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Remembering the Old: Looking Forward to the New

George Covington
Disability Advocate

ABSTRACT

This article addresses the challenges facing advocates, professionals, and legislators with regard to meeting the changing and diverse needs of persons with disabilities. The author advocates for a new era of leadership which will train future leaders who will: a) be sensitive to the needs of persons with disabilities, b) continue to advocate for the civil and human rights of consumers with disabilities, c) change the negative attitudes held by society regarding persons with disabilities, and d) implement policies and programs relative to the inclusion of persons with disabilities into all aspects of American society. The author also stresses the importance of heightening the awareness of the accomplishments and progress made by pioneers of the disability movement.

Before I begin talking about "New Leadership for a New Era," I want to talk about leaving my present job. I am going to be leaving the White House staff in January. I had said in April of 1992, that no matter what the election outcome, four years in one job is enough. That was my third attempt to resign, and the Vice President again talked me out of leaving. Earlier attempts were the results of battles between me and the senior staff. I had my priorities and they had theirs. They accused me of running a renegade operation, going outside of the channels, not following procedures, never taking "no" for an answer, going over their heads to get what I wanted, and then hiding behind the Vice President when they came to kill me. And it was all true. But that's the only way I could get anything for us. When I first got there, if I went into a scheduling meeting and said I want to do a disability event they'd say "why?" After the first year they did not do that anymore. We are on the same billing with everybody else and we get to fight just like they fight for time, space, and so forth. I get the same chances as the agriculture interest, as the domestic policy people, as the education people, as the national security people, and so forth. Toward the end, I had a much higher rate of winning than they did. That is because I had a Vice President of the United States who supported me and believed in the issues we believed in.

Within a few months after going to work in the White House, I convinced the Vice President that not all disabled people were middle class white men in wheel chairs. I quickly convinced him that we come in all colors and shades, shapes and sizes, and at least two genders. I had the representatives of many minorities in to meet the Vice President. I am going to be looking back over the last four years and remember a lot of very humorous stories. One of the reasons I said I wanted to leave in January, 1993 is so I can write a book about the four years and all the b_ _ _ s_ _ _ I had to put up with; a lot of it from disabled people, and the VP's senior staff. I'll never forget the time when the Vice President opened the Paralympic Finals in Long Island, New York.

"Who's introducing the Vice President?" I asked.

"Well, you know we've got a United States Senator, and we've got a U.S. Congressman, and we've got the Mayor, and we've got a few other politicians, and...and... the County Executive is going to introduce the Vice President."

"Is the County Executive disabled?" I asked calmly.

"No."

"Is anyone who's going to be speaking besides the Vice President disabled?"

"No."

"The Vice President of the United States will be introduced by a disabled person."
I stated in a very firm and slightly cold tone.

"But, we can't do that. Everything is all set."

"Want to bet?" I said in a firmer and colder tone.

At this point I found myself surrounded by the able-bodied organizers of the event and several disabled board members of the organization sponsoring the Trials. My peers were staying out of the line of fire. They were happy to have the Vice President come to the games. They would not fight over symbolic details. To me, it was not a symbolic issue but a political one. When politicians spoke to a constituency, the introduction came from a member of that group. When a politician spoke to a charity, a good samaritan did the honors. The major concern was that the County Executive, a Republican who could deliver votes, would be offended if he were not allowed to introduce the Vice President. Representing the County Executive was a young political toad on the rise.

"Everything has been set," the young toad said. "My boss has his speech written."

"And your boss can give the speech," I said slowly, coldly, and methodically; looking in the direction of the toad. "But after he gives his speech, he is going to introduce a disabled person and that disabled person will introduce the Vice President to the 2,000 disabled athletes and their coaches and trainers. It is ludicrous to have an able-bodied person introduce the Vice President to that many outstanding disabled people." The young toad disappeared and shortly reappeared with a member of the Vice President's advance team and a member of the Secret Service. He had obviously explained the political damage control he was trying to do. I knew immediately that the advance man would take the side of the local toad and do everything he could to guarantee the politician wouldn't have his feelings hurt. "Who do you have on your board who's disabled?" I asked.

I asked this strange question because like many disability groups, a large number of their board members are able-bodied. This particular organization has half of its board, able-bodied people, a large enough segment to control policy. The only name that could be recommended was an over-weight blind blow-hard I had known for years.

"There's no way that obese slob will introduce the Vice President," I said. "Who is the most articulate person you can think of on your board who also happens to have a disability?"

"Well," there was a long pause, "we have Len Sawich, but he's..." pause again, "he's a dwarf!"

"I'll take the dwarf. I've never met Sawich, but I've talked to him on the phone several times and he's articulate. He'll do."

The young toad began to sputter. Undoubtedly, he could see his career flashing before his eyes. His boss would not be introducing the Vice President of the United States. Instead, it would probably be a short axe-wielding escapee from a Tolkien novel. How was he going to explain to the boss that he was not going to introduce the Vice President but a wee one!! He sputtered, fumed, stated he was going to call his boss, and disappeared.

"You can't have a dwarf introducing the Vice President of the United States. We'll have to cut the podium in half," said the VP's advance man.

"No we won't cut the podium in half. He'll pull up a chair, jump up into it, and then introduce the Vice President." I said this very slowly as though talking to a child. The advance squad didn't seem to notice.

"You can't have a guy standing in a chair introducing the Vice President of the United States!" one advance man screamed.

"Wanna bet?" I said through clenched teeth.

"What about security?" the Secret Service asked.

At this point I was losing my patience, my temper, and my humor.

"If he pulls a gun," I said slowly, "lean over and shoot the little bastard!" I was screaming.

The advance man literally stomped out of the room. "We'll see about this," he said. "I'm calling the White House on this. You've gone too far this time Covington!" This might be my second chance to resign in two months. The strange thing is, I always had a fear of being fired, but I always found it a very positive feeling when I thought about resigning. I think it's one of these conflicts I'll have to work out in later years. The next morning, I was notified that the County Executive would introduce Len Sawich.

Later, I was told by the Press Secretary, "they called the VP and the VP said it's Covingtons's event and we'll do it Covington's way."

As the event got underway, each of the politicians received very polite but very cool applause from the crowd. Most of these individuals had competed on the local, state, and regional level to get to the Long Island Trials for the Paralympics. They were advocates who knew what it meant when we said discrimination against people with disabilities. Len Sawich was one of their own. He pulled a metal folding chair up to the podium and jumped up. He looked out over the crowd and waited a few moments. Then, when he had the attention of all 2,000 athletes and their 1,000 trainers and coaches, he began to harangue like a southern preacher.

"Do you know why I like Dan Quayle?" He yelled in the microphone.

"I like Dan Quayle because he's the first Vice President who ever came to our events. I like Dan Quayle because he doesn't say we're confined, or bound to wheel chairs. I like Dan Quayle because he isn't condescending toward us. He treats us like individuals and people. And most of all, I like Dan Quayle because he doesn't patronize us by calling us inspirational!" He screamed.

The 3,000 people on the other side of the track went wild. There was screaming and hooting and applauding that went on for several minutes. Len had warmed the crowd up. The Vice President was genuinely moved. After Len's introduction, he advanced across the podium and hugged Len. This brought more screams and applause from the audience. Quayle then gave his speech.

In that speech I had him say:

"You are not disabled athletes. You are world-class athletes who happen to have a disability. No one can look at you and see what you do and ever hold the same images and stereotypes again."

He ended the speech by saying:

"I speak for all America when I say for those of you who win here today and go on to Barcelona, Go For the Gold!"

Next to that last line I had put in parenthesis, "Extra Emphasis." Quayle had delivered the speech beautifully, and he yelled the last line. The crowd was ecstatic. As Quayle passed me going down to the track he leaned over and said, "Extra emphasis." He was in a jubilant mood. The next instant, he did something that made me more proud of him than I had felt until that day. Instead of looking to the politicians on the podium, he turned to Len Sawich and said, "Len, let's work the crowd." He and Len shook hands with 3,000 people for more than 30 minutes.

During this one event, Dan Quayle shook hands with and talked to more disabled people than all the previous vice presidents in history combined. As the Vice President headed back to his motorcade after a half hour of picture taking with the local dignitaries and a large number of disabled athletes, he stopped to talk with me briefly.

"You did a great job today. We've got to do more of this. It was really enjoyable. I really enjoyed myself. Let's try to set something like this up in the near future." "I think it's great. I'll be glad to do it within the next month or so. I'll have it set up. I'll send you a briefing document, you approve it and we'll go with it." "Let's do it."

He turned and walked back to the motorcade. It had been a great day. Beckwith dropped by on his way to the motorcade to explain that Bob Woodward was in the crowd.

"He's working on a book about the Vice President and was very impressed with the event. You might even make Woodward's book. I think he'll want to talk to you. We'll send him by when we get back to Washington." "Can Harrison Ford play me in the movie?"

It's not enough if I am the first person to ever serve as Special Assistant to the Vice President of the United States for Disability Policy. I cannot be the last. The disability community must lobby to keep this slot open. I want to leave but I do not want to leave the slot.

We deserve a voice in the White House at all times with the kind of access I had to the Vice President. And if we can't do anything else, we should shame the next administration into trying to match what Dan Quayle did. I think when we do that they will have to find somebody for the slot who will carry on what we have started together not me, but me and you, and the thing is, we won't let it go away.

Now, this basically is tieing into the old theme of the New Leadership for a New Era, because we are getting ready to enter a new era. You know right now we are looking at a movement that for the first time in our history has a real Civil Rights Law behind it. As I have said to many able-bodied groups in the last six months, I don't care if you're sensitive, we have the law and we are going to kick your ass if you are not sensitive. It makes a difference when you've got the law. You don't have to understand us, you just have to understand the law. All we are asking for is an equal opportunity. That's all anybody coming to this country since its founding has ever asked for. I don't think it's too damn much to ask for it two hundred years later.

We have a right to get out there on a level playing field whatever that level playing field is for us. What it is to me as a visually impaired legally blind person is not what it is to a deaf person or a person who uses a wheelchair, be that person a paraplegic or quadriplegic. We all have different needs because we are humans. Every human has different needs. Why is that accepted among able-bodied people? Everybody touts the fact that we are a diverse group of people in this country, but they think all of disabled people are alike. What do they think blind people do at night? Go home, turn off the lights, look at the wall, and have a blind experience...You know, and they look at the dark, isn't that cool...think folks. Do they think all of you wheelies go home and just go around in circles all night? We have got to convince these people that we are just like they are. We can be fools, fakes, and frauds, liars, cheats, and thieves, and saints or sinners.

I once was interviewed by a lady at the Boston Globe who after she finished the interview said, "I've heard that all blind people are nice," and I said, "listen, I know two SOBs who are blind who should be in jail, and they are not because they are blind, and able bodied people like you just say oh aren't they nice people." But I said, "listen if you are going to spread rumors, if you are going to spread myths, please do one that will help me a little bit," I said, "it is true that blind and visually impaired people make the best lovers, so please put that in the paper." It did not appear in the Boston Globe. But, the next day I was speaking at a conference on photography for visually impaired people. On the front row there were eight little gray haired ladies that had been brought in from a geriatric center to attend the conference. I told them about the incident with the Boston Globe reporter, and when I got to the part about how we blind and visually impaired people make the best lovers, the little old ladies gave me a standing ovation.

I think I hit a nerve. These negative images, myths, and stereotypes are what we must defeat if we are ever going to cross the bridge and join the rest of society. The first ramp we must build is the ramp into the human mind. The barrier to the mind will always be the first and hardest barrier to breach.

People must understand that the percentage of disability among minorities is much higher than in the general population. If you happen to be a minority and have a disability, you have an extra burden to bear. You have to fight the dual battle of disability, discrimination, and racism. To survive, we must have a new leadership for a new age. That leadership must understand that the battle will be against the images and myths and stereotypes in the minds of others. We must destroy the symbols of fear that are used against us.

One good example is this white cane of mine. It's just four little pieces of metal, but people will cross a street, and get as far off the sidewalk as they can if they see you coming with one of these things. It's nothing but a piece of metal held together by a big rubber band. Yet until AIDS, blindness was the second most feared physical condition in this country, second only to cancer. Blindness, I mean it's unbelievable that such a little bitty stick could cause such incredible reactions of horror. The Harris Poll a year ago indicated that 57% of the people interviewed admitted that they felt discomfort in the presence of a disabled person, 48% admitted they felt actual fear. How are we going to overcome all of this that we have to face when there are so many people who won't admit that they fear us, they don't understand us, they feel uncomfortable with us? The only way, is when they get to know us. It is funny, sadly funny, when people have a family member who becomes disabled. The whole world changes. Their perspective changes. Suddenly, they are there for the person who needs them, and they want to learn all they can. It is up to us to be there to help them. The rest of the general public we have to work on, and we have to do it through a concentrated effort. Right now, there are approximately 2.4 million disabled college students. Last September, statistics showed that one in eleven entering freshman had a disability. This is an incredible improvement when it indicated that in 1978 only one out of sixty-seven entering freshmen had a disability. We are getting out of the closet and into the educational system. Young people going through public elementary schools with a fellow classmate with a disability, will learn to accept the disabled child as a normal part of things. They will grow up knowing that we are just like they are, so consequently, proximity will help beat prejudice.

For the new era we are going to need to find a new leadership, because many young people, particularly young people in wheelchairs, have never been in an environment where there were not curb cuts. They assume they grew that way. That is like many young African Americans who would tell you they don't know what you are talking about when you remember the Civil Rights days. In 1964, I was a young Republican, who was for Barry Goldwater, and I am still for Barry Goldwater. (Would that make me a liberal today?) On the night I turned 21, I got a free poll tax. Poll taxes were still in existence when I turned 21, and I bet that most of you in this room don't even know what poll taxes were. I do.

In 1965, I left the Republican Party, one of the closest guarded secrets on Dan Quayle's staff, and for 27 years I have been a Democrat. I left the party for one reason, because people were dying in the South, and only one group seemed to care, and it was a small group even within the Democratic Party. So consequently, like Will Rogers, I've been a person without a party for 27 years. I've been a Democrat. So, we have got to pay attention to the young people coming up, and make certain that they know that their rights were not always there, and if they are not constantly vigilant at least for one more generation, they might face some backlash if the economy ever goes bad and suddenly funds are not there, and suddenly somebody starts talking about amending ADA. I don't think it will happen, but we've got to get to these kids who were literally a generation ago kept in closets, and teach them what it was we went through in our days. I was born and raised in East Texas. I am from Texarkana, just like H. Ross Perot. Except I am taller, prettier, got smaller ears, and more qualified to be President. I've had more White House experience, and if I had 3 billion dollars I still would not run for President.

We have to educate the young, we have to find them, and we have to be able to understand them. I go to meetings like this, when I get together with friends, we are all over 40, some of us are few more years over 40. Folks, you know we can't sit around talking about how great the good old days were. I am not going to ever get to that point in my life. Because I don't think those good old days were ever that damn good. So consequently, we have got to look forward and we have got to keep moving and I can't think of a better person for doing that, quite frankly, than Sylvia Walker. I've known this lady, and she is the closest thing to a sister that I have got. She is one of the few people who has the guts to call me at home at night. She also is one of those people who knows I work on Sunday, but then everybody in Washington knows I work on Sunday. For the past six months, every time I go in I get more calls on Sunday than I do on Saturday, which is usually when I go in too. But it's just a question of us working together and never forgetting the trials and tribulations that we went through.

I went through public school because I had more guts than brains. They did not want me there. They wanted me to go down to the School for the Blind, and my family doctor, my family ophthalmologist, said, "don't send him down there, they will just warehouse him, and he'll never learn anything, and he'll never be able to get into society." So, I fought through the system. I didn't know I was fighting though. It's just, I was one tenacious little SOB, and I made it through. But, I wouldn't be able to do that if I had been born Black, not in the South that I was born into, not into the South even today. If you are white you are developmentally disabled, if you are Black you are mentally retarded. It's still there folks, and we better never forget it, and if we do, the old saying is "the price of liberty is constant vigilance." I think all of us in this room have fought more battles than anybody out on that street without a chair or without a cane. We know what it's all about. We know how precious it is to us, and we are going to keep it. Now, we have got to start looking for ways, and I wish I had the answers, I don't. I've just got the questions. But we've got to find these kids, and we've got to show them what leadership is. We've got to show them that there is nothing to be ashamed of because you use a chair or a white cane, you don't hear as well or move as fast. We can do that by fighting the stigmas that they put on us, by fighting the "confined to a wheelchair," or "bound to a wheel chair."

I have told numerous groups of journalists, "don't you ever write 'bound to a wheel chair' unless you are talking about kinky sex," because a wheel chair is a freedom machine that gives mobility. That little statement really sticks in their minds. Sometimes we have to startle people to get their attention. We don't have to frighten them, we do that already, because we are different, and it doesn't mean the pigment of our skin. It doesn't mean anything other than we are not understood, but we are getting to the point where we are.

Having served in the position that I did for four years and still do for another month or two, I can say that my being there has made a difference to a lot of disabled people. I've been told that it's good to be able to know that I can call you, and you may not be able to help, but you would listen and take the concerns to the Vice President. I tried to introduce the Vice President to as many people as I could. In the past, access has been very restricted. If one person had a friend in the White House, that was their friend, and nobody got to share that friend. My idea of Dan Quayle was a complete opposite. I wanted him to see as many of us as he could, to shake hands with as many of us as he possibly could, and he did. Consequently we can expect, I hope, from the next administration, the same opportunity.

One bridge that we can use to train our new leadership for a new age, is the concept of universal design. Our young people must understand that this concept, in one generation, can have a major impact on our society. Using the process of universal design, in the creation of products, places, and services will make our road to the mainstream a lot easier.

Universal design is not a difficult concept to understand. If you can design a product, place, or service so that an eight year old female child or an eighty year old woman can use the creation, you will discover that most of us who are disabled will fit nicely on the continuum between the two age groups. The concept is simply common sense.

Universal design is a guarantee to wider markets, both within this country and throughout the world. I am certain you have noticed that much of the rest of the world does not have our height, strength, or dexterity. When a product, place, or service is designed to be used by the maximum amount of people, you have created a wider market. These products are not intended "for the disabled." They are intended to be used by a wide range of individuals including most but not all disabled people. Severely disabled individuals will always require certain modifications to guarantee accessibility. However, it is far easier to modify something for a severely disabled person if that "something" is the result of the universal design concept.

America, and particularly the baby boomers, are aging rapidly. As ever growing larger numbers of baby boomers hit the brick wall of fifty years, they are discovering that many of them do not see as well, hear as well, or move as well as they once did. We must reach out for these people without frightening them.

This "Fifty Plus" group cannot deal with the idea that they may be, or may be becoming, one of us. This group constitutes the most rapidly increasing segment of the low vision market. Yet, most of these individuals will not seek the social services necessary to assist them. We must learn to build bridges to these people without causing them to shrink away in terror. All their lives, they have believed the negative images, myths, and stereotypes about disabled people. As they begin to enter disability, they apply these negative images, myths, and stereotypes to themselves; and it scares the hell out of them. . . Universal design is a common sense concept that will allow us to teach the young people how to design a better world and older people how they can be a part of that world.

The old Star Trek television series always began with the words SPACE - THE FINAL FRONTIER. Space is the final frontier. But, it's the space between the ears. We must fill that space with reality, not myth, with facts, not stereotypes. If we do, we win. If we don't, we lose.


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Page last updated on March 20, 1997 by Mary Kaye Rubin