Discrimination: Now You See It, Now You Don’t

Discrimination Against the Disabled

I had a strong bond with my uncle Leopold — my mother’s brother. He lived with us in New York during my childhood and teenage years.

Leopold was bright, witty, fun, and energetic. His energy was vibrant, electric, and contagious. My girlfriends loved to come to my house and just hang out because he was there. A couple of them had a “secret” crush on him even though he was openly gay. They didn’t care. My uncle Leopold was just a handsome, charismatic, awesome man and I loved him fiercely.

So what does this have to do with discrimination? So far not much. But I’m just getting started.

In the late 80s, my uncle was diagnosed with full-blown AIDS. Not much was known about AIDS back then. Each downward milestone came quickly and unexpectedly. It was as if we were being pummeled with blows, one after another. There was no time to adjust, no time to catch our breath, no time to digest what was happening.

First, we were told of the diagnosis, then we’d learn of one opportunistic infection after another, each one taking a little bit of him away. In a matter of months, my uncle went from being a fit, athletic, strong young man who frequently bicycled around Manhattan, to one who needed a cane, and then a walker, and then a wheelchair — all within six months.

As the illness progressed, so did the medical equipment, the stockpile of pharmaceuticals, and the other paraphernalia piled up in his tiny Manhattan apartment. Each time I visited — I lived in Los Angeles, there was more — countless pill bottles, dietary supplements, bathroom assists, a walker, cane, mattress pads, bedpans, and yes, the wheelchair.

I stayed with Leopold in his Westside apartment for a week shortly after the arrival of the wheelchair.

The weather was beautiful on my first morning there. His apartment was tiny, even by New York City standards, but it had two huge windows giving him an amazing almost panoramic unobstructed view from the 16th floor. Sunlight filled the room that morning, putting us in good spirits. Leopold suggested we go out. He wanted to do a little shopping and we were entertaining the idea of having lunch at his favorite deli on Broadway and 80th. This was going to be a good day. Mom and I got him into his wheelchair. We left the apartment, got into the elevator, exited, and wheeled him through the sunlit lobby.

I frequently visited New York. I especially loved spending time there with my uncle. It didn’t matter that his apartment was small. I’d sleep on the couch. But now his apartment was filled with medical paraphernalia, a constant reminder of what was to come.  On this day, we were going to get away from it all and just have a fun day in the city.

We had walked less than one block when it started to dawn on me that we were going to have a problem. As we approached the corner of 59th and 10th, I was struck with a disturbing revelation — there wasn’t a ramp at the curb. I didn’t know how we were going to get him across the street without causing him considerable pain bumping and jostling him and the wheelchair over the curbs. I wondered if we were even strong enough to get him and the wheelchair up on the curb once we made it to the other side. Could we get someone to help us?  I looked at all four corners. There were no ramps at any of them. If we weren’t strong enough and someone helped us at the first corner, would we be lucky enough to find helpers all along the way?  Remember, this is New York City and this was just the first of many corners we were going to encounter. As I stood there on the corner of 59th & 10th on that beautiful day with my uncle in his new wheelchair – the prospect of having a “fun day” began to fade – quickly!

Wheelchair Discrimination

Leopold Allen and American Ballet Theatre prima ballerina Alessandra Ferri.

In a flash, I thought about the hundreds of stairs going down into the subway — and what about buses and taxis – were they wheelchair accessible? Would we be able to get him around town without knowing what obstacles we’d encounter along the way? We needed to be prepared for these things in advance!! I couldn’t even get my head around the bathroom issue!?

I was born and raised in New York and visited frequently after moving to Los Angeles but for the first time it occurred to me how infrequently I saw people in wheelchairs among the thousands of pedestrians in Manhattan.  I was getting a sinking feeling.

In that nano-moment, I experienced a shift in my understanding. It became clear to me the complex issues and the many layers of complicity that work together to create an unequal society and the pivotal role invisibility plays in creating and maintaining a system of practices and policies that produce disparate outcomes.

It became all too clear how it is that an entire segment of a population can be discriminated against, in plain view, without anyone — except those who are directly impacted –  noticing. I certainly was blind to it. Why was it that I had never noticed the lack of people in wheelchairs milling around New York City? In that moment I could see how policy makers, city planners, government contractors, builders, architects, the transportation department and thousands of others made decisions that were, in effect, sentencing wheelchair bound people to housebound existences.

It didn’t turn out to be the fun day we were hoping it would be. We never got past the corner. We had to go back to the apartment and think about strategies. As the week passed, we learned how difficult it was to get around the city in a wheelchair. It was such an ordeal that he only left when he had to go to the doctor which was a block away.

Sadly, with the exception of doctor’s visits, my uncle remained apartment-bound until he was admitted to the hospital where he died four months after he became wheelchair bound. His death, of course, had nothing to do with curb ramps, but the quality of the last few months of his life did. Being apartment-bound only added to his sense of powerlessness, hopelessness, and despair. Ultimately, he became clinically depressed; he even attempted suicide but I caught him just as he was climbing out of his window on the 16th floor  and pulled him back into the apartment.

In 2002, more than 10 years after my uncle passed away, New York City agreed to install concrete ramps at the city’s 158,000 curb corners. This was done in part to satisfy a settlement requirement that came as the result of a lawsuit against the city brought by a group representing thousands of New Yorkers in wheelchairs. Also, since that time, steps were taken to provide wheelchair-accessible taxis and subway stations throughout the city. The buses were made wheelchair accessible earlier but they still lacked curb ramps which meant that the freedom to travel for people who used wheelchairs was still limited.

Unfortunately, as a black woman living in a white world, I am all too familiar with the larger society’s inability to “see” racial discrimination even when I think it’s staring them right in the face. As I’ve matured and learned from experiences like the ones mentioned above, I’ve come to understand that for many, this blindness is very real. The discriminatory results that were the consequence of thousands of decisions made over time by thousands of decision makers were not intentional. It’s likely the vast majority didn’t and won’t ever know that they had a hand in keeping someone homebound. This particular someone was a lifelong taxpayer and participated in this representative form of government we employ in the United States. We hire representatives to speak to the needs of “the public” — to make decisions that are in the interest of the public good. The republic that is supposed to consider the needs of “the public”Unfortunately, the intention of decision makers does little to lessen the impact discrimination has on its victims. It’s unlikely the architect of the New York City sidewalks and curbs intended to design a system that limited the freedom of people who use wheelchairs. But their freedom was limited nevertheless.

For this reason, Congress established a department of government to protect the civil rights of all individuals and prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, disability, religion, and national origin. The Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice was created to enforce laws that protect civil rights and prohibit discrimination regardless of the perpetrator’s intention.

During the Bush Administration, many civil rights attorneys left the department. Whether it was because of their departures or for other reasons, the Civil Rights Division did not act on many issues brought to its attention during that administration. However, this month, the Senate confirmed Thomas Perez as Assistant Attorney General of the Civil Rights Division. Perez was nominated by Attorney General Eric Holder in an effort to reshape the division.

In an interview in Los Angeles on October 29th, Tom Perez told Patt Morrison of KPCC, “There are two ways to prove discrimination. You can show that someone intentionally discriminated or alternatively you can demonstrate that a person or a company had a practice or policy in place that while facially neutral had a discriminatory impact.” Perez, who began working for the department in 1989, plans to restore and transform the division so that it can more effectively protect the rights it was founded to protect.

The Civil Rights Division of the DOJ has been around since 1957 to enforce anti-discrimination laws in housing, employment, voting, lending, and other areas to ensure we all have equal access to the freedoms offered by this country. But, for the first time in America’s history, we have a President and a First Lady who have both experienced discrimination.

I don’t know if you have to experience discrimination first hand in order to be able to see it, but I do know that I learned a lot standing on that corner with my uncle in a wheelchair 20 years ago. For that reason, I have hope that maybe the Civil Rights Division under the Obama administration will do what it has often failed to do in the past – provide a line of defense for this country’s most vulnerable people.

Sharon Kyle
Publisher, LAProgressive