana.  My first experiences with discrimination were as a dyslexic child.  Back then, in the 1980s, the cause of dyslexia and ADD weren’t understood.  In fact there were doubts that ADD even really existed.  ADHD wasn’t even considered yet, and therefor wasn’t up for discussion.  To legally get the help I needed I had to be labeled as disabled, but the clear understanding of what category of disability people with dyslexia belonged under was up for debate.  As a child I was deemed to be mildly mentally retarded.  One of my clearest memories in school was going up to a teacher to tell her I was being called a retard and her saying, “Now Erica, retard is just short for retarded.  It may not be a nice way of putting it, but it’s not wrong.” 

What I learned was if one was being picked on for something that was true than it was deserved, and no one would do anything about it.  This shaped much of how I reacted to my budding sexuality.  I knew what happened to girls who came out.  When some boys decided that I was a lesbian and began to molest me in high school I knew I couldn’t say anything.  It would be decided that I deserved it.  For me, the process of coming out and growing up with a learning disability will forever be intertwined.  I was abused for my perceived sexuality.  They got away with it because the teacher didn’t want an LD student in his class.  I bring this up because what I have to talk about is directly affected by the attitudes that made such a childhood possible. 

You see, much of my life is determined by the issues I have as a dyslexic, but much of my political activity is directed by the fact that I am a lesbian.  In a very real way these things just don’t mesh.  Liberalism doesn’t have a place for people with disabilities that effect spelling and reading.  It is assumed that bad spelling means one is uneducated, and poor reading means one is ignorant.  I’ve noticed this attitude time and time again by friends of mine, and their reactions to when I call them out on their mockery of the tea parties creative spelling. 

An example would be a site called UPWORTHY.com I used to follow their page on Facebook, but I had to stop because of the vial attacks on me.  The final straw was when I commented on a video.  You see, I listen to articles using software called NaturalReader.  I select text, hit play, and hear what you read.  Before it, the best I could do was read titles and maybe two articles a night.  I just don’t read quickly enough or functionally enough to do more.

But, I’m still a college student and I spend most nights doing school work.  Some of which I could do while listening to articles.  Because of this while I listen to one article I am scrolling down Facebook looking for other articles to listen to until I have a full cue.  It is not uncommon for me to have up to 30 articles in cue at one time.  This means that if I am going to make a comment on Facebook it has to be before I actually get a chance to watch or read it.  I saw a title for a video, and thought it was self-explanatory enough to make an opinion.  As a person with a disability that effects reading it is a given that from time to time I’m going to be embarrassed by a mistake I make.  I accept that as a fact of life, like a blind person needing help getting from one end to another of a room they’ve never been in. 

What proceeded to happen because of this misunderstanding became a three day barrage of insults informing me that I didn’t have the right to comment on anything if I was too stupid and lazy to actually watch it first.  This was after explaining the mistake and why.  My learning disability wasn’t an explanation for an error by a disabled person deserving of respect, it was proof that I was, in fact stupid and lazy.  The fact that I made the mistake because I was trying to make time for school work was beside the point. 

Now, this is my point.  You are a 17 or 18 year old kid with severe dyslexia and you are trying to decide what your political stance is.  You are looking over a liberal site and you run into this situation.  Exactly how do you think that young person sees the liberal party at that moment?  They move on to see this pic:

And the only thing commented on is how stupid the person was who wrote it because they misspelled antichrist.  A poorly understood fact about dyslexics; we literally don’t see spelling errors.  It isn’t just that we can’t spell, we can’t, but the way we see letters makes us tend to autocorrect what we can spell to what was really meant. 

So what this child has learned is if there is one movement that has no place for them, that will never accept them, and that they will have to spend their lives being maligned for being who they are, it is the liberal party.  The sad part is that child will be 100% correct.  The even sadder part is this means we are actively working to insure intelligent capable young people become conservative tea party members who are systematically defunding the very education these children need.  It’s not that the Democratic Party is really taking much time or effort into helping LD kids, but at least in their efforts to expand education they don’t take from LD kids, they just ignore us.

Now, as an out and proud lesbian, and the daughter of two democrats I kind of have to be a part of this party wanted or not, but the point still remains that I’m not really wanted as I am.  Sure I can be as out and gay and be as outspoken as I want on that, but if I ever dare allow fatigue to get the better of me and post something without running it through spellcheck and grammar check, and then proof read it with reading software at least three times I better be willing to pay the price.  I’m expected to hide yet again in a community that is supposed to be mine, but in point of fact isn’t. 

My argument has always been when these jokes about the bad spelling in signs come up that there is a legitimate issue being ignored.  This is for the chance to basically do to these people what was done to me as a child.  When we lower ourselves in this way we become the bully on the playground, and I was bullied that way.  They only thing it ever did was tell me these weren’t really my people.  There was a made for TV movie made where a mother disowned her son for being gay.  After he killed himself she spoke out in support for gay rights.  In a speech she made she asked people to think about the words said because, “Our children are listening.”  Well, at the risk of being overly dramatic here, 1 in 5 people are dyslexic, and 1 in 5 of our children see these mockeries of issues they struggle with.  They see people called stupid for struggles they endure and they are listening. 

You are perpetuating another generation who will struggle with shame, and hide a fundamental part of who they are, because they aren’t stupid.  They aren’t lazy.  These are children usually with above average intelligence, these are people who work harder than you can ever understand to do things you find easy.  These are people whose causes go right along with the issues we speak out for.  So why not knock off the jokes, and point out the real wrong.  Be a welcoming place for people like me.  At the very least, consider who might be listening.