When black people marched in Birmingham, Alabama they were branded “Uppity.” When the LGBT community rioted at Stonewall they were disgusting and unnatural and when the disabled community protests for the rights we are guaranteed by federal law we are called whiners and accused of wanting the world handed to them on a plate.

So let’s get this straight. According to the government, the people elected by the people for the people to represent the needs of the people, if I was a black lesbian paraplegic I would be an uppity, disgusting, unnatural whiner who wants the world handed to them on a plate!

I have a gay, black, disabled friend, and the only label that’s fits her is amazingly talented, strong and empowered woman who earns her own living and pays her own way. Most of all, in this land, she holds a title of American citizen, so the only thing the politicians should be calling any citizen is BOSS. We put you there and we can take you down.

The Congress, the Senate, the House of Representatives and the Executive Branch, whether Republican or Democrat have one thing in common, spin doctors. You ask a question and their reply comes via three departments, 6 public relations experts and 12 interns who live on Google and Bing. Alternatively, we the people, the askers of the question have only the life less lived to base our question on. We are quickly coming up on summer and the most important day of the summer is the 4th of July — AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE DAY. So before the Obama’s, the Boehner’s and the Romney’s go on a photo op kissing babies and scoffing hotdogs it behooves them to make sure that the independence of every citizen is guaranteed.

While New York City thinks it is not their responsibility to work for the disabled, and the federal law that mandates 20% of all federal money for infra structure must be spent on accessibility is being blatantly ignored and yellow cabs are built to allow more suitcases rather than guaranteeing the rights of all who hail them, something is wrong. Disabled and wheelchair-bound people stay locked in, like my friend Lori. In 4 years the landlord of her building will not fix an elevator despite a court order, which by the way has never been enforced.

While any one of these situations are allowed to stand, let alone all of them, there is not and cannot be independence for all.

Yes we have the Al Sharptons’ to fight for the rights of the African American community, and LGBTQ Centers and advocates to fight for the gay, but recently on a trip to both a advocates offices around New York and the New York Gay and Lesbian Center neither (despite it being federal law to be compliant because they are federally funded) none were.

Disability knows no color or religious boundaries, so why should the funding? Start making medical care for wounded warriors immediate. How dare a wounded warrior with a closed head injury who has honorably served his country for a decade have to wait up to 80 days for evaluation let alone treatment? When I needed a wheelchair, despite having paid into insurance for ten years they offered only 500 dollars of six thousand! This has to stop.

Once again and in closing, there are no equal rights for anyone until there are equal rights for all!

We elected you politicians so you don’t get to treat our rights like a buffet at Olive Garden and only help the ones that are palatable in an election year. You were warned elected officials, election year has arrived and your jobs are on the line and you are being made to reapply!

RESPECT OUR EXISTENCE OR GET OUR RESISTANCE

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