Who's
behind
Freedom
Clearinghouse?
"What is our greatest enemy? Segregation."
There is hostility toward anyone in great need who gets help from the federal treasury. That hostility marks one of the low points in American history.-- Rep. Major R. Owens (D - Brooklyn, NY)
|
Major SAYS
an
interview
by Josie Byzek Copyright 1998 Free Hand Press. |
|
Major R. Owens was first elected to Congress in 1982. He is known in his Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, district as "the Education Congressman" for his strong national stance on education reform and his efforts to transform the concept of public education. He is founder of the Third Force Movement against the Republican "contract with America." Owens, a librarian by trade, holds, among other degrees, an honorary doctorate of law from Gallaudet University. He was one of the original sponsors and strongest proponents of the Americans with Disabilities Act from its introduction through its passage.Q. How did you ever get the ADA past Congress?
Writing that legislation was a long, drawn-out process. I was in so many different meetings and negotiations. The strategy was to link it to civil rights.
Justin Dart's whole approach was that this is the third part of the triad, the triad being civil rights for African-Americans and other minorities, then for women, then people with disabilities being the third prong. We pushed it with that kind of message. So many things I see in your magazine follow the same reasoning.
It was the best route to get folks to understand segregation fast. Civil rights and women's rights had a clear history. Making the transition to rights for people with disabilities became easier because we had the history of the other two. We helped explain it to the Congress, but also Congress was getting people from back home who explained it to them in no uncertain terms. The whole community of people with disabilities was alive, politically alive. I give Justin Dart credit for that. He traveled to every state in the country. He really made people with disabilities understand that they had some political power.
My subcommittee kicked off the process with a hearing where Jesse Jackson and Justin Dart were the leaders who testified. We put it out there and kept it highly visible. We kept the momentum going after that.
It took a lot of doing because several different committees had parts of that bill. Any one of them could have stalled it, but they didn't. The members of Congress, when they had to cast votes, were already thoroughly conditioned by their own constituents. The momentum was with us.
Q. What is our greatest enemy?
Segregation.
Segregation, and the attitude that fosters segregation.
There's a kind of sick security some people get out of keeping away from people with disabilities. They are running away from any situation that's not totally pure and all-American and that requires them to do any thinking. They're searching for a peace of mind, which they never really find, by running away from any kind of challenge.
I remember [during the fight to pass the ADA] that we had a big hearing in Houston, Texas. The major issue at that hearing was mass transit, and the fight to get transit exempted from the ADA.
The head of the transportation authority was scheduled to speak. My Republican counterpart invited him, thinking he would testify about how high the costs were, and how difficult it would be. Instead, he testified about an almost religious experience that he had in thinking about the whole thing. He had come to the conclusion that he had some special mission to help people with disabilities.
He testified that when you looked at it through the eyes of 'let's do it,' the costs were very small. They were less than they'd had to spend to host a convention of transportation executives. The cost was not that great. Once he got the shields off his own eyes, and ended his prejudice against people with disabilities, the barriers were not real to him. The barriers were not the problem. The problem was just a mean attitude that festers and has to be challenged.
Q. Does bigotry seem to be getting stronger?
The kind of society which we still have is maybe, in some cases, getting worse. Competition is becoming a virtue. Intense competition drives people to go more and more into self-interest. Even to see other folks as competition.
People didn't always see a person with a disability who had to use a ramp or elevator as people who have been given unnecessary privileges. But I run into that often now. People are saying, "Why do we have to go to great expense for these people?"
Those attitudes have been planted by high-level political leaders. It's the whole thing that 'we're in an economy of scarcity and everybody should pull their own weight and nobody should be dependent on government, or on programs that use taxes." There's a whole set of values, spawned by the vocal and highly visible Republicans, that appeal to the worst in people. Our society is moving in that direction. Competition is such a virtue, and everybody's so busy competing, they have no time for compassion.
Q. How can we fight segregation?
With direct action. I come from an activist background. I was in the civil rights movement. I got arrested doing demonstrations and direct action. I have a great deal of respect and admiration for people who put themselves on the line.
Q. How can we combat the backlash?
You have no power at all if you do not exercise constant power.
The first place to start is on enforcement. We [who got the ADA passed] did the hard part, the heavy lifting. It is very difficult to get legislation passed. But then the danger always is that you have no power at all if you do not exercise constant power.
They [our government] just won't enforce civil rights laws. The laws will be ignored. It would be great if people with disabilities could unite with women, unite with minorities who depend on government enforcement. I think some combined pressure could go a long way, could establish the fact that this legislation did pass and we mean business by it. We mean to have it enforced, we mean to have it become effective.
People's lives have to change as a result of this legislation.
Reprinted from Mouth magazine, September-October 1999.
More info about Mouth magazine
Freedom Clearinghouse is a project of
Free Hand Press,
publisher of Mouth
magazine.
Website developed by Cliffwood
Organic Works.
Website hosted by DIMENET.
| E-mail | Home |