Posted on 12/22/2015 12:55:07 PM PST by huckfillary
Before adjourning for Christmas, Congress voted unanimously to officially recognize August 13th as National Left-Handers Day. The day has been unofficially celebrated by the National Left Hander's Club since 1996. It is also celebrated by several progressive Christian evangelical denominations as the Feast of Leftus.
At a hastily convened news conference, Club spokesperson Ian Radburn hailed the vote as a symbolic but significant first step in raising awareness of Right Privilege, the difficulties and inconveniences of living in a right-handed world, and coming of age in a right-dominant culture and society. Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell said, “The stars are now aligned to include crimes against left-handed persons in federal hate-crimes legislation. Left-Handed persons constitute an estimated 7-10 percent of the world’s population. If this doesn’t qualify them for minority/victim status, what does? This is the next logical step in our quest for universal social justice. This Congress will not rest until every aggrieved group and subgroup gets its due.â€
Prominent left-handers were quick to praise the action. Barack Obama, a left-hander, praised the vote as a long time in coming. “As a biracial, androgynous left-hander, I suffered egregious torment growing up in a white, sexually-confident, right-dominant world.†He ordered that only the left-wing of the White House be illuminated for the indefinite future. Former Los Angeles Dodgers great, Sandy Koufax, tearfully recalled the injustices suffered as a left-handed child. He vowed from an early age, he said, to use his left hand as a scourge against right-handed people. He went on to strike out over 2,500 right-handed batters during his ten-year career. He tearfully quoted passages from the biography of his childhood hero, the late pitcher Lefty Groves. In Growing Up Lefty, Groves chronicled the pain and torment of being a left-handed child, writing, “I lost count at an early age of how many times I cried myself to sleep for having been born left-handed.â€
Radburn called the crusade against the injustices suffered by left-handed people as the last frontier in the battle for social justice. “Between seven and ten percent of the world’s population is estimated to be left-handed. Yet, right-handed people get over 90% of the jobs, and over 90% of college admissions. This is the 21st Century, yet our right-dominant capitalist economic system has never produced a left-handed hammer, a left-handed saw, or a left-handed cell-phone. We still eat with right-handed kitchen utensils. We still labor in the kitchen with right-handed stoves, right-handed toasters, and right-handed can openers. Our society has made huge inroads in the struggle against crimes of race, gender, and sexual orientation. Such crimes are now officially recognized as hate crimes. Yet, the injustices suffered by left-handed people go largely unacknowledged and unaddressed. We will not stand down until crimes against the manually-different are included in hate-crimes legislation.
As late as 2001, left-handedness was still designated by the American Psychiatric Association as a mental disorder. Parents of left-handed children often demanded shock therapy as a treatment for their left-handed offspring. In 2002, in response to numerous lawsuits by the Club and affiliated groups, the Association dropped left-handedness from its list of treatable disorders and permanently banned shock treatment for left-handedness. Parents once resorted to numerous backward, cruel, and physically painful methods of home-treatment such as tying their children’s left arms behind their backs or attaching heavy weights to their left arms. Under the proposed hate-crimes legislation, parents and guardians guilty of such practices would face stiff fines and penalties.
Like so many social movements of the last half-century, the Left-Handed Movement has taken root on our college and university campuses. Several now have forbidden the use of the term “lefty†to refer to left-handers. A few have designated it as hate-speech. The Charter of the Left-Handers Club calls the L-word “a divisive and hateful construct of right-handed superiority and privilege.†Several colleges now forbid athletic coaches from using the word “southpaw†in reference to left-handed athletes.
“The speed of justice is slow, yet sure,†said Radburn. “The Club will mobilize and organize and agitate until we have eliminated the last vestiges of manual discrimination.†In closing, Radburn announced that former Beatle Paul McCartney, left-handed since birth, has promised to donate 10% of the proceeds from his ongoing tour to the Left-Handers Club. In his message to the Club, McCartney wrote, “You have no idea how difficult it was being a left-handed guitarist. I was constantly ridiculed, even after Sgt. Pepper, and it is all but impossible to buy left-handed guitars. I have to have them specially made.â€
“They were unwilling or unable to help all of us left-handers with cursive writing. Justice for LEFTIES!!”
” Left handed right wingers are people too!”
Hey I’m left handed...I’m not different...:)
I am completely serious about this.
I can usually look at a person’s left eye and see an evil person there. I know it sounds like witchcraft but I can almost always tell if a person on shows like “Dateline” are guilty just by looking at the left eye.
I can also sometimes look at a girl’s left eye and see genuine sweetness and goodness and they always turn out to be just that.
I’m semi-dexterous. Shoot a rifle, throw and bowl left-handed. Write, eat, bat and shoot a pistol right-handed. I think I was a natural left-hander but had a first grade teacher who would whack my hand when I tried to write left-handed. I may have changed back, but I got her in the 2nd grade too.
I got waked with a ruler by the teacher, and my handwriting laughed at all because I'm a South Paw.
When I came in the Army I had trouble as all the weapons (rifled & auto pistol's) discharged the hot spent shell out the left ans at the range, I was expected to aim the weapon from mu right.
All civilian hand tools are designed for righty to use
Well, it is fun to watch lefties try to write.
Teachers don’t understand the simple concept of turning the paper from a 2 o’clock position for righties to a 10 o’clock position for lefties. The 10 o’clock position eliminates all that ridiculous upside down twisting of your wrist.
A proper table setting favors lefties. The fork is on the left and the knife is on the right. Lefties don’t have to play that game of switching the fork to the left and so they can cut with their right and then switching back again to take a bite. Lefties get to the dessert faster!
#SPM!
I bought a vegetable peeler the other day that only worked in my right hand. Both blades looked the same but it wouldn’t peel worth anything in my left. I’m a lefty but can do everything outside eating and writing with either hand.
See my #27. Just turn the paper.
Sinistra merely means “left,†not “left-handed.
‘Sinistra, sinistrae’ is in fact the noun for ‘left hand’...
sinistra as an adjective for ‘left’ is confined to feminine singular and neuter plural nouns...
As a left hander i miss having some tactical gear made for me, otherwise I get by fine. I temd to do many things right handed or prefer the right handed setup for some tings. When i drove stick i liked having my left hand on the wheel rather than the shifter.
I found that some things only work for RH people.
#1 in the Italian dictionary: sinistra means left.
Williams batted left, threw right.
I saw your post! “Lefties try to write”!!! I’m suing you and I’m now going to my safe room.
Egad - I’ve micro-aggressed again. I have a lefty friend who can do the mirror-writing thing - absolutely perfect script, better than his normal writing - but backwards. I’d laugh at him but I’m afraid he’ll eat my soul...
I’m guessing you’re a fan of Browning and Ithaca pump shotguns.
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