Original Post Date
2020-03-20 08:21 AM
Original Body
Today yes we are locked down if you have a home and as we wait once again to see if the people get bailouts many groups have been in this situation over and over. From democrats to republicans have so many broken promises toward people with disabilities going back to the 70’s..
- Rehabilitation Act of 1973 back it took protests across this nation to get the regulations signed and enforced.
- Education for all Handicapped Children Act (EAHCA) in 1977 that it’s now called Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) has never full funded thus not fully implemented.
- And it took years to get the Americans with Disability Act, ADA, to get passed in 1990 but since Bush 2 every administrations have attacked and water down ADA.
So with all of these broken promises it only gets worst in emergency cases as we have seen in all recent disasters from Katerina in New Orleans where people with disabilities were left behind to die in nursing homes, hospitals and in their own homes to
Puerto Rico where ADA wasn’t enforced and it caused a lot of deaths after the earthquake and
Now today under Coronavirus (COVID-19) we can see that people with disabilities are hit and with a lack of enforcing of our laws are leaving us once again alone aka social distancing that affects our lives.
We can look at the aftermath of these disasters people with disabilities were and still are left out of bailing-outs and rebuilding. And as a Black disabled poor man I can tell you stories upon stories of the harsh realitites of Black disabled poor people in, during and after emergencies and 99.99% of the times these stories will be of being left behide and being discriminating against not only by our own community but even by service providers and our own government!
Today we should laugh at these former and recent presidential candidates with their disability platforms that calls for fully funding our laws since 1970’s by many who have been in political office for a long time.
Broken promises before coronavirus have equaled our death before, during and after emergencies only equals more death to people with disabilities. Not only in the political arena but in our so called non-profit social justice movements, people with disabilities not only left out but not fully funded and implementation of our laws etc will continue to push us over the edge during and after emergencies and continue our invisibility in these so called social justice movements.
Please read read and watch out for these so called bailouts because they are sliding things in these bailouts that will hurts disabled folks like today March 19/20 in the Hoffpost's article entitled, New Coronavirus Package Could Unravel Protections For Students With Disabilities goes on to say:
"....proposed “Phase 3” coronavirus stimulus package many civil rights advocates are calling the provision shameful, saying Republicans are using the complicated crisis as an opportunity to potentially scale back some protections for vulnerable groups. As of the 2017-2018 school year, 7 million students ― or 14% of all children ages 3 to 21 ― received special education services under IDEA, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the federal education law that governs special education, schools are required to provide an equal education for students with disabilities. Under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, federally funded programs are prohibited from discriminating based on disability.
However, the new Senate package, which still has to be passed by Congress, says Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos can soon tell Congress whether or not she thinks schools should be temporarily exempt from some of these requirements.
The proposal says that within 30 days of its enactment, DeVos should prepare a report for Senate committees “with recommendations on any additional waivers the Secretary believes are necessary to be enacted into law … to provide limited flexibility to States and local educational agencies to meet the unique needs of students with disabilities.”
So even today under Trump's adminstration in emergency situation, coronavirus, this government is once again rolling back disability laws and services.
By Leroy F Moore Jr.
Friday, March 20, 2020