How ADA make people monsters

I will not go into too many details on this topic, just say that if there are “rules” people tend to forget the key idea, “spirit” of those rules. People tend to forget what their brains and hearts were used to be used for. They typically rely too much on those rules. As sad as it sounds, this is typically true. For example, Americans with Disability Act (ADA), despite the fact that it was passed to serve needy people, this law does not give the employee and employer any flexibility; instead the evidence suggests the opposite. The intention was excellent and, of course, out of questions, but the implementation many years later is driving people further and further from this intention. Everybody knows that disabled people are not “equally” disabled, they all have different problems; even if there is some classification that supposed to identify some groups of needs, the key point on this is that it is only theoretical. Most people try to “average” out some needs and make recommendations according to the descriptions, unfortunately, transformation of those recommendations into an obligation can be a disaster, because what helps one person can harm another that can be irreversible 3.

 

Moreover, no disabled person wants people to recognize the disability of his/her in a traditional way, because it normally hurts 2,3,4. The traditional view of disability often focuses on a defect or impairment and not on the person himself/herself 5. The ADA states disability as an advantage almost, so disabled person has “privileges” before others. This gives a person often at least weird looks and, as a normal reaction, hate and/or avoidance from others, especially combined with impossibility to explain everybody that “privilege” is not really a privilege. In addition to that, it offends the person 5,8. A lot of times it not only hurts, but this means excluding the person from any society activities, writing him/her off. It often almost feels as the society is burying the person alive, guided by the nice and kind motive “it is good for them, be easy on them” and so on.

 

The ADA offers a protection to disabled people on problems they may encounter during the life like discrimination regarding to the accessing the opportunity to get the “perfect” fitting job for their skills, discrimination at the work place of any kind, arranging appropriate accommodations. The reverse of this “medal” is the fact that, as everybody knows, everything has a price-tag and in this case the cost comes as overly protected rights. It means decreased opportunity for “perfect” job, because despite what the employer says he/she will think about circumstances and attaching the label for everybody to see the “abnormality” or “exclusivity”. Another adverse event is suggested by many researches, and it is the fact that a lot of people are pretending to be disabled and overall in serious health condition in order to get all the government help they can. As a result of this, often, really needy people cannot get a hold of things they were supposed to get, according to this law 1. There are two key reasons for that: the limited resources and the limited ability of the majority of disabled people speak for themselves for many reasons. For example, some of disabled individuals could be not good enough at knowing their rights, they could be not strong enough to “fight” against the bureaucratic machine, or they could be reluctant to the revealing their health condition if it is not apparent.

 

On the other hand, ADA dictates employers such rules that disabled people (or the ones pretending to be disabled) unfireable no matter what. So the individual can be a lousy personality nobody wants to work with, he/she can be a terrible worker, as well; yet, nobody can fire him/her. Furthermore, if the person feels abandoned or something he/she can sue the employer, so the employer see that person as a potential lawsuit even before hiring the individual with declared disability. Even though the employer is denying any discrimination and declaring offering equal opportunity rights for every person applied for the job. The employer will perhaps never get any problems and will only win hiring the disabled person because of his/her skills, but there is a potential chance for the employer to lose a lot of money and reputation, which sometimes is a deciding factor in the hiring process. Another potentially deciding factor for a negative answer to the incumbent is that the individual will ask for accommodations that are not very appealing for the employer to offer in regard to utilizing the money, time, and/or other resources 6,7.

 

The conclusion is simple - ADA was supposed to be a respectable and effective law when it was first publicised. However, since that time a lot of things have happened, a lot of changes took place, besides the fact that no law can consider all possible situations or it will be a huge pile of contradicting statues. Considering all of the above, all of the negative stuff about ADA could be avoided if people live by their heart more than by their rules, which, in fact, not always their particular will.

 

References

1. BustAThief.com. (2010). Disability fraud – disability scam. Retrieved from http://www.bustathief.com/disability-fraud-disability-scam/
2. Diversityworld.com. (2011). The ten commandments of communicating with people with disabilities. Retrieved from http://www.diversityshop.com/store/10comvid.html
3. Hartman, M. (March 2004). People with and without disabilities: Interacting & communicating. Retrieved from http://eeo.gsfc.nasa.gov/disability/publications.html
4. Henry, S.L. (2007). Interacting with people with disabilities. Retrieved from http://www.uiaccess.com/accessucd/interact.html
5. Murugami, M.W. (2009). Disability and identity. The Society for Disability Studies, 29(4). . Retrieved from http://dsq-sds.org/article/view/979/1173
6. Olson, W. (July 26, 2010). ADA’s 20th Anniversary. Retrieved from http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/adas-20th-anniversary/
7. Sparks, K. (June 04, 2011). Pros & cons of ADA. Retrieved from http://www.ehow.com/info_8541954_pros-cons-ada.html
8. Youtube. (November 13, 2010). Stossel affirmative action bake sale. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn48t-X0uNU

My granny

I am not sure, but seems that she has had the same symptoms I have (well, I am relaktant to say it, but I'll try, I have spinocerebellar atrophy). I mean, she has been “clumsy” all the time, but the thing is that her husband, my beloved grandpa, just dedicated himself to her. He was taking care of her so that everybody saw it as she was just “lazy” and he was doing everything. Maybe it was “envy” talking in people :) Because everybody only saw the surface, which was the obvious display of “one-sided” story of my grandparents life. The thing about it is that they were living in a country side in Ukrain, which was not so forgivable to the people who are not as healthy. Everybody has to be strong to be able to take care of the garden, of the children, of the house, of income, and, in addition to that, women were obligated to take care of their husband and, moreover, woman always was the one who holds the key responsibility for house and the children. The man has to be only “there”; therefore, it is obvious that my granny was not a great fit in that society; nevertheless, fortunately for her, my grandpa was there for her.

Actually, she was a reason for me to receive an “F” in history; while they told me a “horror” story about masters in feudal Russia, I was thinking of granny’s version of it; somehow, I trusted it at much bigger scale than I ever had trust in my teachers' version who only read about the whole thing. One little story stuck in my memory; it is how my granny’s master took care of her when she had some health problems, how he paid everything and such. That was my granny who taught me how masters were in real life.

She narrated her version of a revolution: they actually did not know about anything that big and that critical was happening in big cities until commies came to villages to “dispossess” things from masters in order to help poor and working class. People like my granny did not know that they were supposed to “struggle” and “survive”, they just worked and lived. That simple, they did not need anybody to do things for them. How my granny ever ended up in Siberia, is whole another story. They were refugees from Ukrain after the World War II, when the massive starvation began; as funny as it was, my dad was born on the way to Siberia. He has a Kasach birth certificate :)
I did not have everything today’s kids have, I did not have big televisions to tell us a story, I did not have entertaining things, but I had my granny to tell me a true story of how things were. Even though my childhood was not all that great because of neverending bullying and things, I am still looking back to my childhood with nostalgia and mixed feelings. There were great moments deserve to be remembered like my granny and her stories.

They are both rest in peace today, unfortunately, my granny has lived without her husband for almost ten years, but now I am sure they are together and happy again. One very promising thing she gave me, the age to which she lived. She passed away at 90 years, so this age is the “deadline” for me too :) Now I am “pursuing” the same career of a “lazy” woman. My husband is doing everything for me, I mean everything, except one thing. I am able to think :) Well, I have a long-long life ahead of me :) The only obligation I have at this point is that I have to “use it” up to the potential, do the best out of what I have.