We're Waiting.

We're still waiting to receive a follow up letter from Dr. Michael Maves. The deadline is end of the day Tuesday, March 6. We are currently simply allowing the AMA time to follow up according to good faith, and we are very aware that the community is awaiting a follow up too. Thank you for your patience, readers. We are very serious about developing this process as a community.

In the meantime, the big mainstream news of the day is about Obama and the Clintons down in Selma, Alabama. They are commemorating the 1965 events that spurred on the passage of the Voting Rights Act, including Bloody Sunday at the Pettus Bridge, March 7, 1965. I would like to take a moment to commemorate Bloody Sunday as well.

In the history of direct action to advance civil rights, the events of Bloody Sunday are a lesson in courage, especially to those of us in the disability rights movement. Those at the bridge that day simply wanted two things: the right to vote and exposure of the kind of deep-seated oppression black people in the South experienced every day. If you have ever looked at pictures of Bloody Sunday, you will know that the marchers faced a mob of cops who were armed and looking for a fight....and yet they marched. Straight up, that takes a lot of gonads, and in the end, they won.

People with disabilities want to be treated as human, and we want acknowledgement that the system needs to change, and we want to see that change HAPPEN. Every day, we in the community deal with our own Bloody Sundays in the hope that some good will come out of it all. Sometimes we lose, but hopefully more often we are winning.

Stay tuned.