Ferguson has been in the news and my heart hurts for the parents who lost a son, for the police officer who lost a career, for the business owners who have lost their livelihood, for so many who have lost things that cannot be seen.
I was not there, I do not know exactly what happened but I do know about injustices and things that are unfair. I did not lose my child to being in an altercation that resulted in death but I did lose my child through child abuse at the hands of adults that caused her to suffer a massive stroke, die and be revived suffering irreparable brain damage.
Did I wish that there could be justice for Lynda? Yes, I did. Did I feel that children with special needs had been discriminated against for years and that it didn't appear on many levels that we were making any progress in equal treatment for individuals with disabilities? Yes! A resounding, yes!
I understand how it feels to be disenfranchised because I experienced it with my daughter every day of her life. I have stood before superintendents of education in a school law graduate level course and had them tell me to my face that my child did not deserve educational funding (or those like her) because they were not contributing members of society and would never be. How these men could have the crystal ball to know that all of the "typically developing students" they spent their educational dollars on would turn out to be contributing members of society was beyond me.
I experienced utter despair to find my child had been abused and that she would never live the life she had lived previously. I was thrust into the role of providing around the clock care for a child who would forever remain a child. Her chances of advancement had been stolen from her. The child we knew died that day.
So while the circumstances in Ferguson are extremely different from our own situation...there are enough similarities that I stand dumbfounded at the responses of men and women in Ferguson and across the nation to burn and destroy businesses in the town of Ferguson in the name of protest for the loss of this young man. The business owners had nothing to do with any of the events and to destroy their lives in protest makes no sense. It makes no more sense than had my husband and I began to rally people to burn and loot businesses in Magee, Mississippi after Lynda's abuse and stroke.
Those participating in the burning and looting did so feeling it was a way to protest inequality of treatment for many years in Ferguson. I do not know if it is true or not but it is beside the point. I know for a fact that disabled children were and are mistreated daily. Their families have to constantly beg for services that should be afforded them strictly because it is the right thing to do.
I don't know what the answer to bridging the gap between the white and black population in Ferguson or in our nation anymore than I know how to assure children with disabilities to receive an equal and equitable education in cities throughout our nation. I just don't see the correlation between violence and rioting, laying down in the streets on black Friday to protest people shopping and affecting the changes that are needed.
I guess there is a level of control that we parents of children with special needs have to keep in check because if we gave into it, we could burn the cities to the ground if we allowed our hearts to rule and we might somehow be able to spin it as the "right thing to do" because no one was paying attention and a decision was made that seems to only reinforce the fact that our side is always ignored and the bad guys are never punished and things will never change.
As I've said repeatedly, I don't know the answer. I do know that penalizing innocent people for something they had no control over whatsoever regardless of the hopelessness felt is not the answer. It is important to affect change. It's also important to keep our eyes firmly planted on what we are trying to accomplish in affecting that change and not let anger override reason.
I pray for Ferguson. I still pray for those who were at Millcreek in Magee when they made choices that changed my life forever and that of my daughter. I hope you will join with me to pray for peace in Ferguson and for God to use what is intended for evil as good. It's the only real answer.
No comments:
Post a Comment