Did you ever watch The Apprentice and think that you would wipe the floor with any of them? Put me in a three-piece suit and I’ll sell you anything. My sales patter would have you eating out my palm. Forget my disability, the world is mine.
That’s the thing. When I work or write, my disability goes out the window. I am judged by my work. My wobble or my sexy speech don’t matter when you read my column. You may understand that my disability may give me insights into the topic but my work stands or falls on its quality. Pure and simple.
Would that be the case if you actually saw my wobble or heard my speech impediment? I suspect that you would only see my disability. If it came to appearing on a TV show like The Apprentice, I’d either be a star (the plucky hero) or I’d be gone on day one (who does that cripple think he is?).
The latter might happen if I was in the US edition hosted by the one and only Donald Trump. You can read about his latest ‘tirade’ - whereupon he mocked a journalist with a disability in an effort to back up his claims about the reaction of the "Arab population" in New Jersey to the attacks on 9/11.
How did I feel after I watch it?
I actually laughed. It wasn’t an angry laugh. I wasn’t mortally offended. It was the action of a spoilt 10-year-old kid caught out over another story, so he remembers the journalist who called him out on it had an impairment. The bold Donald decides to go down the cheap gag road.
The nerd in me decided to look at the crowd. There was one woman who began to laugh and then realised she was on camera so there was a bit of a furtive look. To the right of Trump, there was what looked like a child around nine or 10 years old. What would he think?
He was loving it. He saw an adult mocking somebody with a disability. Manna from heaven. Go ahead and bully anyone you want to son. A would-be president does it, so why can’t you?
That made me angry. The man is unfit to hold office. His ego gets in the way. It’s time for those he claims to represent to utter those famous words:
Donald, You’re FIRED!
