Brian slumped lower into his seat, trying not to kick his crutches on the floor and draw attention to himself with the "clank" of tubular aluminum against hardwood that would disturb the class.
Professor Brown began reading the paper Brian had submitted two days before for his Journalism 101 course. In hindsight, he now realizes it was an introductory journalism class to sort out those with journalistic tendencies (potential) and the others who would do better in the School of Business or Animal Husbandry.
And, yes, it was perhaps odd for even this course to include a student with obvious walking and talking impairments due to cerebral palsy. After all, it was September 1963.
Professor Brown read the first paragraph without commitment, and Brian quickly prepared himself for the worst. After all, Professor Brown was a legend as a reporter for Time magazine. Brian had already visualized what it must have been like for Professor Brown to quickly dictate an important story paragraph by paragraph from scribbled notes over a phone from Seoul to New York during the Korean War.
Brian's second assignment of the semester had been to write a "slice of life" piece, and Brian didn't understand why Professor Brown had picked his paper to read to the class. He hadn't shared the writings of anyone in the class during the last three weeks.
It was a ragtag course the scope of which Brian still did not fully understand, even though the first six-week exam was getting dangerously close.
"Paragraph," Professor Brown slowly proceeded.
"'As I hoppled toward the bus, I noticed a 'George-Wallace-For-President' sign in the store-front window.'"
Brian had not spotted his typo until that moment. Due to his lifelong cerebral palsy, his speech sometimes switched the "bb" sound with "pp," and, in repeating the sentence to himself, he had inadvertently typed "hoppled" instead of "hobbled."
"Let's stop for a moment right here. Do you see anything unusual about that sentence?"
The silence was awkward.
"'Hoppled'," he answered.
His mustache twitched, and Brian squirmed. "Isn't that a creative way of describing the way a person would proceed in catching a bus?"
"It was a mistake," Brian silently repeated to himself in disbelief and wondered how many in the class realized it was a typo. He looked around the room. No one was smiling.
Brian's piece went on to repeat some of George Wallace's favorite quotations about "conservatizing this country." The shocking TV news reports about the unrest in Birmingham, Alabama, disturbed him.
George Wallace's drive for the presidency as a third-party candidate in the 1964 elections had already begun on the University of Wisconsin campus in Madison. He was playing on the fears of heartland America, but Brian didn't realize that at the time.
As Brian now looks back more than 60 years, his essay showed how naive he was about race and deceit in the U.S. when he was 20 and a junior in college.
Professor Brown finished reading Brian's paper. He didn't use Brian's name.
"Isn't that clever?" he asked rhetorically, nodding his head in agreement with himself. He never looked at Brian. The class was again silent.
"Exposing the bigotry of George Wallace by using parody and paradox," Professor Brown concluded, evidently using Brian's paper as an illustration of creative writing.
Brian was still waiting for the balloon to burst. He did not mean to write a parody. He thought George Wallace had some legitimate observations and thought they needed to be repeated in the liberal environment of the Madison campus.
But the balloon did not burst. Professor Brown was apparently serious. No class discussion. Brian felt uncomfortable and never discussed his paper with Professor Brown. Perhaps he should have, he now realizes. It may have removed the tinge of paternalism he still feels 60 years later as he recalls Journalism 101.
But, with time as a teacher, Brian can now more quickly identify and ignore the superficial steps those with power in government, education, business, finance, housing, and elder care will earnestly take to visibly over-compensate for the real disadvantages he sometimes encounters due to his vulnerability.
These often-meaningless gestures crop up just because he is a male, just because he is white, just because he has a visible disability and just because he is no longer young in years.
Since Journalism 101, Brian's brush with paternalism has included:
· An apology to a fellow staff member, requested from his supervisor, when he merely disagreed with that colleague during a staff meeting.
· Finding that new acquaintances have been "tipped off" about his disability by colleagues before Brian meets them in person.
· Called "the kid" or "young man" (in other words, not "mature") by his senior contemporaries just because he has a more apparent disability.
· Addressed as "Brian Boy" by assisted living staff, even though he's 79 years old (and certainly not a "boy").
Now as a senior citizen of Minnesota, Brian notes that people generally have good intentions in trying to relate to individuals who are physically different, but they too easily can fall into paternalism by default.
He believes Jane Jacobs, in The Death and Life of Great American Cities, says it best: "The trouble with paternalists is that they want to make impossibly profound changes, and they choose impossibly superficial means for doing so."
Brian's takeaway tip from his story: Be prepared to meet paternalism by default.
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Here’s to elderhood and vulnerability!
Jim Hasse, ABC, GCDF retired, author of “Opening Up” newsletter
“Story-guided Discussion for Finding Peace with Vulnerability”
It was 1963 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. As a transfer student from a state college in Platteville, I needed to take a general U.S. history course in Bascom Hall. The “survey” course included about 200 students, and exams usually called for writing essays in long hand within “blue books” under time restraints.
At the time, I was the only student in the class with a visible disability. My cerebral palsy made it very difficult to write the essays by hand and complete the exams on time.
As a student today, I would have had lots of help from Disability Student Services (DSS). But there was no DSS back then. Luckily, I had a TA who recognized my problem and would actually lead me back to his office and give me more time to complete my essays at his own desk.
I felt guilty taking that extra time because I knew “extra time” was a blunt “solution” to the problem that was probably unfair to the other students. But, the TA, trying to gain traction on a liberal campus and in his academic career, probably had no choice in his mind other than to give me a break with the only tool he had available: extra time for completing my exams.
* When have you experienced “paternalism by default” as an elder despite the good intentions of everyone involved?