[nfbmi-talk] somecelebration eh pass it on

[joe harcz Comcast]

Celebrating the 22nd Anniversary of the ADA

The ugly lie about the ADA is it is not implemented or enforced.

 

Tomorrow is the 22nd anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The Act includes rights of full and complete access to our state and local government under Title II.

 

Yet, we’ve got agencies right here in Michigan that violate this and in documented fashion including the Michigan commission for the Blind, the Michigan Rehabilitation Services and even the Michigan Civil Rights Commission itself let alone all other branches of Michigan Government. And it is violated daily in in our schools, courts themselves and other activities of government that one would think we with physical and sensory disabilities might at least access right?

 

 

 

Moreover, as a person who is blind none of these entities effectively communicate with me including in the complaint and adjudication process itself.

 

I’ve documented that fact over and over again.

 

In other words federally funded agencies for the blind violate this very issue over and over again and it is being continued ad infinitum.

 

The anniversary of the ADA in Michigan is a sick and sad joke of unrealized hopes and aspirations of all sorts of people with disabilities for even the places with and for and of people with disabilities are not fully and one hundred percent compliant with this act.

 

It is unrealized in my lifetime. Civil rights is an access issue. I, a blind person doesn’t even have meaningful access to any activity of my state government including so-called ADA celebrations. This is the sick and the saddest joke of these malicious violations of our individual and collective civil rights for even the agencies like again the Vocational Rehabilitation entities, or Centers for Independent Living let alone the agencies above them in copious receipt of federal funds are not fully accessible to people with disabilities including this one, lone blind man who often cries in the wilderness of civil rights and is not heard in the least by either liberal or conservative.

 

 

 

Make no mistake about it we people with physical and sensory disabilities want to get access and have the right to access, at a minimum,  our governenmental activities here. We don’t have that at all in Michigan. Blind people are denied the very access to forms and applications and so forth to services, benefits and activities of our government. Period.

 

And we are now not even apprised of ADA celebratitions by our CILs and government.

 

This is like an African-American being barred by barriers from state sponsored Martin Luther King, Jr.celebrations. Worse, it is like African-Americans being denied access to even the corridors of the Michigan Civil Rights Commission itself which the Richard Bernstein lawsuit against the very ccorridors of state of Michigan power in Detroit proves as self evident in his sut against the “Cadillac Place” wher all sorts of Michigan Governmental activities take place from activities of the Governor himself to Vocational Rehabilitation agencies to you name it. Oh did I mention that the very Michigan Civil rights Commission itself is headquarterred and housed in this very innaccessable building and is in violation of the ADA itself?

 

Again this is the Civil Rights Commission of the State of Michigan ladies and gentlemen and our access rights are civil rights and apply to this organization itself!

 

 

 

In practice, especially in the State of Michigan the ADA is a lie!

 

It is a damned lie just like the14th Amendment of the U.S. constitution of which the ADA and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 was premised, was a lie to African-Americans in the Jim Crow south!

 

Rather than stating like Moses, “Let my people go,” I state that the ADA, especially in its affirmative rights to access to government says, “Let my people in.

 

I and other people with disabilities demand the promise of the ADA now and in our lifetime, and not meaningless and innane and innaccessable so-called “celebbrations”. Civil and constitutional rights are not charitable vevents. They are not, and nor should be “dog and pony shows”. Sadly they are so as most if not all around this nation aren’t fully accessable to the very people whom rights are to be afforded in the first place.

 

Again, imagine thatyou are black and you are denied access to part or any of a celebraion of Martin Luther King’s anniversary by a state actor.

 

Let alone even notified of same!

 

 

I rest my case.

 

 

 

Paul Joseph Harcz, Jr

1365 E. Mt. Morris Rd.

Mt. Morris, MI 48458

joeharcz at comcast.net

810-516-5262

 

Member:

 

Michigan National Federation of the Blind

Member: ADAPT

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