Bigotry is always with us

 Bigotry is always with us

In the few years following WWII, antisemitism was rampant.   Hitler had just engineered the murder of six million Jews, and other groups including gypsies, people with disabilities and some Catholics to name a few.  Yet in spite of that horrendous event and the huge loss of life in freeing the world from Hitler, there were signs in the neighborhoods that advised “no Jews, coloreds or dogs allowed”.  If you were not Jewish, “colored” or a dog, why should you care?

In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled that separate was inherently not equal and schools could not be segregated.  To this day, residential restrictions leave some schools segregated.  Why should you care?

In 1965, President Johnson, a southerner, signed the Civil Rights Act declaring that places of public accommodation must indeed admit the public regardless of skin tone or ethnic origin. I remember in the early ‘60’s being in a Hot Shop restaurant with a friend.   We were seated but never got service.  When I complained my friend said, “it’s because you are with me and I am Negro”.  We were just barely outside of the University of Maryland campus in College Park.  If you were never denied the chance to eat in a restaurant or book a motel room, why should you care? 

In 1975, President Ford signed the Education of All Handicapped Children Act (EHA) requiring public schools to educate kids with disabilities.  Prior to that any principal at any school could “just say no” when a parent presented his/her child for enrollment.   Parents routinely hid their children with disabilities in private rooms never letting them out.  Every so often there would be an expose article about a found child.  Every winter just before the opening of the Maryland General Assembly, there would be an expose of the Rosewood Hospital Center where children and adults with disabilities lived in squalor.  The hope was that the legislature would grant more money to the "hospital". These people weren't sick, they were disabled.  It didn't happen. The common wisdom was the “sins of the fathers were visited on their sons” so clearly having a child with a disability was an indicator of some evil deed by someone.  Families argued over which side of the family created the disability.  Certainly we never had anything like that in our family.  Baltimore City served its children with disabilities in classes called “Opportunity Classes”.  These classes were in elementary schools and kids stayed in them until they were 16.  The children in these classes were not allowed to be on the playground nor in the cafeteria at any times when the plain kids were there.  If you weren’t the parent of a child with a disability or weren’t the child yourself, why should you care? 

In 1985, The Harbour School suspended a child for spreading Nazi literature.  His mother appealed the suspension to the Anne Arundel County public schools which was funding his placement.  The AACPS rep supported the school in its decision.   The mom asked the rep if she were Jewish; the rep said no.  The mother replied “then why do you care”?

Which brings us to where we are today.  Children with disabilities are afraid to come to school if they happen also to have brown toned skin.  They are afraid they will be taken from their parents or their parents will be taken from them.  They ask their teachers if the teacher will be their mother if their mother suddenly disappears.   Their teacher has lighter skin so “why should she care”?

If we do not stand up for a targeted group, when the bigots come for us, who will be there to stand for us and why should they care?