The Self-Interest In Precious-izing People With Disabilities
I've really had it with all the "woke" who seem to stake out positions on social media so they can always be at the ready to pounce on any bit of humor that hasn't been approved by, oh, 6 out of 5 gender studies professors and Judith Butler's coffee mug.

A dear friend of mine -- a truly sweet guy who makes the world a better place -- posted a shot on Facebook that I found hilarious, with the comment, "lol Happy Halloween."

One commenter there scolded him (with a little sad face at the end of her remark):

Being funny ideally means punching up and not punching down 😕

Another commenter went right to the Teen Vogue article scold in a link:

While we often talk about not culturally appropriating on Halloween, it's equally as important that we don't dress up as any kind of marginalized or stigmatized group -- including people with health issues or disabled people.

And let's do a lap around the track on Ralph, the reasoning pony. The pilot wasn't mocking being blind. He was playing on people's fears about flying -- making people laugh with the momentary scare that the airline had hired a guy to fly their plane who couldn't see...being able to see to land and read the instruments being a rather integral part of that job.

Surely nobody did a doubletake at Ray Charles in his dark glasses at the piano because vision isn't a meaningful part of piano playing.

In response to the scoldies' remarks, I posted in the comments on my friend's post:

The humor police are out in force!...signaling that they are members of the PC tribe. (The photo is hilarious, by the way.)

Here's my late quadriplegic cartoonist friend John Callahan on how dehumanizing it is for people with disabilities to be treated as too precious to joke about. Excerpt from a column I wrote:

Callahan ... buzzed around Portland in a motorized wheelchair, cracking jokes like, "See my new shoes? I hear they're very comfortable."

Callahan understood that a person's disability often becomes a big wall between them and the rest of us because we're afraid of doing or saying the wrong thing. But through his refusal to, uh, pussychair around the subject, Callahan told people how the disabled want to be treated, which is "just like everyone else." And because the rest of us get poked fun of, Callahan did cartoons featuring disabled people. One of these has a posse on horseback in the desert looking down at an empty wheelchair. The posse leader reassures the others, "Don't worry, he won't get far on foot" -- which became the title of Callahan's autobiography.

I have a friend who buzzes around Manhattan in purple, leopard, and a motorized wheelchair, so I pinged her in the comments on my friend's post to see what she thought:

Hey, Jacquie, what do you think about this cartoon and what I wrote? Figured you might have a perspective, since you are one of the few these days whose sense of humor has yet to fall into a sidewalk grate and be lost forever.

Before she commented, I posted this about that "punching down" remark, with her quote in at the start:

"Being funny ideally means punching up and not punching down 😕" -- this "punching down" in relation to the photo suggests that the person who wrote that believes blind people are "less than." Yick.

(Side note: Always love when dour people lecture funny people on what humor is. And sure, sorry -- just guessing on the dour, but I'm guessing I'm right.)

Jacquie wrote:

It's like a skit I saw with Stevie Wonder himself at the wheel of a car. We're in on the joke - but then you know me, I'm not terribly crip-sensitive and goof on my own disability, so maybe I'm the wrong person to weigh in! That said, for years I've search for what I believe WAS a Callahan cartoon I once saw of a gallows pole with a hangman's noose that had a wheelchair sign and ramp going up to it! I think it was in one of the men's mags before the ADA passed and I STILL crack-up when I think about it!! The guy was brilliant AND twisted!!

I wrote back:

Thanks, Jacquie -- that's a hilarious cartoon...I bet it is a Callahan. I think I might remember it, or maybe it's just being able to picture it from your email.

I just see a lot of this -- people condescendingly "protecting" people with disabilities. I think they need to ask themselves if they're getting something out of doing this -- like maybe a little "I'm in the PC tribe" bump or a feeling of virtuousness.

Jacquie replied:

Amy Alkon I think maybe it's because it seems like pretty much everyone knows someone with some sort of disability and are (and I really hate the latter half of this term) are "semi-woke". I also think non-disabled people are unconsciously realizing that being disabled is the ONLY minority that anyone can "join" at any time. The old "there but for the grace of god go I" thing.

It's ironic that in a world that's physically safer for humans than at any other time in history, so many people feel so compelled to reach out and "protect" others.

So much social media, so much virtue signaling still left undone!

UPDATE: This guy is one of those people who didn't click on the link to the post I tweeted, but I love this:

There was a photo of an airline pilot wearing dark glasses and using a white cane on Halloween that had the woke crowd upset. I asked my blind sister if it offended her. She said "I don't know, i didn't see it"

— S2 Pedasso (@Mstewable) November 2, 2018

Callahan used to laugh when people in his presence unthinkingly shot off lines like, "You can get there on your own two feet," and then were horrified.