John Franklin Stephens
The following is a guest post in the form of an open
letter from Special Olympics athlete and global messenger John Franklin
Stephens to Ann Coulter after this tweet during last night’s Presidential debate.
Dear Ann Coulter,
Come on Ms. Coulter, you aren’t dumb and you aren’t shallow. So why
are you continually using a word like the R-word as an insult?
I’m a 30 year old man with Down syndrome who has struggled with the
public’s perception that an intellectual disability means that I am dumb
and shallow. I am not either of those things, but I do process
information more slowly than the rest of you. In fact it has taken me
all day to figure out how to respond to your use of the R-word last
night.
I thought first of asking whether you meant to describe the President
as someone who was bullied as a child by people like you, but rose
above it to find a way to succeed in life as many of my fellow Special
Olympians have.
Then I wondered if you meant to describe him as someone who has to
struggle to be thoughtful about everything he says, as everyone else
races from one snarkey sound bite to the next.
Finally, I wondered if you meant to degrade him as someone who is
likely to receive bad health care, live in low grade housing with very
little income and still manages to see life as a wonderful gift.
Because, Ms. Coulter, that is who we are – and much, much more.
After I saw your tweet, I realized you just wanted to belittle the
President by linking him to people like me. You assumed that people
would understand and accept that being linked to someone like me is an
insult and you assumed you could get away with it and still appear on
TV.
I have to wonder if you considered other hateful words but recoiled from the backlash.
Well, Ms. Coulter, you, and society, need to learn that being compared to people like me should be considered a badge of honor.
No one overcomes more than we do and still loves life so much.
Come join us someday at Special Olympics. See if you can walk away with your heart unchanged.
A friend you haven’t made yet, John Franklin Stephens
Global Messenger
Special Olympics Virginia
My comment on facebook
I had the pleasure of working with an IQ challenged person who was never allowed to be labled by his parents, who used his "people skill" ability in a customer experience capacity to make a respected career for himself. Although I trained him in the CE skills, in my follow up with customers I found that he was much better at the job than I, even though technically I was clearly better. Any technical errors were forgotten as each customer was in fact the special focus of his attention and knew it. Absolutely critical to creating a satisfied, loyal customer. He certainly taught me important lessons in the CE which served me well in my career in this customer critical area.
