Opinion: Obama Town Hall: People with disabilities and mixed-race individuals
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It was a moment that brought to mind Joe Biden’s gaffe during the campaign, when he asked a man confined to a wheelchair to stand up. President Obama had asked questioners to stand, but the man who asked the second question could not.
‘I am unable to stand up, I believe I am entitled to that exception under the ADA,’ he said with a smile. The young woman who had handed him the microphone apologized.
The man’s question was about how to encourage the ‘emerging population of people with disabilities’ to work, and how to appreciate the value of those who, while disabled, are eager to work. He called this ‘your disability agenda.’
‘We need everybody, and every program that we have has to be thinking on the front end, how do we make sure it’s inclusive,’ Obama said. ‘That’s true on the education front where our recovery package is increasing funding for children with disabilities, it is true with how Hilda Solis, our secretary of Labor will be thinking about our training programs.... It means enforcing the ADA and fighting back on some court opinions that have tried to narrow in ways that I think are inappropriate, the original intent of that legislation.’
A young woman took the microphone and, as was often the case, made a statement before asking her question.
‘As a mixed-race individual,’ she said, ‘it’s so fantastic to finally have a role model and a leader that I can actually identify with ... there haven’t been a whole lot growing up.’
She asked a very interesting question about how California’s household incomes don’t go as far as incomes do in other states. She mentioned California’s high unemployment and foreclosure rates (which she correctly noted was third in the nation). And what will Obama do about that?
The president’s answer was a mini-econ lesson -- but to be specific, he mentioned in L.A. ‘an enormous opportunity’ to deal with traffic and congestion in a way to make this economy more efficient and productive.... How can we plan things so that you aren’t in your car two hours a day?’
In conclusion, he added, ‘California often gets hit worse when recessions come, but you also rise up faster when the economy starts to recover.’
He was serious about the boy-girl rotation too: ‘All right, it’s a guy’s turn,’ he said, ‘so ladies, put your hands down.’
A man asked whether we might follow in the footsteps of Iceland and one day be broke.
‘No,’ said the president. ‘No ... but we’ve got to get control of our deficit.’
-- Robin Abcarian
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