Last week, Speaker of the House, John Boehner, waxed eloquent about people who were unemployed. Blaming the unemployed, he joked, "I think this idea that’s been born over last ... couple of years that, ‘You know, I really don’t have to work, I don’t really want to do this, I think I’d just rather sit around.'"
Or, the cute Facebook posts that show a cancer survivor running a marathon with the caption "Just get up and do it." Or perhaps, the well-meaning people who would say to me when I was caring for my Mom with late Alzheimer's, "It would be better if she were gone." Gone where? Peoria?
You can rest assured that all of these comments come from people who
A) Have a job.
B) Have no major health or disability issues.
C) Lack experience with people with cognitive impairment.
Popular wisdom is subversive. It appears cute or sincere on its cover, but in actuality it often validates long-held social norms of prejudice towards marginalized groups of people - in these cases, people without jobs, people with disabilities, and people with dementia.
In the case of unemployment, there are plenty of other jewels of wisdom out there:
"If you look hard enough, you can always find a job."
"God has something better planned for you."
Research has shown that millions of Americans who lost their jobs during the Great Recession remain unemployed or have been forced to take jobs with significantly less pay and benefits. So, in addition to having to struggle through long-term unemployment, people without jobs are subjected to a harangue of pop psych which can only be described as abusive.
Yet, there is also a structural component to the impact of popular wisdom. For the millions of young people unemployed in Spain and Greece, there really is little to no chance of meaningful employment. When the unemployment rate is 50%, there are always going to be people without jobs. You may rearrange the chairs while you play musical chairs, but many will remain with a seat. In addition, long-term structural unemployment forces people to accept lower wages and cuts in benefits - a veritable race to the bottom. Thus, the folk wisdom only serves to reinforce a crushing economic regime.
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Nothing changed my outlook more than reading Harriet McBryde Johnson's Too Late to Die Young. I was surprised, at first, to read about her opposition to Jerry Lewis's telethons. Then I got it. To parade children with disabilities in front of television cameras so that abled people could feel good about themselves while they wrote out a $20 check was sick. Really sick.
And the folk wisdom never ceases:
"You don't look disabled."
"I'd rather die than live in a wheelchair."
Ableism is pernicious and pervasive. Harriet McBryde Johnson was so funny when she made the observation that most people think that people with disabilities are rolling in money. How else would she have such a great motorized chair? The reality is that most people with disabilities are poor. Limited work possibilities, Social Security disability payments, and the very real costs of living with disabilities mean that the bank account is always overdrawn. Similarly, for people with chronic and/or terminal illnesses the money is long gone before the disease runs its course. It's the leading cause of bankruptcy.
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And then there's ageism - especially ageism directed towards those with cognitive difficulties:
"Well, at least you don't have to worry about watching reruns on TV."
"Oh, I misplace my keys all the time."
Perhaps nothing is as threatening to people as to encounter those with Alzheimer's. It's one of the great bugaboos of modern society. We are what we think - - or so we think. Doubtless there are considerable challenges for both patient and caregivers in living with Alzheimer's. And yet, do we not only condemn those with Alzheimer's to poverty and institutionalization, but also to a fundamentally demeaned existence?
I am reminded of the many times I would take my mother out on rides on beautiful days here in Wyoming. She would look up at the sky and say, "Look how blue the sky is!" I am grateful for those years because I lived in the present to a degree that I have not been able to do since. Nor have I been able to see the sky quite as simply. Still, I faced bureaucratic hurdles repeatedly - including those who told me that a single man was unable to care for his mother with Alzheimer's in the home. And most sadly, those who said, "That's really not your mother anymore."
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In all of the above, whether dealing with people who are unemployed, people who have disabilities, or people who are old with dementia a common thread emerges. Our society devalues these people in the extreme. It is bad enough that society punishes people without jobs, people with limited mobility, and people who cannot remember things with poverty and isolation. But what is worse is the social justification of their marginalization through popular wisdom.
Shame on you, John Boehner.