England is seeing a rise in nastiness toward disabled persons.

Gillian turns over in bed after a restless night with little sleep.  She will have to accept that today is going to be one of those days when she will hardly move.  Maybe sit up later, and phone Mum to see how Dad is today.

 

Gillian lives with a long-term disabling condition which means that her mobility is restricted and variable; she has very little strength in her limbs, and she lives with constant pain.  On a good day she can walk down the stairs from her first floor flat to her mobility scooter, which she has to store in the hallway; on bad days she is unable to leave her flat, or even get out of bed.  She depends on her scooter to remain independent, to get out and about, and to help her mother to care for her father, who has dementia.  A well-qualified and experienced nurse, Gillian would love to be able to work, but she knows that it is out of the question. 

 

Two days ago she struggled downstairs to find a note stuck on her scooter with the one word “scrounger”.

claerwen: jonathan-cunningham:adamquinn:

A city cab driver is in the hospital after being stabbed by a passenger who allegedly asked if he was Muslim, police tell NY1.

Investigators with the New York City Police Department say it all began Monday night when a 21-year-old man hailed a cab at 24th Street and Second Avenue in Manhattan.

Police say the passenger asked the driver, “Are you Muslim?” When the driver said yes the passenger pulled a knife and slashed him in the throat, arm and lip.

The 43-year-old driver was able to lock the passenger in the back of the cab and call 911.

Both the driver and the passenger were taken to Bellevue Hospital.

As of late Tuesday, no charges had been filed.

Consequences of fear mongering.

Lord, have mercy on us all.

I can say that hate crime has always been a part of my life and earlier life.

I was beaten by family, in their attempt to beat it out of me.
I was beaten every year at school, every year—it never failed, i got beat up.
And it was because of my gender expression.

But for me, though, the one thing that really stands out for me, as an adult, was here in MARTA. I was coming home from work, and it was a late night, in retail sometimes you have to stay really late at night, and it looked like i was catching the last train around one, one-thirty in the morning.

….. snip of very sad, and very angry-making story …..

So, hate crimes are those things that, when someone is attacked for being in a perceived group—and that night i was perceived as trans, gay, whatever, and because of that i was attacked, and no one at any point, on the train, on the platform, from the officer, at the precinct, no one offered to help. And that is a hate crime. And i’m here tonight to let you know it happens; it happened here on campus; my friend Annette was attacked here, verbally attacked on this campus and they threatened to shoot her.

And we need to understand that it’s borne out of ignorance, and it’s condoned by people who have a problem with our lifestyles and they think that it’s okay to hurt us.

And at the end of the day, what we do should have no effect on other people. and i think if we leave people alone, to each his own, a lot of this stuff will be avoided.

Undercover Nun weeps for this young woman and for the pain in her life.  This should not happen to ANYBODY, at ANY TIME, in ANY PLACE.  God weeps for her pain, as we all should.

I agree with her, up to her final sentence.  i think if we leave people alone, to each his own, a lot of this stuff will be avoided.  Unfortunately, my brothers and sisters, the deepest sadness in this story is not so much the attack itself, but the complete lack of response from every single bystander there.

It is not enough to leave people alone.  We can, and we must demonstrate that this behavior is wrong, intolerably wrong.  We must show everyone that we don’t allow this to happen.  Not in our cities.  Not in our suburbs.  Not in our rural communities.  Not on our subways or buses or trains.  Not in our schools and not in our homes and not in our workplaces.  Not in the morning and not at night.  Not anywhere. Not ever.

My prayers are with this young woman, for healing and for forgiveness and for transformative love.  I pray the same for the young man who attacked her, and for every guilty bystander who allowed this to happen in his or her presence.

I pray for all of us.