February 13, 2020 - 23:36
Something I found interesting in chapter 5 was finding out a big reason African Americans with disabilities in the Invalid Corps did not file for disability pensions was because of a lack of access to resources to file. Many times they could not afford travel costs, assistance to fill out paperwork, and/or obtain the proper documentation (83). It angers me that even though members of the Invalid Corps put more work back into society after returning from war, they were still not given extra help to obtain the resources they needed to file for disability pension. Additionally, this is scarily similar to the struggles of poor and/or government reliant citizens today when applying for any sort of government assistance. The process of applying for and obtaining legal, medical, or other forms of assistance is so incredibly difficult that many people do not have the time or energy to spend on doing so. Instead, they are often forced to continue living and working with the meager sources of income currently available to them. Seeing that this exact discriminatory process was happening to African Americans with disabilties in the 1860s, and knowing that forms of governmental discrimination against poor people exactly like this are happening today, I can only imagine the forms of discrimination individiuals with disabilties must face on a daily basis to receive the care they need. I would very much like to learn more about the processes individuals with disabilites must go through to recieve assistance today, what forms of discriminations are still imbedded in the system they are using, and how we have been and should be working to combat those different forms of discrimination.