The needs of unemployed men and women with disabilities,
including veterans, are being trumped by issues as diverse as global warming
and the price of prescription drugs. If
people living with disabilities want to make a comeback, they are going to have
to fight back. Trump: The Art of the Comeback by Donald Trump
opens up to two pages of "Trump's Top Ten Comeback Tips." Whether you agree with him politically or
not, the comeback tips of a man who went from being minus $900 million to
running for the Presidency of the United States of America and funding his
campaign by himself is worth reading.
With an unemployment rate of 70-75%, the blind and visually challenged,
for example, have nothing to lose.
On page 11 of his book, Trump tells a story about the day he
looked at a blind beggar and said, "...he's worth about $900 million more
than me." It was the early 1990s,
and Trump had been hit hard by what he called a depression rather than a recession.
. During the early 1990s and the past
twenty five years, the blind and visually challenged might not have lost $900
million, but many did lose their jobs, had to live in subsidized housing, lived
below the poverty line on Social Security Disability or Social Security
Retirement Benefits, were forced to remain single by the marriage penalty in
the SSD and SSA Act, and sometimes went without medical or dental care when
their SSD and SSA payments were above the poverty line (different for every
state). When they had to live in
subsidized housing projects, they were often segregated into senior citizen
buildings as people with other disabilities were required to do. At the same time, many of them remained
unemployed for more than three years and felt disgraced as their student loans
were erased because the government now believed that no one would ever hire
them. Some had their relatives turn
their backs on them and received lectures about how they should have taken
better care of themselves. Others
listened to conservative radio talk show hosts who said that anyone on welfare
should lose the right to vote.
Although the visually challenged have had many successes in
higher education and the workforce, the blind beggar stereotype is still
around, and the economy has become so
bad that now some homeless men are asking blind and visually challenged men and
women if they can "borrow" their white cane, or stick as some call
it. Homeless men and women who are too
young to know about the blind beggar stereotype are now begging from the
visually challenged. Blind men and
women, many with college degrees, are volunteering at homeless shelters while
they, themselves, are job hunting. The
Americans with Disabilities Act was passed in 1990. Its mission was for people with disabilities
to be treated as equals. Equality might
not have been fully achieved in the classroom or the board room yet, but it has
been achieved on the street.
In all of the presidential debates, only one candidate has
mentioned "the sick." If some people
with disabilities have gotten too comfortable in their discomfort zones and
cannot even dream of making a comeback, this is the year to get involved and
make some noise. If they live in a state
where libraries for the blind and physically handicapped were closed or
services were cut during the past 10 years, they need to elect people who will
once again make their needs a priority.
They must make their elected officials aware of the SSD and SSA marriage
penalties and restore their right to marry and keep their benefits.
People who are living with disabilities can not only learn
from Trump that there is an art to making a comeback, but can also learn from
Hillary Clinton that It Takes a Village and from Carly Fiorina that it
will require Tough Choices. These
books and many others that have been written by politicians are available in
print, large print, Braille, and audio formats from the NLS Library for the Blind
and Physically Handicapped as well as commercial sources such as book stores
and online.
