Daily Archives: 8 July, 2010

Signal Boost: Girls with Disabilities’ Event, Michigan, US

events, signal boost

Girls with Disabilities’ Event
Michigan Disability Rights Coalition
DATE: August 13, 14, 15
LOCATION: Camp Cavell, Lexington, Michigan

Are you a high school girl with a disability between the ages of 14-19?
Would you like to meet other girls with disabilities from across the state of Michigan?

Then you need to register TODAY for Michigan’s girls with disabilities event: Her Power · Her Pride · Her Voice

As a group, we will explore what it means to be a girl teen with a disability, in today’s world.

You will challenge stereotypes and shatter myths about what it means to be a girl with a disability. The media and some adults are continually telling us how us how we are supposed to act, who we are supposed to be, and what we are supposed to look like. It is time for us to CHALLENGE it all.

At this interactive weekend, we will use art-based activities to learn from each other and how to teach the world how we see ourselves. You will find and use the your POWER. You will find your disability PRIDE. You will find your VOICE.

*This event is only open to high school girls with disabilities (any visible and/or invisible) ages 14-19.

For more information, contact the Michigan Disability Rights Coalition.

Recommended Reading, July 8

recommended reading

Warning: Offsite links are not safe spaces. Articles and comments in the links may contain ableist, sexist, and other -ist language and ideas of varying intensity. Opinions expressed in the articles may not reflect the opinions held by the compiler of the post and links are provided as topics of interest and exploration only. I attempt to provide extra warnings for material like extreme violence/rape; however, your triggers/issues may vary, so please read with care.

Doug Draper at Niagra at Large: Thorold, Ontario Amputee Has His Artificial Leg Ripped Off By Police And Is Slammed In Makeshift Cell During G20 Summit – At Least One Ontario MPP Calls The Whole Episode “Shocking” [via several sources, thank you!] [Trigger Warning for Description of Police-related violence]

The 57-year-old Thorold, Ontario resident – an employee with Revenue Canada and a part-time farmer who lost a leg above his knee following a farming accident 17 years ago – was sitting on the grass at Queen’s Park with his daughter Sarah and two other young people this June 26, during the G20 summit, where he assumed it would be safe.

As it turned out, it was a bad assumption because in came a line of armoured police, into an area the city had promised would be safe for peaceful demonstrations during the summit. They closed right in on John and his daughter and the two others and ordered them to move. Pruyn tried getting up and he fell, and it was all too slow for the police.

RELATED: Amnesty International: Sign Petition: Independent review of G20 security needed

Mia at Leaving Evidence: Reflecting on Frida Kahlo’s Birthday and The Importance of Recognizing Ourselves for (in) Each Other

I often think about Frida and what it means to recognize each other, as disabled queer women of color. I don’t know if Frida would have described herself as “disabled;” if she would have even used that language, that thinking. Would she have thought of herself as what we understand as “queer,” using whatever language and words she chose around her open bisexuality? I don’t know.

I found Frida when I was young, and it seems I have been continuing to find her my whole life. Frida was originally introduced to me when I was a young teenager as a feminist symbol; as a “strong woman of color artist.” As one of the few non-black woman of color thrown in amongst majority white women, I remembered her. It was only later that I found out she, like me, had polio as a child and about her bisexuality.

Dave Hingsburger: Marching for Respect (See footnote for image & video descriptions) [1. There is a video and two images at this link. The images are of card that reads “Words hit like a fist” with a rainbow background on one side. The other side reads “Walk by any school yard. There are two words that kids hurl at each other. ‘Retard’ ‘Faggot’. Words intended to hurt us simply because we want to ‘be’ who we ‘are’. Words hurt. We all know that. We join in the fight for a society that welcomes all. And besides, what is more ‘gay’ than knowing the real ‘R’ word is ‘Respect’. Join us in eliminating hate from speech. vitacls.org”.

The video description: A Pride Parade held in Toronto. The street is lined with cheering spectators waving their hands. The video opens on people marching with a large banner that says ‘Living in 3D.’ More people walk past holding a variety of signs that are difficult to read because of the poor video quality, and we see a powerchair user motoring along with them. Many of the marchers are wearing rainbow clothing or ornaments and at least one sign says ‘straight but not narrow.’ More people march by and a small bus approaches, with a powerchair user moving alongside. The side of the bus reads ‘Care Toronto: Caring for Seniors and People With Disabilities’ and it has been decorated with a rainbow pride flag. (description by s.e.smith)]

Our goal was to get as many as we could into the hands of those watching the parade. There were millions of people watching. We had to wait for nearly two hours to start marching, so I went up and down the line and found as many marching groups as I could that I thought really could use the cards, teachers federations, summer camps for kids, disability transport services, the works. I approached them, told them who Vita was and what our message was and handed out the cards.

Goldjadeocean: A Data point

Asking for accommodations for disability is a complicated thing. Sometimes it’s easy, it’s simple, it’s understandable. Sometimes, it gets you in even more shit.

I have a mobility impairment. One leg is shorter than the other; my short leg has a small foot that doesn’t fit well into shoes. Walking long distances on uncertain footing (like normal street pavement) stresses my damaged knee, and increases the already-good chances that I will misstep, fall, and damage my weak ankle.

…

I have Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (or, I had it–I no longer meet diagnostic criteria for it). I am generally good unless I am triggered in one of the specific areas my obsessions fall into–gory violent injury, or “creepy crawlies” (insects, arachnids, reptiles, fish). Being triggered, for me, can cause obsessions (repetitive unpleasant thoughts I cannot get rid of), heightened anxiety, or visual and tactile hallucinations.

Federal Court Rules in Favor of Transgender Woman Represented by Lambda Legal After She Was Fired By Georgia General Assembly

Late Friday, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia ruled that the Georgia General Assembly discriminated against Lambda Legal client Vandy Beth Glenn, a transgender woman who was fired from her job as Legislative Editor after she told her supervisor that she planned to transition from male to female.

BendyGirl at Disability Voices: DLA: Clearing Up Confusion

DLA is a NON means tested benefit and this will not be affected by the proposed changes. DLA is a basic recognition that to be disabled means to bear extra, unavoidable costs. DLA is in two parts, a care component and a mobility component. DLA is not an out of work benefit, had they wanted to the Cameron’s would have been entitled to claim DLA for their profoundly disabled son Ivan. Many of those in receipt of DLA work in either full or part time roles, which they would not be able to do so without the extra financial support DLA provides. The costs of disability don’t go away because someone is able to enter the workplace, if anything the costs associated with disability often rise when someone is working as they have less time and energy to deal with daily living tasks than they did when they were not working.

Belleisa at Racialicious: Whose allowed to tell the tale? (And which tales should they tell?)

McFadden argues that many black authors, aside from the few who have crossed over into the mainstream, get relegated to the “seg-book-gation.” She does acknowledge that black writers have an easier time getting published than they used to, although the op-ed slips in and out of preachy academic theory (she mentions colonialism). But her initial argument, about authorial authenticity and which authors get the better marketing support for the same types of stories, takes a quick dive into condescension.

If you’re on Delicious, feel free to tag entries ‘disfem’ or ‘disfeminists,’ or ‘for:feminists’ to bring them to our attention! Link recommendations can also be emailed to recreading[@]disabledfeminists[.]com

Film Review: HBO’s “Kevorkian” (2010)

autonomy, bodies, deaths, media and pop culture, movies, othering, representations, social attitudes, television, , , ,

Director Matthew Galkin’s documentary Kevorkian (aired on HBO on June 28th; also available on YouTube; ETA: as codeman38 points out below, the YouTube version is, unfortunately, not closed-captioned) is one of those documentaries that I felt nervous about watching, mostly because I was extremely skeptical that it would be anything other than a massive apologia for the man colloquially known as “Dr. Death” in the U.S. news media and among much of the North American public. I was also concerned that my own complicated views on physician-assisted suicide would impact my feelings on whether this documentary was worth the time and emotional energy spent watching it. Like many documentaries, it is a difficult film to watch. It is not uplifting by any means. Parts of it are brutal. Parts of it are frightening. That said, however, I am ultimately glad that I watched this film — not because it “humanizes” Jack Kevorkian or acts as an apologia, but because it deftly explores issues of ethics, law, the power of the media, and legacy.

The entire film is framed by Kevorkian’s ill-fated 2008 bid for a congressional seat representing the state of Michigan —  his platform, as the film shows it, leans heavily on the Ninth Amendment — but his congressional hopes are not the most interesting or thought-provoking part of the film. Almost paradoxically, the most interesting part of this documentary is the fact that Kevorkian does a pretty excellent job of not coming across as particularly sympathetic, something that a viewer might not glean from the film’s trailer.

Here, Kevorkian comes off as one majorly self-aggrandizing guy, and it seems like the director does not have to work very hard to make viewers see that Kevorkian can be difficult to deal with. He often seems so enamored of his own ideas, and his own legacy, that he focuses on these things to the detriment of his friends and allies — and, ultimately, his cause. This becomes most clear in one sequence late in the film, where a longtime supporter of Kevorkian’s publicly disagrees with him at a small town hall-style meeting; Kevorkian responds not by answering the man’s questions regarding the Ninth Amendment, civilly discussing his differences of opinion or why he feels the way that he does, but by yelling at him and then forcefully spitting, “I wish you weren’t here [at this meeting]!” Kevorkian’s behavior during the Thomas Youk case is also ethically questionable, as he videotaped Youk’s death in part with the aim of bringing more publicity and media attention to himself and his cause, even though the videotape would most likely put him (Kevorkian) in prison for murder; as one journalist phrases it, Kevorkian wanted to start a “national debate on [physician-assisted suicide]” by appearing on 60 Minutes with the full tape of Youk’s death. The 60 Minutes footage, both of the Youk tape and Kevorkian’s interview with correspondent Mike Wallace, shown in the film is nothing short of chilling; when Kevorkian intones, “Either they go, or I do,” one may pause to consider that a potential “win” of this particular fight would be built on the bodies of those he has “assisted.”

Unfortunately, no one who opposes Kevorkian’s views on assisted suicide — or his political platform, for that matter (with the exception of the former supporter mentioned above) — gets any screen time whatsoever, and this ends up making the film as a whole seem extremely one-sided. As a viewer, I would have been interested in seeing people who oppose Kevorkian’s method and message, particularly since Kevorkian’s former lawyer simplifies the opposition to him, and physician-assisted suicide in general, by casting any opposition as right-wing religious reactionism versus “enlightenment,” thereby erasing the many disability activists who have criticized Kevorkian and his methods. And while Kevorkian certainly does an admirable job of not coming across as anything other than a guy who overestimates his own importance, or gives any consideration to the reasons why some might oppose his methods or message, the film’s lack of any substantial exploration of opposing view(s) was disappointing.

Despite its flaws, Kevorkian is an interesting, thought-provoking and disturbing documentary. As someone who has complex personal feelings about physician-assisted suicide and its ethics, I am of the opinion that this documentary provides a riveting look at the life of a man whose actions have, for better or worse, managed to galvanize the discussion of physician-assisted suicide, and related issues surrounding medical ethics, the media’s role in medical issues, life, death, and quality of life in the United States.

Commenting Note: This is NOT a thread in which to debate the “rightness” or “wrongness” of physician-assisted suicide in general. Please keep your comments to either the issues discussed here, those brought up by the Kevorkian case/media coverage/related topics, or those illuminated in the film. The entire film is available in 9 parts on YouTube [trigger warning for in-depth discussion of PAS, and accessibility warning for lack of closed-captioning].