Perhaps by now you’ve seen the
Internet meme making the rounds of a drawing of a guy in a wheelchair. He’s
looking back over his shoulder, a sad, pathetic expression on his face.
Surrounding him are the following words: “If you're (sic) spouse became disabled for
the rest of there (sic) lives, would you still be with them???”
Yes, dear reader, it is taking
all of the strength I can muster to resist calling the meme’s creator a moron
incapable of knowing the difference between "you're" and "your" and “their” and “there,” or even
knowing how to use a software grammar check function. And, yes, I am irritated
with the use of the pronoun “them,” as if the question poses the hypothetical
situation that this is a pluralist marriage that includes multiple partners who
“became disabled” all at once. Perhaps it’s implying the crash of a plane on
which the multiple marital partners were flying, or they all contracted a rare
tropical disease while on safari together.
I also believe it is quite likely
that anyone who uses three question marks in a row probably dots every letter
“i” with a tiny heart. For that reason alone, the meme’s creator should be
placed a stockade in the village square and bombarded with rotten produce.
Nevertheless, it’s not the meme’s
grammatical atrocities that have inspired me to write this post. It is the
sheer butt-puckering bigotry of the question being posed. Why is it an
acceptable question worthy of an answer?
Would it be appropriate to ask: “If
your spouse sent in DNA to 23 and Me and learned he/she had African ancestry,
would you divorce him/her?” Or “If your spouse told you his/her grandparents emigrated
from Uruguay, would you make him/her relocate permanently to the guest bedroom?”
Or perhaps “If your spouse converted to Judaism, would you toss him/her off a
cliff?”
I’d like to think that most
decent human beings would be appalled by questions about whether a spouse
remains worthy of love even if he/she is of a different race, religion or
country of national origin. Yet when it comes to disability, many people – such
as those that actually answered the question on Facebook – feel it’s fine to
weigh the option of giving walking papers to the person they married.
I’m not sure whether to be pissed
off or profoundly sad that a quarter century after the passage of the ADA – the
most comprehensive civil rights statute ever enacted to protect disabled folks
from discrimination – societal attitudes remain in the Dark Ages. We continue
to deny that illnesses and health issues are inextricably part of the human
condition. We still cling to hierarchies, to notions of “us versus them,” to
assigning value to other human beings based on their ability to meet an often
unattainable ideal.
Perhaps I should buy a more
comfortable mattress for the guest bedroom.
