This November 4th, many of us will have an opportunity that we as people with disabilities and family members of people with disabilities cannot pass up. We have within our hands a mandate to change the face of this nation’s capitol.

Why a mandate you ask? Because we as a group cannot afford four more years of poverty and indifference from those we “supposedly” put into office. We must not tolerate the cold shoulder we received from the Bush Administration when it came to issues of housing, employment, stem cell research, and civil liberties violations. Everyone I know is poorer today than they were eight years ago and they are enraged. Enraged at the lengths to which people with disabilities are suffering at the hands of politicians too rich to feel their pain.

You may be thinking, “Sarah Palin understands my needs as a person with a disability; she has a son with Down syndrome and a nephew with autism.” However, that does not qualify her to run a country! I know many mothers of children with special needs who are more qualified than she is. The argument that she will protect our interest as a group is weak and full of holes. Let me list a few:

Mrs. Palin is new to disability culture and history, as new as her child is old. I have had a disability for 25 years but my mother does not ever claim to understand the “special needs” I have. Many mothers of children with disabilities would tell Mrs. Palin, “You haven’t seen anything yet.”

How do I know? Because I have heard from parents of schoolchildren who are teased until they cry about their “special needs.” Because they have asked me, “If she is so talented why won’t anyone give her a job?” Because I don’t know what to say to the immigrant mother of a 17-year-old autistic child who will not qualify for health care in a year.

Mrs. Palin recently proved in an interview that she is too rich to care about the average person with a disability. In an interview on Colorado News 9 on Oct. 21, she stated that she was against Amendment 51, which seeks to raise the sales tax by one cent on every $10 spent in each of the next two years.

The money would go to help the roughly 12,000 kids and adults in Colorado who currently are on a wait list to receive state services such as home nursing care and job training. They suffer from autism, Down syndrome and mental retardation.
Mrs. Palin said “that there must be an alternative to raising taxes,” in contrast to Colorado’s former First Lady, a Republican who supports the amendment. Besides never having visited Russia, she obviously has never visited a developmental center.

Last, Mrs. Palin, like many politicians before her, thinks she has a chip she can cash at our table. People with disabilities are not a commodity one cashes in every four years. They are part of America’s promise for a better future and inclusion regardless of your place on the economic ladder. Don’t be fooled into thinking this election is about an innocent little boy in Alaska. It is not! It is about those 12,000 kids in Colorado who in the estimation of “some” are not worth one cent on every $10.

Your vote. Your Choice. Your Future.

http://www.thisabled.com/