Diversity On Television

We all have seen trans-people, lesbians and gays on television. We also have seen a growing number of minorities on television. But when have you seen a handicap person on television?

I found this on Bilerico Project and it made me think…

Parents need to get used to diversity
Filed by: Alex Blaze
March 1, 2009 4:00 PM
Via Feministing, a children's BBC show hired a presenter who's missing part of her right arm. Some parents didn't like the hire that much:
“Disparaging comments by adults about a children's presenter have led to an angry backlash in support of Cerrie Burnell, the 29-year-old CBeebies host who was born missing the lower section of her right arm. One man said that he would stop his daughter from watching the BBC children's channel because Burnell would give his child nightmares.
…
“"Is it just me, or does anyone else think the new woman presenter on CBeebies may scare the kids because of her disability?" wrote one adult on the CBeebies website. Other adults claimed that their children were asking difficult questions as a result.”

When I read this the hairs on the back of my neck stood up and my blood pressure skyrocketed. What is it with “these people” that they cannot stand to see people who are different from them! They hide behind “the children will not understand” what they really mean is that “we are bigots” but we want you to think we are doing this for a noble cause.
What they are really doing is to teach their children to hate people who are different. It reminds me of a song from a 1949 Rodgers and Hammerstein song in “South Pacific,”

You've Got to Be Carefully Taught

You've got to be taught
To hate and fear,
You've got to be taught
From year to year,
It's got to be drummed
In your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade,
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught before it's too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You've got to be carefully taught!

We need more handicap, African Americans, Hispanics, intersexed, lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people on television. We need more people on television who are not your white, middle class, 9 to 5 professionals. We need more diversity to teach our children that it is OK to be different.