European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - June 08, 1977, Darmstadt, Hesse By Barbara Palmer Washington Star 7ou in of tied Rosalind Wattel displays mail order items for lefties. All through life. Richard Banfield has gone along in his mild mannered Way put Ting up with the injustices and inconveniences of being a left handed person in aright handed world. But now things have gotten serious and Richard Banfield says he in t going to take it , a mail sorter in Covington ky., has been put on notice by his supervisors that he will be suspended from his $13,500year Job if he s caught sorting mail again with his left hand. I be been trying to do it the Way they Tell me to because i Don t want to get accused of insubordination said Banfield. I be been trying to throw sort right handed for two weeks but it s too slow and awkward. I m left handed All the Way. I have been for 30 Banfield who has filed Union grievance against his postmaster and says be will take his Case to court if be has to is one of hundreds of lefties beginning to rebel again what they see As a tyranny of tie right handed majority. For years sinistral which is the accurate but unfortunate name for left handed people have been made to feel awkward and unusual As though it s always their fault they write upside Down or bump people s elbows at the dinner table. Up until 10 or 20 years ago teachers a Over . Routinely forced left handers to switch to their right hands when they Learned to write a practices Fol going on in some european countries such As Adfor All the reassuring studies that have characterized left handed people As 8Trall.y Noree Iive and artistic than right handers there Are As Many that describe them As psychologically Dis Turbed troublemakers who Are More Likely to stutter and wet their Beds As youngsters and cause head aches for their families later on. Currently it is estimated that about 10 per Coil of depopulation is left handed. Yet experts who have sex handedness and its relation to brain Acup tit Beneve the actual number of be much larger 30 per cent or More if it haunt been for traditional discrimination against them. The list of illustrious to and Ira including name such As Benjamin incur name. Thaae Tonieto. Or a Vinci aug it mafia but re shh " crib Cherau prefer to remember towns such As Sanleon Boston Strangler and former Kent Gerald r. Ford who waste Brunt ass jokes about his tack of gracefulness and coordination. Ford by the Way was one of Only three left handed presidents the others being Harry Truman and James a. Garfield. And Ford and his vice presidential running mate sen. Robert Dole were the Only left handed team Ever to seek top office. But history of course will show they lost tothe right handed Carter Mondale team. I m not personally a militant person and i Don t envision marching Down Broadway with pickets and signs or anything like that but i m angry about discrimination against lefties said Bob Geden founder of the league of left handers a new Jersey lobby for lot of people go into some pretty drastic stories about How their hands were tied behind their backs or they were hit with rulers or fired from their jobs because they were left handed according to Nancy Campbell executive director of left handers inter National a Topeka kans., organization for lefties that now has More than 3.000 members from All so states and five foreign countries. It was left handers International that Rich Ard Banfield contacted recently when be was put on notice that be would either have to tort mail right handed or be suspended from nil Job. On Friday april 30, you were observed distributing incoming mail with your left hand read the letter of warning from Banfield s immediate super visor . Moore. You have been instructed to throw mall with your right letter of warning is to give you an Opportunity to improve your Altitude toward your Job responsibility and to allow you to demonstrate you Are performing your duties in a manner required and expected of All postal Covington postmaster Joseph Conley said he would not comment on the Case because it is under review by the postal service grievance committee. But Banfield who said he has never before been bothered by the inconveniences of being left handed is now so angry he does mind talking at All. It s just Picky harassment that s All it is said Banfield. He said that for the past two years while he was sorting left handed be has received perfect scores of 100 on Speed tests Given All Sorters. But now they be got me either he said. If they catch me throwing left handed i la get suspended. And if i throw right handed they la suspend me for harassment is getting to Banfield said it s really tearing me because there Are no taws that prohibit discriminating again Eft handed Renoos an lefties Are far idiom being recognized As a legit Doil Magazine mate minority group there is Little lefthand ers International can do or Banfield except offer him Rea meanwhile the goal of the nascent left Power movement according to both Campbell and Geden is to awaken right handed people to the injustices and inconveniences they impose on left handed people and to increase the availability of products designed with lefties in left handed person operating a Power saw for example runs a much higher risk of cutting off his hand because he can t see what he s doing Gedun Irones also Burn themselves More frequently on right handed Irons. And left handed students of course have Long been complaining their needs Are ignored when it conies to providing classrooms with we re trying to get an awareness that left handers have been ignored a Long time and we Are a numerous said Geden who tries to raise consciousness among his right handed friends by signing All his letters sinistral by yours among other just do not think about it the problems of being left handed he said. It s not an area they re interested in because they just assume everyone s right handed. So let s make All the desks left handed and make right handers go through it for Southpaw product do exist. Currently there Are More than 100 of them ranging from Golf dubs Cor Lucrezi gum and editon to Novelty items Inch As left handed Mustache spoons. In the Washington area there is one store that Sells them the Lucky lefty ltd., in Alexan Dria a. But mostly left handed items Are available Only through mail order catalogues because the Market for them is not exactly Chicago Rosalind Wattel founded left handed plus inc., which puts out a catalogue offering 83 items for no right handed people such As oven mils scissors watches and corkscrews. Ironically Waltel is a against left handers appears to have originated in roman times according to Many experts on the subject. In ancient societies Accord ing to one theory left and right handed people were about evenly divided and that is Why egyptian and greek writing can be read from top to Bottom or from right to the romans institutionalized the left to right alphabet and the right handed handshake. And the prejudice has survived in almost every culture. The Bible makes at least 20 pejorative references to left handedness most of them associated with tie Devil according to Campbell. And european Socie ties once believed witches were All once attributed left handedness to trauma during Conception or birth. But now it is universally acknowledged to be associated with the Way a person s brain is organized. Right handed people use the left Side of their brains for language and the right half for spatial processes. The left hander s brain is bilateral. Lan Guage processing is done on both sides of the brain. White handedness is an inherited trait it does not become established until about age 3, As the nervous system matures and body movement controls Are developed. As far As the traditional theories that left handed children an More Likely to be retarded or. Jeannine he Roo a California euro physiologist and one of about 300 scientists now Stu dying the correlation Between brain activity and handed Neu said there is Little to them. Recent work shows no significant difference be tween handedness groups in intelligence writing Speed legibility or Reading performance Accord ing to Herron. But Herron said that findings do indicate left handedness is slightly More frequent among epileptics and persons with learning disabilities. Campbell meanwhile although no scientific expert and a right hander at that thinks she has found the explanation for Why left handed people Are considered by some to be More creative. It s be cause left handed people faced with right handed things All their lives Nave to think of creative ways to Deal with
