Monthly Archives: April 2010

Harry Wieder, LGBT rights, transportation, and disabilities advocate, killed

I’m very sorry to learn of the death of Harry Wielder, a community activist in NY around LGBT rights, transportation, and disability. This article at Gothamist has more [WARNING: Comments are a mess]:

Weider, 57, described himself on his Facebook page as a “disabled, gay, Jewish, leftist, middle aged dwarf who ambulates with crutches.”

Wieder first came to prominence in the 1980s with the activist group Act-Up. He was profiled in Betty Adelsen’s 2005 book, The Lives of Dwarfs: Their Journey from Public Curiosity Toward Social Liberation, and also written about by Jimmy Breslin for Newsday, who captured his “combative, roguish nature and his penchant for truth.”

Wielder died after being hit by a taxi when crossing the road to his car.

De’VIA

As I repeatedly told anyone who would listen to me, last weekend I went to a conference in Toronto. While there, I visited Toronto’s Deaf Culture Centre. [1. Little-d deafness is the “medical” condition of not being able to hear, or hearing very little. Big-d Deafness is being a member of a cultural & linguistic minority that uses Sign Language. In English Canada, this is typically American Sign Language, although there are other Sign Languages used here.]

One of the exhibits at the Deaf Culture Centre was about De’VIA – Deaf View Image Art – which “specifically reflects Deaf experience and Deaf Culture.”

I’m still learning about De’VIA, as my particular studies are in nineteenth century d/Deafness. What I like about what I’ve seen is looking at art that is not only explicitly political, but is explicitly about being Deaf. In Toronto, the current exhibit is paintings of Sign Language.

As a Hearing person, I don’t want to talk too much about Deaf artists and De’VIA. Instead, for people not familiar with it, I’d like to show you some very iconic De’VIA images, and then direct you to some websites where Deaf Artists are writing about their work.

This first piece is by Ann Silver, called Deaf Identity Crayons: Then and Now.

A description follows this image
The image is of two crayon boxes. One is done in sepia tones, with “Deaf Identity Crayons” written across in an ‘old-time’ script. The crayons each have a label: Dummy; Lip Reader; Deaf & Dumb; Handicapped; Oralist; Deaf-Mute; Freak. The second box looks like the iconic Crayola-crayon box, with “Deaf Identity Crayons” written across the front. The crayons are CODA; Seeing; Deaf-Blind; Late-Deafened; Deaf American; Hard of Hearing; Signer; Deaf.

(Oralism is the techniques used to teach Deaf people to talk. CODA is Children of Deaf Adults.)

Silver’s biography is available on the Deaf Art website, but I especially love her description of her art:

My language of art has, over the years, metamorphosed from pictorial grammar to creativity and critical thinking. I turn to art (1) as an artistic expression of the Deaf Experience—i.e., culture, language, identity and heritage; (2) as a Zen meditation and an aesthetic recreation of the contemplative state in which it allows my thoughts to drift by without grasping at them; (3) as an emergency back-up whenever the English language gives me semantic anxiety; 94) as an academic study vis-à-vis Deaf Studies; and (5) as a visual weapon to deal with polemical issues and concerns such as stereotyping, inaccessibility, paternalism, inequality and discrimination on the basis of hearing status (a.k.a. audism)

Another very popular piece is this one, by Betty G. Miller, called The ASL Flag:

Description follows
Description: This is a diptych, and the two canvasses come together to show a waving flag much like the United States flag. Instead of stars again the blue square, it shows 28 white hands Signing. Between the red and white stripes of the flat, it has the following:
Oh can’t you seeee…. by dawn’s early light
what proudly…. we Deaf wave at visual beauty
we see in sign language burst in air…
no matter people hearing stare…
show proof that… Deaf and ASL still here…
oh why Deaf people opressed?
over the land of the free…. and the home of the brave…??

Again, I like Betty’s bio, but I will highlight this portion:

When asked to explain the values behind her work, Dr. Miller replied:

“Much of my work depicts the Deaf experience expressed in the most appropriate form of communication: visual art. I present the suppression, and the beauty, of Deaf Culture and American Sign Language as I see it, both in the past, and in the present. Oppression of Deaf people by hearing is actually cultural, educational, and political. Another aspect of my work shows the beauty of Deaf culture. I hope this work, and the understanding that may arise from this visual expression, will help bridge the gap between the Deaf world, and the hearing world.”

You can see images of Betty’s work, and perhaps buy a t-shirt or similar article with images on it, at Betty Gee’s cafe-press store.

I won’t say too much else here, except to link to discussions about De’VIA elsewhere.

Betty Gee’s website
Deaf Art, Deaf Artists
Deaf Culture – Deaf Art on About.Com
Deaf History Through Art – De’VIA revisited after 15 years!
Deaf Art.org

Crowd Sourcing Counter-Arguments: You’re Easily Offended and People with Disabilities Can’t Act Anyway

Gentle Commenters & Readers of FWD:

I am tired. I am so completely and utterly out of spoons today I cannot even tell you. And thus, I turn to you, gentle folk, and ask for your assistance.

One of the more popular places to leave drive-by comments on FWD is And if this keeps up, there won’t be any, a post which is about the difficulties that performers with disabilities have in getting jobs, compared to the Oscar Bait that is non-disabled people playing the same role. At the time, I referred to it as “Crip Drag”, although having been gently corrected on that, I would now call it “Crip Face”.

The drive-by comments are usually all variations of the one that I have just approved there. I won’t copy the whole thing, but here is a small section of it:

So when your ultimate goal is to make a good film or play, and you’re taking into account physical characteristics, PR, talent, experience, chemistry (both in the role and with the other performers), and myriad other incidental considerations, and THEN you say you’re only going to choose from the very, very small pool of disabled actors, the end result is you’re going to get an actor far less suitable to the role than if you just chose for the good of the performance.

If you have the time/energy/inclination to do so, please join in the comments there to counter these arguments. I ask because I hope, sincerely, that if there is a discussion right there that takes on this oft-repeated belief that disabled people are just not able to act or perform in any way, or that what we are is “easily offended” rather than pointing out a problematic form of discrimination, maybe drive-by comments repeating it over and over will stop.

My only request in this is that commenters be polite. I know: tone shouldn’t matter. And I think anyone who isn’t willing to listen simply because You’re Too Angry is probably not anyone who is going to listen when you’re being polite. But, please do so, for me, because I’m tired, and angry is not something I can deal with today.

Again, here is the comment in full.

Your attention to this matter is greatly appreciated.

With affection,
Anna

Guest Post by Sasha Feather: Book Review of The Rejected Body

Editor’s note: We are very pleased to host this post from sasha_feather, who has previously written for FWD: AWP: Crutch. FWD welcomes guest posts: please email guestposting [at] disabledfeminists.com for more information.

Sasha_feather is a science fiction/fantasy fan and anti-oppression activist. She is a contributor to Access Fandom

Book Review of The Rejected Body by Susan Wendell
by sasha_feather

The Rejected Body: Feminist Philosophical Reflections on Disability by Susan Wendell
1996
206 pages
Routledge Publishers

If you are at all interested in Disability Studies (DS), I strongly recommend this book. I felt like I had a kind, clear teacher and friend leading me by the hand through basic and advanced concepts in DS, especially relating to feminism and ethics. It is the most accessible and worthwhile academic text I’ve ever read– I don’t have a good track record for reading non-fiction books or textbooks, and I was riveted to this book. Partly this is because The Rejected Body speaks so directly to my own life experience as a person with a chronic illness. Susan Wendell also has a chronic illness, ME/CFS, which is what led her into DS from Women’s Studies.

In the introduction, the author tells you what she’s going to tell you, talks a bit about her own illness experience and finding disability identity, and–making me fall in love with this book–clarifies her language use by, in part, defining scare quotes and why/how she uses them:

“Throughout the text, I use single quotation marks as scare quotes, that is, to draw the readers attention to concepts I question or to uses about which I have reservations. For example, I use scare quote around ‘The Other’ (a concept discussed in Chapter 3) to indicate that, while the concept is a recognized way of thinking about people who are different from oneself, ‘the Other’ is not a way of referring to people which I accept or take for granted” (Wendell 7).

Like many of us I had often heard both the terms “scare quotes” and “the Other” and never really thought about what either of them meant. This book is full of little moments like that– things that I had taken for granted or that had niggled at my brain, and which the book shines a bright light upon.

In the introduction, Wendell also notes the limitations of the book, mainly that it focuses primarily on physical disabilities, that the author does not attempt to speak for all people, and that she struggles with generalizations and use of language. And that’s just the introduction!

A few of my favorite parts that I would like to highlight:

*The pace of life. As someone with fatigue and pain, Wendell is interested in the pace of life as part of the social construction of disability. Those of us who need to think or move more slowly than others are thus disabled by society. She discusses the social construction of disability in chapter 2.

*The mind, the body, and suffering. I have been thinking about embodiment lately, brain-body duality vs. integration, and chapter 7 (“Feminism, Disability, and Transcendence of the Body”) really gave me some grist for this mill. I am going to re-read this chapter shortly, especially the section on pain. Basically, feminists have argued against mind-body duality for very good reasons: because this concept has been used against women’s bodies. We’ve been invested in “Our Bodies, Ourselves”. But for bodies that are suffering and in pain, there are reasons to want to transcend the body, and there is room within feminist frameworks to develop such an understanding: of being embodied, of having bodily autonomy, and yet still wanting to transcend the body and be less tied to the body’s functions, desires, and pains.

*The illusion of control. For PWD, we know that we often do not have control of our bodies, or at best have limited control, and it is sheer luck that determines what happens, a lot of the time. Will I be in less or more pain today? Will I get some new illness? I have basically no control over these things, and I know it. And yet the society I live in is incredibly invested in the illusion of control to the point where it is part of the mythology of my country and my people. As Wendell points out, this puts me at odds with the people around me, even in casual social situations where people talk about small health problems or things to do with their bodies. It’s a disconnect.

*Having no diagnosis Wendell specifically addresses issues of disability for people with no diagnosis. There are a lot of people in this category, and it sometimes can feel like there is no place for us, no identity, especially within the medical model. The disability community, in my experience, creates a place and identity for those of us without a diagnosis.

There were so many other things that I am probably forgetting. I wanted to underline everything. I read it slowly to give myself time to process everything I was reading, but overall it’s a fairly short and accessible book, just densely packed with great information and ideas. Note that because it’s published by an academic press, it is relatively expensive; I recommend searching World Cat to find copies in libraries near you.

Moderator’s note: Moderation on guest posts is often much slower than “usual” moderation times.

Recommended Reading for whatever day it is now

Reminder: Blogging Against Disablism Day is coming up on May 1. Diary of a Goldfish has hosted BADD since 2006. It’s an awesome blogswarm, and it’s this Saturday. You can participate by spreading the word, making your own post, commenting on people’s posts, and/or linking posts for others. </ stolen from anna>

It has been a rough week and I’ve lost several days to medication haze, so I’m not really sure of the date. Sorry!

A map of the continental United States, filled in entirely with pills in different shapes and sizes.
A map of the continental United States, filled in entirely with pills in different shapes and sizes.

Herz Und Seele – Rant: Ableism

Only 5 years ago did I switch from analog to digital hearing aids.  I made the switch mostly because the big clunky thing was so clearly visible.  Once people saw them, they treated me differently- speaking more slowly, yelling and even making up sign language.  I have to be honest, it angered me, and it still angers me.  They talk slowly as if my hearing impairment is a cognitive impairment- when in fact, it is congenital neurological damage [in my case].  They yell as if that makes it easier for me to hear, when the problem is not volume, but frequency, tone and pitch.  Sound has ranges, and those ranges are narrower for me than most people.  Oh, and making up sign language?  That’s just stupid.  What am I, a chimp? These hearing aids don’t make me any “lesser” than you.  If you think otherwise, you have another think coming.  I’m so TIRED of be talked down to like a child, yelled at like an unattentive child, and generally treated “differently.”

with you – questions about the braille “porn for the blind”

If news outlets are going to call this porn, even softcore porn, why are transliterations (images, roman letters & sentences) of this magazine making it into their articles? At first I was intrigued and a little bit in support of Tactile Mind (NSFW?) as porn. Or at least in support of the idea of accessibility. This magazine is certainly flawed (“perfect breasts”? masks?) and I’m not sure where I stand on the politics of porn anyhow, but accessibility is good, and noting the sexuality of people with differing abilities seems rudimentary but is unfortunately an ongoing battle. Still, many news stories have covered this magazine in a way that proves that ableism reigns and that, in practice, most people don’t really think of blind people as fully sexual people. Why doesn’t Lisa Murphy’s site have a warning banner? Why can news media print/post transliterations of explicit raised images/braille porn without censoring the transliterations? I’m not arguing for censorship, just wondering why the standards are different. If this is porn, why is it showing up in Google Image Search?

Essin Em – Avenue Q and Discrimination (post is SFW but blog is NSFW)

Thinking I had misheard (I mean, this was a national tour of Avenue Q, not some local rep putting in on in a warehouse turned brilliant theatre), I asked him politely “so, if one is disabled, how might they avoid the three sets of steep stairs to get to their seat?”
“You should have bought the disabled tickets.” I was stunned. Ok, fine. Maybe I should have called Q to remind her to ask for something accessible. However, I can walk down one or two stairs, and every large theatre I have ever been in (a lot) has had elevators to the balcony level.
“Ok, well, we bought the tickets we could afford, on the balcony. Would the disabled tickets at the orchestra level have been the same price as the cheaper tickets?”
“No, you would have had to pay orchestra prices. Now, can you just get inside?”

Politico – Disabled get job training on Capitol Hill (good program, problematic framing!)

During the past month, Gutkowski and two other students with intellectual disabilities have worked in the offices of Harper, Reps. Bill Cassidy, John Fleming, Cynthia Lummis and Cathy McMorris Rodgers, as well as the Republican office of the House Administration Committee. The students do everything from answering constituent mail and shredding paper to learning how to give tours of the Capitol. Harper’s 20-year-old son, Livingston, has a genetic condition called Fragile X syndrome, which is the most common cause of inherited intellectual disabilities. Since graduating from high school, Livingston has worked several days a week in a Mississippi restaurant and takes a few community college courses but still dreams of attending Mississippi State University in Harper’s district, just like his sister. Harper told POLITICO, “A lot of times, when you get out of high school and you’re dealing with intellectual disabilities, you fall off the educational face of the Earth. Sometimes you’re looking to give hope to some of these families who want their child to continue on.”

One of Australia’s leading mental health experts says he is “dumbfounded” at the “token” amount of money handed out to the sector in the Commonwealth’s national health overhaul. Professor Ian Hickie of the Brain and Mind Research Institute at Sydney University has demanded Prime Minister Kevin Rudd explain why more has not been delivered to mental health services. Mr Rudd has promised over $5 billion in sweeteners to the states in return for their support of his hospitals takeover plan. The mental health sector had expected a significant package for reform. But out of the $5 billion to be rolled out to the states, only $115 million of new money has been allocated to mental health.

New York Times – New Rules Aim to Make Travel Easier for the Disabled (very US-centric for an article ostensibly about international travel!)

People with disabilities never have an easy time traveling, but a rash of recent improvements, including more wheelchair-accessible taxis and rental vehicles — and even Web sites for people with dexterity or vision problems — have made it easier.

[I don’t know what to do when I get these so I’m posting it] KTLA – Mentally Disabled Man Dumped on Skid Row – Do You Know Him?

White man in his thirties, brownish hair, prominent nose, pulls up a sleeve to show a tattoo on his right bicep. He is smiling.
White man in his thirties, brownish hair, prominent nose, pulls up a sleeve to show a tattoo on his right bicep. He is smiling.

“Jason” was left in front of the Urban Connection group home for the homeless about eight months ago by a woman he calls “Mary.” He had no identification and no social security number. The shelter has been trying to determine his identity ever since, but they’ve been having trouble because he has no identification card. The man, who is mentally handicapped, has “Jason” tattooed on his arm. He does not remember his birthday and has no idea where his family might be.

Food.

Earlier this week, Don started his “low-iodine diet” in preparation for exciting radioactive iodine therapy next month. He tells me he’s not allowed to eat milk or milk-products, soy or soy-based products, egg yolks, anything from the sea, iodized table salt, and all restaurant foods.

Food restrictions are pretty common for people with disabilities. A friend of mine discovered her chronic pain and fatigue was influenced, at least in part, by her wheat allergy, and described at length to me the perils of “hidden wheat” in things like Twizzlers, which is a brand of red liquorish available in North America. Another gets flair-ups if she thinks about stepping away from her gluten-free diet. Some people have serious allergies to corn, and must avoid any and all things with corn and high-fructose corn syrup. There are very specific diets required for people on certain types of medications, with certain types of short-term and long-term medical conditions, people with diabetes, and people preparing for types of surgeries. Many people recovering from Cancer treatments, surgery, or eating disorders, as well as people on certain types of medications that cause dramatic weight loss, are pushed (or required) to consume those “nutritional shakes” or other forms of meal replacements.

You know what’s fun for most of the above?

How incredibly expensive all of this stuff is.

So, let me go back to Don. Right now, all of Don’s favourite foods, and everything we’ve had stocked in the freezer, are off-limits. He tried to pick up rice milk so he could have some cereal, but surprise! Most rice milk in Canada is made with salt, except a very specific (expensive) brand that isn’t sold at our grocery store. So, either we need to go to the more expensive store downtown, I need to make rice milk (I have a recipe), or he needs to not have milk with his cereal for the next two weeks. We can’t find any bread we can guarantee is made without salt, so either he goes without bread at all, or someone makes him special salt-free bread. Today, while I was away, I think he ate some special, expensive, peanut-only peanut butter and salt-free rice cakes.

Because I’ve been busier than anyone probably should be, we’ve mostly been relying on very cheap, easy-prep frozen meals that are basically salt with food in between. I’m no less busy, but now Don needs to be eating so-called “real” foods that are time-consuming to prepare, and often very expensive to purchase, especially in comparison to how we normally do the food-thing.

If you’re not on a restricted diet, I recommend checking out some of the “special” foods that people on restricted diets need to purchase. See how expensive gluten-free foods are. Compare prices of cow milk, soy milk, rice milk, and nut milk. See how many things have “corn” in the ingredients list, and try and sort out how expensive it would be to try and eat nothing with corn in it, while still eating enough. Look at some of the stuff on the shelf and try and sort out what has “hidden” wheat in it.

The cost of these items is especially relevant because so many people with disabilities live near, at, or below the poverty line for their respective countries. Don and I are able to afford to spend extra money on this restricted diet because of family support, but this isn’t an option for very many people. If you do not have a restricted diet, imagine trying to afford the foods that allow you to eat without causing flare-ups in your chronic pain condition.

Imagine as well – and this, of course, applies even when one doesn’t have restricted diets – trying to put the energy and time into preparing these foods when dealing with second shift for the sick. Imagine trying to balance it all while some stranger tells you that your, or your kid’s, disability can be magically cured if you put your family on a special, expensive, restrictive, time-consuming diet.

Don and I are incredibly privileged in this. I can take the time and make him rice milk so he doesn’t have to eat dry cereal, and we can afford to run out to the store and buy those pricey egg-whites in a carton things. And this is a restricted diet he needs to be on for a little over two weeks, and then it’s done. So many people with disabilities do not have these options. It’s eat stuff that makes you sick, or don’t eat enough at all.

I wish I had some solution I could offer to this problem, some nice little bow of hope I could tie this post up with. All I have is the knowledge that these restrictive diets aren’t things people are on for fun, but because the alternatives for them are sickness or pain. And yet, the foods people are required to eat are priced like they’re luxuries.

Guest Post from RMJ: Athletes with Disabilities: Arm-Wrestlers as Exceptions and Inspirations

Editor’s note: We are very pleased to host this post from RMJ, and will be featuring some more writing from her, and several other awesome guest posters, soon. FWD welcomes guest posts: please email guestposting [at] disabledfeminists.com for more information.

RMJ is a twentysomething with OCD who grew up in Kansas and currently lives in Virginia. She works in education and loves cooking, cats, and television. She blogs about feminism and stuff at Deeply Problematic. This post also appears at Deeply Problematic

Athletes with physical disabilities (hereafter AWPD) are a problematized group. Their accomplishments are questioned and devalued as less valid or challenging than those of able-privileged athletes. They are not party to the often problematic veneration of athletes in today’s society, nor are they permitted to participate in generalized sporting events.

Arm-wrestling is a sport, though, that seems to both accommodate and welcomes athletes with disabilities into their ranks. There is a specific subset of arm wrestling for athletes with disabilities that seem to be a regular part of official arm-wrestling tournaments. I don’t know much about the sport and I’m not currently physically disabled, so my perspective on this is far from authoritative. But my tentative reaction to this is positive, particularly since athletes with disabilities can and do succeed in general competition.

Larry Feezor is an athlete with disabilities who competed recently in the 3rd Annual U.S. Open Armwrestling Championship. He has used a mobility aid since a motorcycle accident paralyzed him from the waist down. This story from an Oregon television station makes Feezor the focal point of the championship. The story is pretty short and context is important to my analysis, so I’m going to reproduce it here in full:

FLORENCE, Ore. – The Third Annual U.S. Open Arm Wrestling Championship wrapped up in Florence Sunday, as amateur wrestlers took to the ring to battle it out.

One competitor stood out for beating the odds: Larry Feezor.

He has been arm wrestling for 18 years, traveling from Weaverville, Calif., to Oregon to participate in the competition. This sport is his outlet since he became disabled.

“I was involved in a motorcycle accident and a drunk driver ran me off the road,” Feezor tells KVAL. “I hit a bank at about 70 miles per hour, [and] was paralyzed from the chest down.”

Feezor received roaring applause when he beat his first opponent.

On Sunday he arm wrestled some of the strongest competitors at The Three Rivers Casino. And he wasn’t going down without a fight.

“Right after my accident,” Feezor said, “I told my father that I would fight, as hard as I could, for as long as I could.”

Feezor isn’t letting his disability bring him down. As a former athlete, he said his body may not be like it used to be, but his mind is stronger than ever.

“I am out here just like these other guys,” Feezor said. “I just happen to be in a wheelchair.”

Before I break this article down, I should mention its good points. It is wonderful that athletes with disabilities recognized. It’s fantastic that Feezor’s achievements are reported on in a positive fashion. Feezor is ostensibly framed as normative. The newspaper is using Feezor’s words and Feezor’s voice, rather than, say, his father’s.

However. Feezor’s participation is the only aspect of the tournament that’s detailed, and his accomplishments are not well-articulated. The singling-out of Feezor and complete erasure of any other athletes in competition is problematic because it trivializes Feezor’s competition in a sport. It implies that the sport is only notable for the inclusion of a person with disabilities – Feezor is not in a competition, but instead someone to be cooed over and patted on the head simply for participating. He’s not being applauded for his accomplishments, he’s being singled out because he “beats the odds”, whatever that means. If this were an angle in a story that clearly reported on the events of the tournament, it would be significantly less problematic. Feezor would be presented in the context of other athletes, and not just othered because of his disability and his marginalized sport.

An example of this is Joby Matthew, an Indian arm-wrestler, who has underdeveloped legs due to Proximal Femoral Focal Deficiency. Matthew seems to be higher-profile than Feezor, but increased coverage also means increased problems, particularly since it’s from the Daily Mail:

Who needs legs? Meet Joby, the 3ft 5in world champion arm wrestler who can bring down opponents twice his size

Instead of bemoaning what he lacks, Joby Matthew is using what he’s got.

Matthew’s accomplishments are not notable in this article: only his disabilities. I’m not quoting or going through the whole article because the able privilege is so dense. The first line is indicative of the attitude taken in the article: Matthew doesn’t “bemoan”, unlike those other people with disabilities who would surely be champion athletes if they just tried. The construction is an ableist implication that other folks with disabilities are lazy whiners. Throughout the article, every reference to barriers Matthew faced is immediately matched by emphasis on how he overcame this disability. The focus is not on his exceptional effort and achievements, but on the “heartwarming” “good cripple”.

There are a few good aspects of the article. It’s composed largely of quotes from Matthew, and it does make note of his many medals and of his training regiment (though that, of course, is as much focused on what he can’t do as what he can’t.) Matthew’s childhood athleticism is made a major point of focus, particularly his struggles in playing with other children. While I appreciate that the authors focused on quotes from Matthew, the focus on competition with currently able-bodied athletes frames participation in sports against currently able-bodied (CAB) athletes as the standard for athletic accomplishment for AWPD.

While I do not love the article, I loved these pictures of Matthew and am quite impressed with his accomplishments and his goal of climbing Mount Everest. Though the exceptionalist attitude makes the context problematic, these pictures are awesome:

Joby Matthew holds himself up with one hand while giving the thumbs-up with another. He is on the bank of the Periyar river on the outskirts of Ernakulam. He and his fantastic mustache smile broadly at the camera.

Photo: Joby Matthew holds himself up with one hand while giving the thumbs-up with another. He is on the bank of the Periyar river on the outskirts of Ernakulam. He and his fantastic mustache smile broadly at the camera.

Joby Matthew and an unidentified man arm-wrestle on a weight bench. The unidentified man, who has a beard and fully developed legs, grips the far side of the weight bench.  Both men are grimacing and neither appears to be winning.

Photo: Joby Matthew and an unidentified man arm-wrestle on a weight bench. The unidentified man, who has a beard and fully developed legs, grips the far side of the weight bench. Both men are grimacing and neither appears to be winning.

These photos highlight his exceptional abilities, and while his disability is present and visible, it’s a part of his athleticism. However, there are only two pictures in the eleven-part picture post that actually show him competing. Training and physical strength are interesting and relevant, but this is about sports: as with the article, the focus should be on his achievements as an athlete, not on OMG HOW DOES HE DO THAT? or OMG HE BEATS NORMAL ATHLETES?

The accomplishments of athletes with disabilities face a double bind. In most cases, they are ignored and erased; they are thought to be impossibility and a contradiction. When AWPD are covered in the media, it’s rarely a positive, normed framing of them as accomplished athletes with valid bodies. They are objects instead of curiosity; they are heartwarming inspirations for the currently able-bodied; they are not quite freak shows.

Moderator’s note: Moderation on guest posts is often much slower than “usual” moderation times.

Recommended Reading for April 28, 2010

Blogging Against Disablism Day, May 1st 2010 Reminder: Blogging Against Disablism Day is coming up on May 1. Diary of a Goldfish has hosted BADD since 2006. It’s an awesome blogswarm, and it’s this Saturday. You can participate by spreading the word, making your own post, commenting on people’s posts, and/or linking posts for others.

Remembering and Commemorating a Complicated Past [Nellie McClung supported Eugenics in Canada, specifically the sterilization of undesirables.]

White continues in his article to discuss some of the basic historic contours of eugenics in Canada, noting briefly that Tommy Douglas – the social democratic father of Medicare – was a proponent, and sterilization was made provincial policy in Alberta and British Columbia. There was a long and brutal history of eugenics in Canada, with patients being sterilized without their knowledge. For example, in Alberta, Leilani Muir received appendix surgery in 1959 and was sterilized without her knowledge, a fact that she discovered only years later when she was unable to conceive. It wasn’t until 1996 that she was able to achieve some justice, setting the path for many other victims to settle with the provincial government.

In my own teaching this year, I found eugenics a tricky subject to tackle.We had a great debate in our tutorial. The prevailing view was that eugenics was ‘fascist,’ thanks to an article we had read that week on Nazi reproductive policies. Thanks to the memory of the Second World War, this is the popular memory, and was instrumental in dismantling many forced sterilization and eugenics programs after it all came to light. Yet once I began bringing up the history of eugenics in Canada, from Tommy Douglas to Leilani Muir, one student gutsily argued that eugenics was ‘progressive’ for the time, with respects to public health, poverty, etc. It was an uncomfortable discussion, to be sure, when speaking of these devastating policies that had such an impact on people’s reproductive rights and privileges. But these are the same questions that must vex people as they ponder whether to honour somebody like Nellie McClung. At the time, how common were her views? Ought she to know that they were wrong?

Book Review: Wintergirls

Anderson uses a number of typographical and structural tricks in this book—crossed out words, chapter numbers counting down, and others I won’t spoil by revealing— and they’re all there for a reason and they all work. The supporting characters, unusually for a novel which is so firmly set within the point of view of a character being sucked into a solipsistic state of mental illness, are sharply believable and non-stereotypical despite those constraints. (Since I know everyone who’s already read the book will be wondering, yes, I did indeed loathe the “free-spirited nonconformist” guy she gets involved with, but thankfully Anderson did not represent him as the undiluted essence of awesome that I dreaded the moment he launched into his defense of mooching food from other diners’ plates.)

President Obama: A Transgender Veteran Is Not An ”Impersonator,” ”It,” Or ”Shim”

Dear President Barack Obama,
My name is Autumn Sandeen, I’m a retired, disabled Fire Controlman, First Class Petty Officer; I retired in 2000 from the U.S. Navy after twenty years of service. You may know my name already, as I was one of the six military veterans who handcuffed ourselves to the White House fence on Tuesday, April 20th, 2010, to put pressure on you to include the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell in your submission of the Defense Authorization Budget. I am writing today to bring to your attention the discriminatory behavior I was subjected to as a transgender woman by your federal law enforcement officers.

Dreamwidth has a new community: Disabled Rage

This is a community for all of us with disabilities to rage about the overwhelming ableist bullshit in the world around us. It’s a place to vent our anger and frustration with the inaccessibility, the condescension, the ignorance, the mistreatment – in short, the rage-making things we’re forced to fight every day.

This is a rage community. We like anger. We think it’s healthy and happy to be angry. Rage is most effective when it stays more or less on target, though, and to that end, the comm has a few guidelines.

Links & Things

fter missing last week’s episode of Parenthood, I watched this week, only to be annoyed and un-entertained again. More “woe is me, I have an autistic child” dramatizing, more cliches and sappiness.

But I have to admit that I was personally hoping that Sydney would turn out to be on the spectrum, too.

Why? Well, because having more than one autistic character in one work shows audiences that not all autistic people are alike–including those who share an “Asperger’s” designation. It also helps to avoid stereotypes, as perhaps writers won’t feel compelled to shoe-horn every single autistic trait into one character, as so many do. I actually think the Parenthood writers have been doing a fairly good job in presenting a believable character so far, but it can’t hurt to have another character. And a girl! Girls and women on the spectrum are so rarely represented and I was kind of hoping there’d be a concrete example. Alas, no.

Hell Hath No Fury

Like a woman after her insurance benefits.

Last week I was told my insurance company wouldn’t cover any more PT sessions.

However I could pay out of pocket and could continue to be treated.

The verdict that was reached that my PT would try to talk to the insurance company personally and rewrite the progress note. There’s no point to pay for something out of pocket that I’m already paying an insurance company to pay for. It’d be like paying for the same thing twice, actually it is.

Susan recommends a BBC radio programme about language & disability that is available online till next Tuesday. I know I can access BBC radio programmes in Canada, so I assume they’re available everywhere if your computer/download limit can handle them.

Hot Pieces of Ace is a new asexual youtube channel.

Ontarians! The Law Commission of Ontario is at the Consultation Stage regarding how the new accessibility laws will be implemented. There are focus groups!

Has your country ratified the UN Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities? Or has it, like mine, only agreed with parts of it?

The International Network of Women with Disabilities spoke at a parallel side-meeting to the 54th Commission on the Status of Women.

Recommended Reading for April 27, 2010

A young Indian woman, wearing a brightly-patterned sari, using Sign.
A young deaf woman talks passionately as lunch is served following the Kerala Sign Language Bible dedication event in Kochi, India. Over 1200 deaf people attended the event, a small representation of the estimated 9 million deaf people in India.
For more: Door International

Where the Disabled are not welcome

I would love it if you would spend a day looking at the various buildings that you enter and consider how easy they are to enter or exit. If there are no barriers to entrance, how wide is the walk way? Is it easy to negotiate without pulling things off of the racks or shelves? Are items set down low so that they are easy to reach? If someone is using a mobility devise, is the isle wide enough to go down with another person, or will the mobility device completely block the way? Is staff easily visible to help with items? Are the bathrooms completely accessible? Is the change room completely accessible?

The Kids are (kinda) alright: crack babies speak out [There’s a video that opens this piece – as I’m compiling these links, I can’t see it, so I can’t tell you what’s in it. Hence I have the note to edit this post before it goes live]

I enjoyed Vargas’ article, but I still have questions surrounding the role of race.

Crack was a drug with a heavy racial identification – while all types of people used it, the most prominent image of a crack user was a black person. Vargas’ article discusses how experts learned from the crack baby hysteria and have not rushed to proclaim dire circumstances for children that are turning up meth exposed. But is the lack of hype due to meth being a white identified drug? Also, the pictorial accompanying the article focuses on Anzelone, and his nuclear family. Was there a difference in recovery and allocation resources by race? If so, how did that impact the lives and fates of these kids?

Following Up On What Neil Gaiman Said

Part of why I am taking the time to lay it out is my second reason for this post. I think it important that we see how celebrity fandom can obscure the work that my original post (and all my work on this blog) is trying to do. That is, pushing everyone to think about HOW they think about American Indians, what they THINK they know about American Indians, and how all of that comes together in the words they write and speak aloud.

Why are iPad Factory Workers killing themselves?

A growing string of worker suicides and attempts has plagued a Chinese factory operated by Foxconn, the China-based tech company that produces, among other products, the new Apple iPad. In the past month, four employees at a single factory have attempted suicide, and 11 workers have killed themselves since 2007. And perhaps even more telling, all four of the most recent attempts have taken place at the factory. What is happening to these workers that is causing so many to turn to suicide?

The Madwoman in the Attic

Unfortunately, the programme finishes on the rather clichéd interpretation that the novels demonstrate how women who didn’t conform ended up being branded mad and locked up – essentially, madness as a form of female repression.

This is the classic feminist criticism of historical ideas about madness and despite there being some truth to it, it is only supportable by ignoring the other side of the coin – the traditional interplay between insanity and masculinity.

News Headlines:

Canada: Manitoba Police use taser on mental health patient

US: Civil Rights Division pushes for Internet Accessibility

Taking a fresh look at brain injury: Having troops in combat has revived interest in concussive effects of bomb blasts

Apple admits using Child Labour [in a plant where people have been disabled by chemicals]

When Accommodations Conflict (Continued)

Reflecting on the extremely thought provoking post by abbyjean earlier, I was walking to breakfast with The Guy (caution, try not to walk while lost in thought, OYD) on a day when I was low on sleep, high on pain, and therefore using my cane. (edit: I just saw my typo! I had a funny visual of me trying to balance on a can! HA!)

Conflicting accommodations do not always mean that the conflict will occur between separate PWDs. For example, on a high pain day, I am in desperate need on my cane due to the intense pain in my hip and legs in general (though, which leg I want to use if for is debatable, even though I favor one hip). When I am that fatigued, however, using the cane is an intense use of my spoons, to the point where if I have too much to do I can’t even bother because it just winds up with me on a chair or bench in tears. Or the cane causes additional pain in my back or shoulders.

There are others that come to mind. My medication provides me with more pain free days, which is a good thing. This is an active choice I made with the advice of my doctor whom I was lucky enough to find at this duty station. The flip of that coin is that I have side effects which means that I can not always drive places, or have the energy (HA!) that I want to do things with my family, to name a few. This might not sound like a huge accommodation, but it makes a great impact on my family life, people who play a huge role in my care.

I know that some people use caffeine to both relieve some pain and migraine effects (I sometimes do) but that this has the crash effect at the end of the day (for me it means my spoons run out faster).

So, gentle readers, what accommodations do you have/use that conflict…uhh…internally? What individual needs to you have that you have to weigh daily?