Billionaire Robert F. Smith was the commencement speaker at the Morehouse College graduation ceremony in May and he pledged to pay the student loan debt of every graduate in that class.
Two months earlier, Tanner Wilson, a high school student in Norman, Arkansas, bought a motorized wheelchair for his disabled friend and classmate, Brandon Qualls. Wilson was hardly a billionaire. He says he saved some of his earnings from his part-time job for two years to buy the wheelchair. Qualls was previously propelling himself around awkwardly using a manual wheelchair.
Both were hailed as acts of extraordinary generosity, which they are. But to me this misses the point. The real story is that it’s a damn shame so many people can’t afford to acquire a basic necessity like a college education or a wheelchair unless they’re lucky enough to have a sugar daddy.
I’m sure the 2019 Morehouse graduates will all accept Smith’s gift. Who wouldn’t? But that’s no substitute for justice. Don’t forget about all the other college students of the past, present, and future being sucked dry by predatory loan sharks and the rigged bankruptcy laws that protect them and stoke their greed. The burden remains for all these students. Student loan debt in the United States was around $1.46 trillion at the end of 2018.
The 2019 Morehouse gift is generous—but no substitute for justice.
I’m sure Qualls is thoroughly enjoying the freedom and independence his new wheelchair brings him. But I’m greatly disturbed to be seeing more and more instances of people with disabilities having to resort to cyber begging to meet their needs.
For instance, there was a GoFundMe page created in March called Wheels for Josiah. Josiah is a little boy with one leg who, according to the fundraising page, was using a wheelchair his family borrowed from a hospital. His family filed a claim with their insurance company to buy him a chair of his own but the claim was denied. So the page asked everyone to pitch in.
Did you hear that? A little boy with one leg needs a wheelchair and his insurance company says ‘too bad.’ In cases like this, there needs to be an alternative crowdsourcing page where instead of raising money we raise people’s dander. It could be called GrabYourPitchforks.com. Everyone who signs up pledges to get together with little Josiah and go kick down the door of that damn miserly insurance company.
I don’t know how much Wilson spent to purchase that motorized wheelchair, but my experience acquiring my own motorized wheelchairs tells me it was probably around $20,000. The school district posted a photo of the boys and an account of Wilson’s generosity on Facebook.
If the 3,000 people who liked the post instead demanded that the insurance company or government agency or whatever entity is supposed to help kids like Qualls get up off of its butt and do it, Wilson could probably have kept his hard-earned money. I’m sure he’ll really need it a few years up the road, when it’s time to pay his hefty student loan debt.