A post by npub1vge34mmjxcn9hh6mxnfs2c6405n6dgemtw4753f5q5h6r4yq3g0s2awxqy (npub1vge…wxqy) linked an article about an Alabama elementary school girls basketball team that won the championship in a boys league. Despite defeating all the boys teams they faced enroute to the top, the league refused to award the trophy to the girls team. As if this example of “exclusion by bigotry” was not enough to get the juices flowing, the article linked another npub1sldd86r70qtk4a9hqajsqtp4zhuzy07c52tvpyvfmlpt43cpqcrqn76t77 (npub1sld…6t77) related story that I couldn’t pass up. So much for easing back into it.
Morgyn Arnold, who lives with down syndrome, worked as the manager of her Junior high school’s cheerleading team. The cheer team at Shoreline Junior High School in Layton, Utah, chose to take two team photos; one with Morgyn and one without. The photo excluding her is the one used on social media and printed in the yearbook. Her name was not even mentioned as part of the team. Despite all of her “hard work and dedication to the team”, she was excluded .
According to a relative of Morgyn's, this “was the second time in three years” that she had “been left out of the yearbook” and had been left off the class list of students by the school in the past. The school issued a statement on social media that was later deleted. Is that the “swooshing" of brooms I hear?
I personally have had a similar taste of this elixir of exclusion during my time broadcasting for one university hockey team. Among the numerous discriminatory and ableist acts I experienced, I too was never mentioned or thanked in anyway by that team. I felt as if I was a dirty secret or that the team that raved about my broadcasts, was ashamed of me.
The big difference? Down Syndrome is not one of my disabilities and I was not 14 years old like Morgyn. Even with my experience, I can’t imagine how she must have felt being subjected to these patronizing, demeaning and deplorable ableist acts of exclusion.
In the mind of the offenders, exclusion, discrimination and bigotry doesn’t have to make sense. Oftentimes, they assume the people living with invisible, developmental or intellectual disabilities to be clueless or lacking reason and intelligence. In actuality, this type of behavior and “stigmatude” suggests that perpetrators may be lacking in some of these areas.
For this blatant act of ableism and oblivion to inclusion, Community Intergration and equality I have no cheers, only jeers.
“HIP HIP! Shame on you.”
OutOfExile_IDR npub1vssnx5azwlku5mxcjmee7eae6enf6a4ce2h53gfjkkgk23h4tteqcfkgju (npub1vss…kgju)
Link to the article and photos: https://www.ibtimes.sg/utah-school-under-fire-after-leaving-student-down-syndrome-out-cheerleading-team-photo-claims-it-58223?utm_source=Internal&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=related
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