MrFixIt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gq7P0VYeLBQ

Dear Mr. Maher,

I’m writing this as a follower d you, if a disappointed one. Your caustic wit and political observations are insightful and challenging. There have been many times, going back to your Politically Incorrect days, where I felt you were on the right side of issues, taking to task conservatives and liberals alike for their, shall we say, dumb-fuckery.

I especially liked you when I disagreed with your point of view because I love the rigor of sorting through my own thoughts on a given topic.

I like the “New Rules” segment on Real Time the best— they tend to be the funniest, and the final Rule usually serves as a necessary splash of cold water into the face of Americans who would instead veg out with a sitcom rather than think uncomfortable thoughts.

The last “New Rule” on this past Friday’s show stopped me cold, though, and forgive me because I want to work this out meaningfully.

In it, you explain how the internet personality “MrBeast” has been using his acquired wealth as an influencer to help those in need. You cite an example where MrBeast paid for cataract surgery, which enabled several grateful blind patients to see. You then went on to come down on those who criticized MrBeast for his ableism and that, yes, disabilities should be “fixed.” You kept doubling and tripling down on this sentiment to the cheers of your audience.

It hurt, and not in that “butt-hurt” far-left kind of way.

It hurt because you passed judgment on an experience you clearly don’t understand, and the mob was on your side.

This is the part where I tell you I have Spina Bifida and know whence I speak about said experience.

It is also the part where I stop and say your lack of experience, and even your worldview, isn’t my issue.

I had over ten surgeries by the time I reached puberty, surgeries that weren’t meant to fix me ease my quality of life. Growing up, I was held underwater by a bully. That same bully kicked open an incision from a surgery I had that would help me walk better. Using a wheelchair, I have been shut out of buildings, denied relationships, and lived with depression for what I saw as unfixable.

In other words, there were times I wished I didn’t have Spina Bifida. I know what that lack of acceptance of oneself feels like, and it sucks. It sucks for my loved ones; It sucks for my therapists (well, maybe not the therapists — I’m keeping them gainfully employed); It sucks for the general public, most of whom don’t give a damn and don’t have to because disability isn’t in their lives. Most of all, though, it sucks for me.

I struggle with the ground beneath my feet, both literally and figuratively. Los Angeles, which I call home, is a tough place to get along if you are mobility-impaired. The sidewalks remain ripped up and craggy from years of earthquake damage, and the apartments are primarily without elevators, making habitation and socializing difficult.

Still, I’m so tired of talking about that struggle. It isn’t even a question of self-acceptance, which I will get to in a second, but exhaustion stemmming from having to explain and justify my existence. That work takes time and energy away from the real work of living. I’ll do it, but I need a nap.

There arises here the question of vinctimhood. I wholeheartedly agree that we have become a society too reliant on blaming the other guy for our lack of responsibility in writing our story. However, I would submit my real-life, scarred experience, pain that has shaped me, certainly to the extent I can right now, as an proof that pain can be made useful.

In the segment, you complain about the Woke being victims until they insist they aren’t. I agree that advocacy often lionizes the ries a prejudicial past, and we must escape to a brave new world of hug-outs and hoedowns, paying no heed to cruel reality. (Author’s note: ironically, I initially wrote “turned a blind eye to” instead of “paying no heed to,” and when I ran it through Grammarly, the software suggested that was a less problematic phrase because the former was offensive to disability. The world is awry and hilarious.)

I have a problem with anyone, well-intentioned or not, explaining my reality to me. I think this is at the root of the awful taste in my mouth that remained after I saw your last show (I also think you were talking out of both sides of your mouth on free speech/anti-Semitism on college campuses, but that is a rant for another time).

Whether we should fix disability, as you indicated, isn’t what upsets me. The crowd’s cheering and your feeding off it, as any good performer would, did. It sends me a message that people like me are invisible and “less than” as is and can only be seen if our bodies miraculously get fixed. Your audience may agree, but where does that leave the millions who want to live their lives but whose conditions are impossible to fix?

I joke that, in all my years, I’ve never really gotten up in the morning and had a “Spina Bifida” day. I’ve never gotten out of my “Spina Bifida” bed or had my “Spina Bifida” breakfast. This isn’t a denial of my circumstances’s but a simple acceptance that this is the way it is, so get busy living or get busy dying. I also know my rights, and I know how society impinges on them. Most times, it’s casual, and one might not even see the prejudicial nature of, say, not being able to ride the bus because a non-disabled passenger won’t give up the designated wheelchair space. (if you are unaware, there is a law saying a paying customer doesn’t have to move, which is odd because I’m a paying customer, too.)

I have gritted my teeth to where my face hurts.

I’ve “accepted” — not Spina Bifida or any mobility device — but what I, and millions more, have had to shoulder: other people’s ignorance as the reality. I often feel, as a result, like I’m a supporting actor in my life’s play, when I should be the writer.

This sounds like bitching, and it is, but I go back to your point about fixing things. Medicine, being what it is, may provide cures for all that ails us, and the emotional and physical pain that comes with those experiences will evaporate. I worry, though — and this is the Irish Catholic in me — that life would have less meaning without challenges.

I like challenges.

I’ve climbed mountains. I’ve dived with sharks. I’ve seen the Eiffel Tower at night and the Andaman Sea at dawn. I’ve been around the world and met many people who love me, not despite Spina Bifida but because of it.

Because it’s a part of who I am.

This has fuck-all to do with “disability,” by the by, which is the most significant complication of your New Rule on giving.

Spina Bifida is a scientific fact. “Disability” is a social construct designed to box me in, and I won’t allow it. Neither should you. Both sides of the pontificating political aisle king dangerous assumptions about aces. Disability is not a group. Disability “pride” is a bad joke, and it serves no one to ignore the struggle of being alive, impaired or not.

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is a choice. It binds us together in a common experience with no levels or designated sections.

I accept myself, and typing that makes me throw up in my mouth, but I hate to break it to you: it becomes a necessity when someone like you so flagrantly parades his arrogance.

After all, I’m dope as hell. Why? Because I fight and because I see life as unending misery to varying degrees, but I go anyway.

I live.

I want you to know this because, even if you’re right that if somebody fixed things, they’d be, you know, better, that’s all relative. As a media figure, you have too much power to be this sloppy in your self-centered thinking. I don’t believe you can change the world, but you have a responsibility to be responsible for it and your fellow beings.

Disability isn’t going away, nor should it. It’s one more paint splatter on the canvas of Consciousness. In practicing Transcendental Meditation, I was taught the unified field of Consciousness belongs to everyone, irrespective of physical or mental status.

I want the world to live in a place where we can all just be, and no one ever looks askance or says a word out of turn.

I keep dreaming, but the dream is more straightforward: do better. What you say matters, as well as who is listening.

Until such time arrives…

Light Up and Take Good Care,

Michael,
A fan