Obama drops the ball

Disability activist and campaigner Alan Holdsworth, who now lives in the US, is not surprised to see the President lose some of his diversity cred and sheen

So Obama’s made his first gaffe on disability with his off the cuff remarks on the Jay Leno show about the Special Olympics and his bowling ability, insinuating that his bowling was pretty poor. It was a bad gaffe on his part. Politicians go on these shows to promote a man of the people image, the message being “like me: like my politics”. They take a risk as they are not scripted and sometimes something falls out of their mouths they regret. The next day those who run the Special Olympics accepted his apology and as far as it went that was it for the national media over here.

I am disappointed but not completely surprised by this mistake. In fact it is educational, in that anyone who thought we had got rid of the negative attitudes and stigma that disability has in our society is clearly plain wrong. Just as educational was that Leno and his audience laughed at the remark showing their own ignorance.

However, don’t think that I am for the special anything or the segregated anything: I’m not. The segregated Olympics are part of the reason the attitudes behind Obama’s remarks exist in the first place. I also detest the word special as it has come to be synonymous with second class and segregated services and activities in our society.

If we continue to demand to be segregated we must expect the ignorance about our daily lives to continue.

Competitive sport by definition creates a winner and many losers and this is not something that is good or common in anyone’s daily life. We need to teach cooperation and interdependence, working together to bring about an inclusive community.

Obama is merely expressing what most people think about us. It’s a mistake, but folks in the US would think a lot better of him if he would sign the Community Choice Act into law, requiring all states provide services to keep disabled people in the community. Parents and disabled people would forgive him if he used some of the stimulus to drive inclusive education forward.

Finally, if he created universal health care with no penalties on people with preconditions we would celebrate in the streets.

Apologising for a gaffe is easy, especially when the archaic and patronising organisation immediately accepts his apology, but delivering on the change we can really believe in will be the true test of this President.