"It's just a joke. Give him a break!"
Ask my cerebral palsied older sister if President Obama's Special Olympics comment to Jay Leno was funny.
Barb has been trying to catch up with everyone around her since birth. The umbilical cord, wrapped around her neck five times when she was born – her pre-birth lifeline – almost killed her. It left her with brain damage and all that goes with its never-the-same-again aftermath.
I've always been protective of Barb's feelings – fiercely so. No one meant for Barb's handicap to happen. Not my mother, who carried guilt about her circumstances to the end of her days. Not the doctors or nurses on duty that day. Her birth accident probably would not happen now, with all the careful pre-birth monitoring and technology that surrounds so many births.
But it did happen then, and it's just the way it is. Barb and those of us who love and work with her in various ways try to do more than just cope.
I'm sure Barb knows of Obama's comment. She's pretty current-events-aware. (By the way, she voted for Obama, and as a natural and enthusiastic promoter of the people and things she believes in, she probably got others to vote for him, too).
I'm sure some of Barb's peers felt the sting of Obama's joke, too. And other peers? Well, no. Their
limitations prevent them from understanding that someone would find
limitations, in general, funny, and the raw material for a joke.
The real message, though? Those little leadership moments DO matter.
Symbols count. Words count. What someone finds funny counts, too.
In a positive way, Michelle Obama shows that she knows the power of simple, influential moments. Lately, she's been on the national news almost daily as she promotes reading, taking personal responsibility, and now, gardening.
And among those who lately showed that they didn't "get" the power of a symbol are the long line of auto executives who asked for taxpayer handouts yet admitted before Congress that they had each flown a private jet to the handout proceedings. Also missing the point about the great power of leadership actions, decisions, words are the executives of taxpayer-propped-up banks who did not understand the taxpayer anger that large bonuses would invoke.
Leadership moments count…the words, the symbols, the jokes.
If you want the leadership spotlight, you get both: the power and the pressure.
The president is in a high-attention job. It's a cage, even. It's gilded, certainly, but it's a cage, nonetheless.
And among the things that go with the job he has, or any leadership job, for that matter, are an expectation that he won't perpetuate stereotypes, whatever they are, and an expectation that he will lead by positive example. In planned statements and actions, and the "mindless" moments, too.
The mentally and physically challenged have feelings, the same as anyone else does. They're trying to maintain their dignity in a world that quickly reaches for the "R" word ("retard") to put people down. Every time I hear it, it's like fingernails on a chalkboard, as are Special Olympics "jokes."
Leadership means knowing the power and value of the spontaneous actions, reactions and words one uses.
It may take education, exposure to the real lives of the people someone makes fun of in an oh so simple "joke."
In this particular case, maybe President Obama should spend a day as a Special Olympics coach. Or work for a day with the handicapped in a sheltered workshop. Or volunteer for a day in one of the homes for the profoundly retarded that any state has to care for those who, by accident of birth, or illness, or by accident, itself, would never have asked for the circumstances they have, will never live lives completely on their own.
We all have moments we regret, a simple comment we didn't really mean. And yet…
If we are in leadership positions, we must remember, those simple moments count. And they are so very powerful.
