Words Define Your Character

My passion in life dramatically shifted once we gave birth to our babygirl. Over the course of our daughter's 2 1/2 years, my passion has shifted yet again for fighting for the special needs she has acquired, for her to be given the opportunity to succeed, for her not to be viewed as a number or a diagnosis, for her to be seen and treated like any other beautiful child, to ensure she receives the best medical care possible, for her to attain the necessary therapies/equipment/devices to have a great quality of life, for her to always have a voice even if she cannot use her own, for her to learn what courage and perseverance is from her parents, for her to always be seen as a bright, intelligent, worthy, capable little girl and someday ... as a young woman.

 

There has been a lot of uproar over a tweet by Ann Coulter regarding the last presidential debate. The statement Ann Coulter made on October 22, 2012 was "I highly approve of Romney's decision to be kind and gentle to the retard."

 

Wait -- did you catch that? She, as a public figure (even if she wasn't one), regarded the president as a retard and even worse, used that word like a "retarded" person is something of shame or as a person that is beneath her!

 

No one should be shocked by this woman's incessantly nasty comments. Back in the 2008 presidential campaign, she directed derogatory remarks towards the presidential candidate John Edwards by commenting "turns out that you have to go into rehab if you use the word 'faggot'!" Apparently it was felt that she was insinuating that Edwards was a faggot which not only offend him but deeply insulted the Gay & Lesbian groups. Coulter seems to take pleasure in targeting political groups, specific religious affiliations such as the Jewish community, our military, obviously has no regard to the special needs community (which is A LOT of people by the way) and at times her targeting people seems to know no bounds.

 

Didn't I just write about bullying -- she is definitely a bully amongst other things. The fact that she takes great pleasure in her sharp tongue, is truly disgusting!

 

Simply reading about her past history of asinine comments proves that she has attempted, and continues to attempt, to attack every type of special interest group out there. I have to say, her past speaks for itself and she's not making any attempts to grow and develop as "Christian Woman" that she so proclaims. I hate it when people so loosely throw around the comment about "being a Christian" because trust me, her words and actions do not even remotely define a true Christian.

 

There is a large number of people who would be outraged by her statement on Monday and would want to see her slaughtered (not literally of course, but in terms of publicly taking her out), and then another group would argue, "She lives in America ... it’s called Freedom of Speech!" Yes, both sides are correct in their view points ... I suppose.

 

I of course feel like people who try to defend their idiotic, heartless comments by quoting "its freedom of speech" are cowards and like that somehow gives them authority to attack or hurt whomever. I'm more likely to view her as a shallow, vindictive woman merely seeking for attention to achieve fame. I suppose her approach is working because everyone is talking about her and here I am writing about her.

 

Perhaps Coulter's statement strikes a chord with me because fairly recently as I again was standing in a checkout line with my cart and Jocie at my side in her wheelchair, I had a lady tell me "I use to work with retarded kids like your daughter." For the sake of getting all fired up and ruining several hours of my day, I will not go into detail about how her careless assumption played out. What I will say is that yes, Jocie is not mobile and therefore requires a wheelchair for locomotion at this time; yes, she often doesn't make eye contact and looks up and around leading you to believe she might not know or understand what is going on around her; yes, she makes weird facial and body movements and sounds when she is excited but what all these things DO NOT MEAN -- is that she is even remotely retarded!! Anyone who would dare to think so is ignorant!!!

 

You see, this will be a great battle for us as parents when Jocelyn approaches public school age. It will be a challenge to test and prove cognitive skills to school officials who use testing approaches that require vision, fine & gross motor skills and verbal communication skills ... all of which Jocelyn has difficulty doing even though her receptive comprehension is more than intact!

 

I have digressed slightly ---

 

Even though I have spent time on discussing Coulter's disrespectful approach to the human race in general, I had to talk about her in order to express my admiration for how John Stephens responded to her remark.

 

Prior to this incident, I had no clue of this man named John Stephens. Mr. Stephens is a man with so much intelligence, grace and class that puts even the most disgusting woman to shame with his words of wisdom, truth and beauty. Below you can read his response to Coulter's statement. I would be so honor to call Mr. Stephens my friend and will try and learn from his humble response.

 

Dear Ann Coulter,

Come on Ms. Coulter, you aren’t dumb and you aren’t shallow. So why are you continually using a word like the R-word as an insult?

I’m a 30 year old man with Down syndrome who has struggled with the public’s perception that an intellectual disability means that I am dumb and shallow. I am not either of those things, but I do process information more slowly than the rest of you. In fact it has taken me all day to figure out how to respond to your use of the R-word last night.

 

I thought first of asking whether you meant to describe the President as someone who was bullied as a child by people like you, but rose above it to find a way to succeed in life as many of my fellow Special Olympians have.

 

Then I wondered if you meant to describe him as someone who has to struggle to be thoughtful about everything he says, as everyone else races from one snarky sound bite to the next.

 

Finally, I wondered if you meant to degrade him as someone who is likely to receive bad health care, live in low grade housing with very little income and still manages to see life as a wonderful gift.

 

Because, Ms. Coulter, that is who we are – and much, much more.

 

After I saw your tweet, I realized you just wanted to belittle the President by linking him to people like me. You assumed that people would understand and accept that being linked to someone like me is an insult and you assumed you could get away with it and still appear on TV.

 

I have to wonder if you considered other hateful words but recoiled from the backlash.

 

Well, Ms. Coulter, you, and society, need to learn that being compared to people like me should be considered a badge of honor.

 

No one overcomes more than we do and still loves life so much.

 

Come join us someday at Special Olympics. See if you can walk away with your heart unchanged.

 

A friend you haven’t made yet,
John Franklin Stephens
Global Messenger
Special Olympics Virginia