Amid the barbecues and fireworks of our Fourth of July celebrations, I like to reflect on what actually brought us to our national independence. I imagine this adolescent nation, chafing at the oppressive oversight of its parent empire, ready to spread its wings and go its own way and make its own decisions. The Brits responded with a mixture of emotional resistance (“You’re not ready,” “You need us,” “You owe us”), and the fight for freedom began.
Granted, the reality of the situation was more complicated than that, and independence always is. But I think our celebration of Fourth of July is in large part our nation recognizing that moment in history when we got to define ourselves. It was the beginning of our identity as the United States of America.
Looking back 239 years later as a more mature, responsible, middle-aged nation, we can see how much we’ve grown along the way. We’ve made a few mistakes (strip mining, bell bottoms, Peewee Herman). We’ve engaged in some huge fights, both internally and with other nations, that could well have been our demise.
But our successes have been greater. We’ve brought the world jazz and airplanes and both the telephone and the iPhone. We redefined democracy in a way that has rippled across the world. Our failures and triumphs have continued to shape the identity of our nation today.
The question that haunts me is whether we could have shaped that identity without our freedom. What would we have become had we stayed under the protective and restrictive care of our parent nation?
The same question hangs over many people with intellectual disabilities. The world conspires to keep people with ID dependent. We create systems of support that are restrictive and paternalistic. We deny opportunities and keep them in poverty with public benefits. We fail to see them as anything other than children in need of our protection.
Even families of people with intellectual disabilities and the professionals who claim to support them can have a hard time recognizing the abilities of adults with disabilities and treating them like competent, mature individuals. We watch and wait for the inevitable error in judgment or minor failure and say, “See, you aren’t ready for your independence.” And we hold them back from their potential.
Yet if we are always protected from mistakes, we are also denied potential for triumphs. Without freedom, we are never able to fully step into our true selves. Without independence, we cannot create our own identities.
I’m ready for the Great Disability Revolution. It’s brewing. Here and there, people are standing up and demanding freedom. Families and professionals are handing them the reins to their destiny. Soon, people with intellectual disabilities everywhere will throw the tea overboard. They will demand to live their own lives in their own ways, making their own choices, good or bad.
We all need our independence. We all have something special to contribute to the world.
Tara Kiene is the director of case management with Community Connections Inc.
