Daily Archives: 30 December, 2009

Let’s Bust Some Myths: People with disabilities just want to sue the world into compliance

One of my “favourite” disability stereotypes is that people with disabilities are rolling lawsuits waiting to happen. I first hit this stereotype when someone directed me to Penn & Teller’s Bullshit episode about the Americans with Disabilities Act [ADA], which focused mostly on how the ADA is all about putting people with disabilities down and treating them badly. [1. I can’t rant about this enough because this episode really pissed me off. They actually put someone in an iron lung and tried to get around New York, thus demonstrating that you can’t actually make the world accessible for everybody, so obviously the ADA is “Bullshit”.] The episode also included interviews with a town that was hit with many many many lawsuits by a lawyer who is also a wheelchair user, and financially threatened many businesses in a small town.

Another big-name voice that’s come out against the ADA as being “bad” for people with disabilities (and the nice able-bodied folks who are totally oppressed by it) is Clint Eastwood. Strangely, Eastwood didn’t care two wits about the ADA until he was sued for his boutique hotel being inaccessible. Then, suddenly, he was very concerned about the unending stream of lawsuits about accessibility. [1. And this is why I won’t watch any movie he’s in, produced, directed, mentioned as a good thing, whatever.]

There are two big problems with this theory. First, and most obvious to me, is that none of these Nice Able-Bodied Folks seem to be concerned that one needs to sue (or otherwise threaten with legal action) in order to get into buildings, get written material presented in a way you can read it, get captioning, get… well, get all sorts of “little things” that people with a variety of disabilities need in order to fully interact with the world. (Trust me, I have missed many of them myself. Many many times.) Oh, but they’re really really concerned about the poor little crippled person who is just a victim of the big bad lawyer who is totally leading them on, gosh darn it. (They are, of course, not concerned about just going “Oh, hey, let me fix that right now! No need for a law suit!” If you really think accessibility is important, and people note that your space isn’t accessible when it should be, why do you fight this suit in court? Is this some American-thing I don’t understand, being from The Great Frozen Post-Socialist Utopia of Canada? Do you lose American-points if you don’t fight law suits in court? I don’t even know.)

The second problem is that most of the people I know with disabilities don’t have the time/energy/inclination/spoons to sue about an accessibility issue.

Let me give you a personal example. (The plural of anecdote is not data, but strangely, there isn’t a lot of data available on “people not suing for accessibility-related issues”. This isn’t something pollsters ask.) Just the other day, Don and I went to the mall to take advantage of Boxing Day Sales. And, like every other time we go to the mall, it became apparent that the mall’s “accessibility plan” didn’t really include making the actual shops accessible. Lots of junk in aisles, aisles too narrow for a wheelchair, ect. (You’d think we’d stop going to the mall, but we only go about once every six months. The other mall we shop at is better, and I keep forgetting why we don’t trek out to this one very often.)

Don, kindly, pointed out that the shops I was going into didn’t have space for him. At first I thought about making complaints at each individual shop, but I wasn’t sure if the mall actually had a policy, and Canada doesn’t have an equivalent to the ADA. So, then we talked about going to the Mall Information Desk and finding out the details there. That fell through when we saw a very lengthy line, and a very harried pair of employees behind it.

In a world of sue-happy disabled people, we’d probably be contacting the Human Rights Commission, or a lawyer, or our Member of Parliament (that’s Federal government) or MLA (that’s Provincial). Instead, we came home, and agreed to stop shopping there because this is rather ridiculous.

Ultimately, I wrote a letter to the mall to bring this to their attention, but I have no idea if that will actually mean anything in the long run.

This anecdote isn’t unique by any stretch, and many people with disabilities I’ve talked to don’t even go so far as to write a letter (or an angry blog post) because this takes energy and time that could be spent doing countless other things.

People with disabilities are really no more sue-happy than your average person. Some people with disabilities, just like some average citizens, call their lawyer whenever there’s a problem – because they have a lawyer to call. Others stoically press on through life. Others write letters, to editors, to MLAs & MPs, to mall administrators. It’s almost like “disabled people” don’t all react the same way to things, and have a variety of ways of dealing with “adversity” (in the form of non-existent ramps).

So, in short, the myth of the sue-happy cripple who’s just a law suit waiting to happen is perpetuated by Nice Able-Bodied Folks who are actually full of Bullshit. [1. Okay here’s a link to “highlights” of the Bullshit episode on YouTube. It is not captioned, which I guess kinda disproves their ultimate point. I live in a country that doesn’t have an ADA, and I’m still waiting for Halifax to embrace the idea that business owners should be “more compassionate” and put in wheelchair ramps. ANY DAY NOW I’m sure it will be true.]

Recommended Reading for December 30: Bumper midweek edition

Warning: Offsite links are not safe spaces. Articles and comments in the links may contain ableist, sexist, and other -ist language of varying intensity. Opinions expressed in the articles may not reflect the opinions held by the compiler of the post.

Action Item for USAns: Cripchick: human rights abuses in public schools

these are practices that are rightfully considered torture if done to prisoners but ones that still happen in our public schools. disabled youth are targeted every day for things like hand flapping and speaking out.

recently, a bill has been introduced in congress that addresses restraint and seclusion. […] right now this bill is in need of sponsors… please use this form to contact your congressman or via congress.org asap and let them know that you will not stand for human right abuses in our schools.

IPS Laos: How Women Cope With Disability – Part 1. Lacking any social supports and ditched by family, Lao women with disabilities create work & home for themselves:

In a family of 12 children, the illness [polio] came as huge blow.

When they found she could not walk, the reaction was one commonly held, she said. Attempting to protect her from taunts and embarrassment they refused to let her go to school. In frustration, she stole her sister’s uniform and turned up at school. The teacher was impressed and called on her parents to educate her.

Her parents were reluctant, insisting she learn to sew at home so she had a source of income. She did learn, but by dogged persistence attended school, eventually earning a BA, majoring in Business.

“Education for women is the key. In the old days they believed that disability was caused by something bad you did in a former incarnation. That type of thinking is still around but not as strong,” she said.

“The government of Laos has given approval and support to the Convention for the Rights of the Disabled and are currently drafting a decree which will govern national policy,” Chanhpheng said. But there is no social security, no income support for the disabled or their families. In short if you don’t work, you don’t live.

Haddayr Copley-Woods at MPR News: Insurance may pay for your wheelchair, unless you need it to go someplace

The people making decisions that will affect our day-to-day lives are people like Missouri’s junior Democratic senator, Claire McCaskill — who said a few months ago that we could save the government “hundreds of billions of dollars” by not “giving free scooters to Medicare beneficiaries who don’t really need them.” […]

I had to prove I needed it to help me eat, sleep and use the bathroom. That’s about all the federal government — or my insurance company — thinks I need to do.

Let me lay it out for you. Here is what this policy, and my own government, are saying:

Disabled people shouldn’t work. They certainly can’t support their families, but if they do, that was bad planning.

Disabled people shouldn’t parent — or at least not in public. Why did a defective person like you have kids in the first place?

It doesn’t matter if disabled people volunteer. You’ll just look weird and creepy and be in everybody’s way.

All a cripple needs is to get from the ‘fridge to the toilet to the bed. It’s all you deserve, and it’s all you’re good for.

News Herald Panama City: No scooters allowed at St. Andrews State Park — yet

Jessica Kemper Sims, information director for the Florida Park Service, confirmed the use of motorized scooters, even for the handicapped, is prohibited on state beaches.[…]

Sims said a non-motorized “beach wheelchair” was available free of charge at the Jetty store at St. Andrews State Park and the wheelchair “is used frequently.” Those wheelchairs are not motorized and “require the assistance of another person to be pushed through the sand,” Sims wrote.

KETV Omaha: Disabled Woman Waits For City To Clear ‘Lifeline’ [hat tip to ZeaLitY]

A disabled woman has been trapped inside her home since the most recent snowstorm while the city tries to figure out a method for clearing an alley that serves as her lifeline to the city.

NPR: Intellectually Disabled Student Wins Dorm Suit

[Micah] Fialka-Feldman, 24, attends classes at Oakland University, as part of a program for students like him, with intellectual disabilities. The campus is about 20 miles from where he lives with his parents in Huntington Woods, Mich.

A few years ago, Fialka-Feldman helped his younger sister Emma move into her dorm room when she went off to college at Mount Holyoke. It gave him another reason to want to live on campus: He thought he was missing out on an important part of college life. But his school said because he was in a special program and not a full-time student, he couldn’t live on campus.

So Micah sued.

Early yesterday morning, his cell phone rang. It was his lawyer with the news: He had won. “I’m happy and I’m proud,” say Fialka-Feldman.

Charlotte Observer: Judge backs lawsuit by disabled pair for independent living

A federal judge Monday prohibited the state and a local mental health management office from cutting services to two Wilson-area people with mental illness and developmental disabilities until they get a full hearing on their lawsuit seeking to continue independent living.

U.S. District Judge Terrence Boyle said it’s likely that two residents identified in the lawsuit as Marlo M., 39, and Durwood W., 49, would suffer irreparable harm if a local mental health office went through with a money-saving plan to move them from their apartments.

And, to wind up, a collection of links on race disparities and the US health & health care debates. Check them all out.

MPR News: Racial disparities a concern in health debate

Sonia Sekhar at The Wonk Room: Racial and Ethnic Minorities’ Stake in Health Reform

Tapped: Health Reform: Race And Representation.

bfp at flipfloppingjoy: Pet Peeve Saturday

mama at guerilla mama medicine: canary in the mine