Protect the Sinister!

In our group-based-grievance society, one minority has been almost entirely ignored and is constantly discriminated against. It makes up about 11 percent of the population. It is not something its members choose, but its effects reach into every aspect of their lives.

I’ve written about it before, as have others, but the cries have gone unheeded while the demands of more politically lucrative, dare I say more freakish, predilections that involve far fewer people have been met past the point of absurdity. Here, with comments and observations made now (in italics) is how I put it 12 years ago. There will be additional information and comments afterwards.

The headline was sad but not surprising:

“The Health Risks of Being Left-Handed

“Lefties Face Chance Of ADHD, Other Disorders; Brain Wiring Holds Clues” Lefties? Really? Similar terms for other minorities — I won’t list them but you know what they are — would get you canceled the instant you pushed the “send” button.

The article, published in the prestigious Wall Street Journal, cites “research” which claims that left-handed people aren’t as good as right-handed people.

Left-handed people, or sinister-Americans as we like to be called (unless we’re from some other country), are supposedly more likely to be dyslexic or schizophrenic or suffer from vague “mood disorders”, says the foul, rabble-rousing attack, er, story. I didn’t mention it at the time but yes, “sinister” means “left.” It is the right-handed majority that gave it its ominous connotations. Right-handed people call themselves “dexterous.”

“Left-handedness appears to be associated with a greater risk for a number of psychiatric and developmental disorders,” the article accuses.

Left-handed children, it says, should be winnowed out for special treatment.

“Experts suggest that left- and mixed-handedness could be used as a risk factor for possible psychiatric or developmental conditions, along with behavioral difficulties, such as having a hard time in school,” it says, employing the old slur that the ambidextrous as well as those who are no good with either hand are somehow polluted with left-handed blood. “The presence of such risk factors could prompt early evaluation for those conditions, they say.”

It also goes out of its way to claim that contrary to popular belief*, used to demonize the left-handed,* sinister-Americans are no more intelligent than the right-handed majority.

Discrimination against the left-handed is as old as human history. Even in America, where all are said to be created equal, generations of left-handed children were either forced to deny who they were and write with their right hands or else forced to twist their backs in painful contortion at desks designed for the differently handed. This is no joke. Schools equipped with only right-handed desks have sentenced generations of left-handed kids to agonizing back disorders.

(Though not set in America, the award-winning movie “The King’s Speech” noted that the crippling stammer experienced by England’s King George VI was due in large measure to his being forced as a child to pretend to be someone he wasn’t: a right-handed person. The problem continues in England.)

The article suggests that left-handedness is a dysfunction, a disability, caused by something going wrong in the womb. “Several studies show that stressful life events, such as the death of a loved one or job loss, during pregnancy increase the risk of having non-right-handed children,” it claims. ” Or, it says, perhaps the left-handed were born to mothers who were so old they really shouldn’t have been having children at all. There is even a word, “sinistrality,” for this kind of bigotry.

There’s more. “Being left-handed is only partially genetic,” the story says. How can something be “partially genetic”? Are left-handed people now accused of having partial genes, where perhaps the right-handed have whole ones? Nobelist William Shockley got into a lot of trouble making that sort of claim.

Additionally, the article noted — but did not find anything wrong with — there is wage discrimination against sinister-Americans: “Left-handed people earn on average 10% lower salaries than righties, according to a recent study.” Righties? Slumming, are we? Could you call someone a “darkey” if later, ho ho ho, you referred to a “whitey”?

Sinister-Americans have learned to blend in, to make no fuss about their condition. We are forced, really, to deny who we are.

There are government programs for all kinds of minorities. Where are the programs for the left-handed? In the various stimulus packages, where are the set-asides for those left-handed persons who would like to start new businesses? Where are the provisions in the Americans With Disabilities Act for the left-handed? There are none, and left-handed people are specifically disallowed, as we’ll see below. Where is the requirement that all doorways be double doors, to accommodate those who might not reach for the knob with the same hand as the majority do? How many colleges ascertain that their diversity programs include sufficient left-handed representation? Where are the left-handed-rights weeks and parades? What month is devoted to left-handed studies and history?

There is none of this. There are not even special left-handed parking spaces (and if there were, they would no doubt be at the back of the parking lot). As opposed to being empty spaces right by the door. No, there are just bigoted articles from sinisterphobes who laugh at the plight of the left-handed, say we’re not any smarter, claim we’re more likely to be crazy.

Oh, yeah, the right-handed world makes use of us when it’s to their manipulative advantage, in their baseball games, for instance. We’re sent into combat along with the right-handed persons we’re expected to defend, but given weapons which eject their hot empty shells to the right, into our faces. Meanwhile, the government pays for soldiers to get abortions.

And the right-handed world finds it all very funny.

But just you wait. We may have been silent, but that doesn’t mean we’ve been complacent. Though we’re “only” 10 percent of the population (actually 11 percent, maybe more), we’ve been five of the last nine presidents. (Joe Biden might be, too, but he does not know left from right in any practical sense, while Donald Trump says both of his diminutive hands are perfect, everyone says so.) In our nation’s history, every time a left-handed candidate has gone against a differently handed candidate for president, the sinister-American has won.

We may be few, but we are powerful and, according to “research,” sneaky. You might want to stop and think a minute before you make that offhand slur against the left-handed.

When I wrote the column above, it was partly in jest, to make fun of the absurd leftist — a bitter irony; the left bows to everyone except the left-handed — government set-asides for every imaginable minority.

But in the intervening dozen years things have grown even more ridiculous. Men who claim to be women (and no, they have to do nothing more, nothing lopped off or added, the claim that today a guy feels like a girl is all that’s needed) are destroying women’s sports and other activities. The “trans” movement is as big and obvious a prank as has been played on the world ever, with the possible exception of mRNA-based “vaccines.” The 20^th^ century included what is called “the greatest generation.” The 21^st^ century has brought us the gullible generation. Today, we would elect Caligula. Or maybe Incitatus, his horse, whom he appointed to the Roman Senate (backside only, from Delaware).

Things that would have been rejected as jokes because they were too far-fetched are now laws. We are not far from the official recognition of “Furry History Month.”

Meanwhile, discrimination against the left-handed continues unabated. The Americans with [Politically Popular] Disabilities Act lists voluntary activities such as drug abuse as “disabilities” for which special accommodations must be made. It goes out of its way to spit in the faces of the left-handed: “Simple physical characteristics such as . . . left-handedness . . . do not constitute physical impairments.” But if you’re a guy who likes to hang out in the girls’ locker room, you are protected.

Of course left-handed people aren’t provided for. That would make sense, and our governing institutions are not in the business of making sense.

We’re currently in the middle of the every-decade-or-two UFO scare. I do not know whether space aliens are watching us or not.

But I feel certain that if they are, it is out of a taste for comedy.

They’re probably left-feelered.

“Lefties,” as we are called, or “southpaws” must be able to laugh.

Dennis E. Powell is crackpot-at-large at Open for Business. Powell was a reporter in New York and elsewhere before moving to Ohio, where he has (mostly) recovered. You can reach him at dep@drippingwithirony.com.