This is a diary about disability and the definition of abuse, about a month old story that has pretty much faded from the news cycle...I've been asked to write on the subject, and so, here is a much calmer version of what I spat out on my own blog last month when we all heard about a Texas judge who was videotaped using a belt to beat up his sixteen year old daughter with disabilities. I was happy to see the concerns raised, but kinda amazed that the wider world out there was not aware that this happens all the time.
KosAbility is a community diary series posted at 5 PM ET every Sunday and Wednesday by volunteer diarists. This is a gathering place for people who are living with disabilities, who love someone with a disability, or who want to know more about the issues surrounding this topic. There are two parts to each diary. First, a volunteer diarist will offer their specific knowledge and insight about a topic they know intimately. Then, readers are invited to comment on what they've read and or ask general questions about disabilities, share something they've learned, tell bad jokes, post photos, or rage about the unfairness of their situation. Our only rule is to be kind; trolls will be spayed or neutered.
The stark truth is, kids and adults with disabilities are abused all the time.
I was emotionally abused for years by an alcoholic family member.
An ex boyfriend [I met him after I was widowed] had early instances of abuse, and he's wheelchair bound as well.
A good friend suffered all kinds of abuse that didn't stop when she became disabled.
I was targeted (but never abducted) by a friends father who, it later turned out was a sexual abuser. I was too far from the car, too sure of where I was going, in broad daylight in a suburban neighborhood. But I was on crutches. Looking vulnerable, I'm sure. I was damn lucky he decided against it.
Regarding last month's news story about Judge Adams’ beating his daughter with cerebral palsy with a belt because she downloaded forbidden music….
My bona fides on this is that I’m a woman with cerebral palsy myself.
My feelings for what should have happened to this judge are NSFW and not safe for the entire internet.
And it’s not just the beating, which frankly I cannot watch. It’s a trigger.
Good grief! The slant of the statement by the judge's attorney…
“Well, the reason she released it NOW is,” the attorney, detailed her anger about her father threatening to cut off support or threatening to take the keys to her Mercedes….
I don’t give a --- why she released it. Why is less than nothing. He admitted this was punishment he believed was his prerogative as her father.
In addition Judge Adams education didn't stop him from evading disclosing the specific nature of her disability....It wasn't about protecting her privacy. It was about avoiding some expected shame of admitting a judge's daughter had cerebral palsy.
"“Did you know that he always denied that I even had a problem,” she said. “This is the first time he’s ever written that I had something.”
Source here.
While I always fight for us, people with disabilities, to be represented as people first and not as fragile creatures to be taken care of…
There is a baseline of obligation to a physically vulnerable child. (meaning, all children.)
All children are weaker than adults.
Vulnerable to them.
And as children and adults with disabilities know…we (as a group) seem to have an extra sign on our backs that lights up when predators are near.
E A S Y P R E Y
This creature Adams didn’t need a reason to hit his daughter. He could, and so he did. That’s it.
My father did spank me once when I was three, for smashing french fries under the car seat.
Spanking was accepted at the time, but the way he did it (grabbing me by my ankles, holding me by my feet
spanking me and sitting me back down. caused my Mom to let him have it.
She made it clear that this was a no corporal punishment household.
(I did get paddled at school three years later after a day when I had been a beastly little brat.)
I didn’t consider either of those incidents relating to me as abuse, per se. I still don't. However...
Fast forward to the near-miss, that this Adams’ incident resonates with for me. I’m 17. It’s summertime, 1979. Disco, aviator glasses, and RoseanneRosannaDanna hair. (for those too young to remember it's a Saturday Night Live reference.)
The single time a caregiver/authority figure nearly did raise a hand to me.
Mom was out of town on a job conference.
She had asked me to clean our bathroom. Commode, sink, tub, and floor.
My memory is that I did a kinda half assery job at it, but that I did work on all parts requested.
The caregiver was drunk, their natural state.
They went into the restroom. The flood of cursing and name calling sent in my direction was unusual, even for them.
I won’t reproduce it here. They came out to the back room.
I always thought it was odd that they'd start yelling in the room with the wall full of windows in it.
“You little --it! I ought to beat you up!”
And, as has been the case for decades now, when the chips were down, I did something insanely stupid.
I straightened up, cricked my neck to make sure I could at the face up there eight inches taller than me… and yelled back:
“I’d like to see you try!
Come on!
Hit me!
The minute you’re done, I’m calling the cops! Or a lawyer!”
Their face got all funny. They backed away, put their head in their hands and began weeping.
I walked to my room and shut the door.
The only reason it went that way instead of Judge Adams way, is that...
that caregiver may have been a messed up drunkard, but they were not a predator. Not a sadist.
The alcohol had turned the caregiver into an emotional abuser, but there was still enough of the original good human being left over that they couldn’t physically hurt a kid.
I don’t see Judge Adams as a human being. He’s like some cold souless alien from a ’50′s science fiction film. Something blackhearted and slimy to be captured, and placed in a steel cage in the bottom of a deep deep hole.
I submit that creatures like Adams deserve punishment. More punishment than this character is ever going to get.
Judge Adams apparently asked for his own suspension from his duties, which went into effect on Nov 22 2011.
Source here.
I imagine this was a preemptive strike on his part, to give the appearance of understanding the gravity of the situation.
Very tactical.
But, both due to statute of limitations, (This occurred in 2004) and the fact that Hilary Adams was 16 when this took place, there will be no legal action taken.
I'm glad this story came out, because it generated needed discussion...about the ethical, moral, and legal limits of parental discipline.
"I think the really powerful thing about this video is that, for a lot of people, this is child abuse, not corporal punishment, but the reality is that, under the statutory norms that exist in our society, this would not qualify as a crime or child abuse in any state in the country," says David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire in Durham.
Source here.
Judge Adams daughter also said that she believes he's been punished enough by the video being public knowledge: She states he needs counseling and help. Hopefully it will do it's job. I'm of the opinion this does not go far enough.
She's of age now, and apparently wants to look forward, not back.
If someone in my life abused me in some way, they got held accountable when I was in a space to do so.
I cannot imagine deciding not to hold an abuser accountable once out from under the abuse. I know that's a pattern... happens all the time.
When a girl with disabilities is hurt without direct punitive consequences for her abuser, and without someone going on the record stating that it is physically and mentally easier for abusers to target those with disabilities, both inside and outside the home...
I submit that that makes it easier for the next abuser to harm his child. I submit that it's just one more action that makes it easier for us to remain invisible.
And just a warning: Don’t beat on any of my tribe where I can see it or there will be consequences.
When is it ok? Never.
Update: 5:57 The Rec List?! Didn't think I'd get there...but ok! Thanks for the rec's and more importantly the substantive comments...