Yearly Archives: 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].

Bad Behavior, continued: More on School Discipline

accessibility, justice, politics, poverty, race, , ,

s.e. smith recently wrote about abuse of autistic students in Pennsylvania and the distressing rise in abusive ‘discipline’ for students with disabilities. Ou mentioned a recent study from Delaware that found that students with disabilities are more likely to be suspended for ‘behavior’ problems than students without disabilities. Ou discussed some easy ways that a disabled student’s behavior could be categorized as disruptive and make them subject to discipline:

Are students suspended for not using modes of communication familiar to teachers? For needing to stand or pace while learning? For needing a quiet environment for learning, and for becoming upset when one is not provided? For needing orderly and precise schedules? For not completing assignments they don’t understand or find impossible to finish? For attempting to create and maintain personal space? For expressing any number of needs and needing a space where they are accommodated? For tics in the classroom?

I had all this fresh in my mind when, at work, I came across a recent report on school discipline in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Although one of the organizations involved in researching and preparing the report is an organization focused on mental health disabilities, the executive summary does not have any data or recommendations about students with disabilities. But it did have a couple of points that I found very interesting and thought were worth discussing.

The first underlines the point that s.e. smith was making in ou’s previous post – that disproportionate discipline demonstrates broader societal disregard for the targeted group. The report re-frames the student dropout crisis as a “student ‘push-out’ crisis,” arguing that discipline reform “requires respect for children’s dignity, meaning schools will not exclude, get rid of, or criminalize them for misbehavior or underachievement… If the policies and practices of every school were geared to fulfill their human rights, our children would not be excluded, tracked, and pushed out… [nonconforming] students are more likely than other students to be ‘pushed out’ of school and ultimately find themselves in the juvenile delinquency or adult criminal justice systems.”

s.e. said the same thing in ou’s earlier post:

This is a reflection of a lot of problems with the way society views and treats people with disabilities, and of serious inadequacies in the education system. Teachers who abuse students clearly should not be in the classroom, yet they are, and they are sometimes allowed to remain even after abuse is reported. Teachers who have received no training in working with disabled students shouldn’t be assigned to classrooms with disabled students, yet they are.

The primary focus of the report was highlighting the extreme racial disparities in LAUSD discipline. African-American students make up 22% of LAUSD students, but about half of disciplinary actions involve African-American students. These students were also more than twice as likely to be suspended than other ethnic groups. As the report concludes, “the gross disparities apparent in the past and current application of suspension to African-American students by LAUSD make clear that … the District employs practices that are inconsistent with federal, human rights, and state mandates.”

Although the report highlights racial disparities, it seems that one of the primary recommendations of the report would benefit all students targeted for discipline, including those with disabilities:

Priority: Share Power with Parents.

Recommendation: Share the first signs. Schools shall contact parents at the first sign that something is wrong with a student’s behavior so there is an opportunity to take preventative measures rather than wait until an issue escalates into a major problem.

Recommendation: Share planning and decision-making. Schools shall include parents on their [discipline] teams and give them equal say in decision-making and planning related to [discipline policy.]

Recommendation: Create shared trainings. The District and schools shall conduct [discipline policy] trainings jointly with administrators, teachers, and parents in the same room.

Recommendation: Enable parents to enforce accountability and transparency by schools. Schools shall establish parent committees to observe discipline practices, especially in the classrooms, play areas, and cafeteria. Schools shall make disciplinary data, practices and procedures, and outcomes and benchmark data available on a monthly basis to parents and the community so they can also monitor implementation of [discipline policy] and do whatever necessary to hold LAUSD accountable. The District shall effectively inform parents of what schools are required to do according to [discipline policy], and what parents should do if their schools are not following through.

A final thought: it would be very interesting to see data of discipline rates of disabled students of color. They must be through the roof.

Recommended Reading for July 7, 2010

recommended reading

NOLA.com – Louisiana renews request for mental health funding from BP

The Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals is again requesting $10 million from BP to fund ongoing mental health services in communities affected by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, after a request made on May 28 failed to spur any action. In a second letter to Doug Suttles, BP America’s chief operating officer, Louisiana DHH Secretary Alan Levine asked the company Monday to set aside $10 million to support outreach efforts by the department’s Louisiana Spirit teams and pay for “a needed spectrum of therapeutic and psychiatric services” offered through local districts and community organizations.

Examiner.com – Accessible technology for all students, including those with disabilities

Yesterday, the Departments of Justice and Education announced the publication of a joint ‘Dear Colleague‘ letter reaffirming the agencies’ commitment to ensuring students with disabilities have equal access to emerging technologies in institutions of higher education. The new ‘Dear Colleague’ letter is in response to the use of Kindle electronic book readers by certain colleges and universities. Kindle devices are not accessible to students who are blind or those with low vision. While many of the devices have a text-to-speech function, which “reads” on-screen print out loud, they lack menus and controls that individuals who are blind or have low vision can navigate. The Department of Justice recently entered into settlement agreements with colleges and universities that used the Kindle as part of a pilot project, and the Department of Education has resolved similar complaints against colleges and universities. As a result, the universities agreed not to purchase, require, or recommend use of Kindle devices, or any other electronic book reader that is not accessible, unless reasonable accommodations are made.

Arab News – Learning disabilities: A reality in the Kingdom

Learning disabilities (LD) affect around 4 to 10 percent of every country’s population, including Saudi Arabia. Considered a high incidence disability, learning disabilities represent nearly 50 percent of all disabilities. “In Saudi Arabia, we don’t have any valid standardized tool in Arabic that we can use to identify individuals with learning disabilities. However, based on the international prevalence rate, we expect to have a minimum of 215,000 students in our school systems struggling with LD,” says Dr. Saja Jamjoom, Program Manager for the Learning Disabilities Program at the Prince Salman Center for Disability Research based in Riyadh.

Discover Magazine Blog – New Nicaraguan sign language shows how language affects thought

In the 1970s, a group of deaf Nicaraguan schoolchildren invented a new language. The kids were the first to enrol in Nicaragua’s new wave of special education schools. At first, they struggled with the schools’ focus on Spanish and lip-reading, but they found companionship in each other. It was the first time that deaf people from all over the country could gather in large numbers and through their interactions – in the schoolyard and the bus – Nicaraguan Sign Language (NSL) spontaneously came into being. By studying children who learned NSL at various stages of its development, Pyers has shown that the vocabulary they pick up affects the way they think. Specifically, those who learned NSL before it developed specific gestures for left and right perform more poorly on a spatial awareness test than children who grew up knowing how to sign those terms.

Wheelie Catholic – Some thoughts on the 20th anniversary of the ADA

We’re in the midst of many changes, some good, some bad. As we celebrate our progress, cutbacks threaten our right to live in the communities we care so much about. Too many of our brothers and sisters with disabilities still remain in institutions, faceless and often voiceless. They can only dream of an opportunity like the disability blog carnival, in which our voices are heard. Each time we speak up for change, we help ready our communities for our children and others who may not be able to speak for themselves. We may not feel like doing it, we may do it and feel as if we’re unheard, or we may even be silenced by families and friends who fail to understand our unwillingness to suffer indignities. Despite this, we need to realize that showing up matters. The words that accompanied the signing of the ADA still ring in the air, even though we have a long way to go, especially with employment of people with disabilities.

The Tyee – Don’t Write About Me Just Because I’m Disabled

At other points in my life, such as when I was featured in an article in the Elliot Lake Standard, I have been portrayed with pity as well as having superhero status: “Though bound to a wheelchair, unable to move her limbs, her voice silenced by a severe form of cerebral palsy.” When I see myself portrayed this way, I feel uncomfortable because I do not want people to feel sorry for me. I do not feel mentioning my disabilities was necessary. By stating I was wheelchair-bound, the reporter made it sound as though I’m not able to participate in daily activities. The media places much emphasis on portraying people with disabilities as victims and heroes, which causes people with disabilities to feel they might not be normal unless they fit into one of these stereotypical categories. Others probably view people with disabilities the same way. This creates a distorted picture of our society.

Recommended Reading for July 6, 2010

activism, bodies, media and pop culture, movies, race, recommended reading, representations, social attitudes, work, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

jadelennox (DW): How to fight ableism: some easy steps

So I thought it might be valuable to gather together some ways in which able-bodied people can do something about ableism in the world. Then, next time a person is feeling frustrated about ableism, and is thinking about doing some signal boosting of, say, some crappy thing the writers did on the latest episode of Glee, maybe that individual would have the option of committing to spending the same amount of time doing some more concrete fighting of ableism. Not that I’m critiquing the kind of signal boosting that a lot of us do on the blogosphere! But I’m assuming some people would find utility in hearing about other things they could do that might be useful.

Venus Speaks: Between the Lines

Today I realized something: How my disabilities shape the words I do, and more often don’t, say.

For instance: Whenever anyone uses the word “crippled”, I spot it from a mile away. Context doesn’t matter – it could be in anything – a novel, a newspaper article, a headline. “Recession cripples the American economy”, or “The onslaught cripples the meager defenses” or simply “crippling blow”.

Lauren McGuire at Sociological Images: On Disability and the Public Service Announcement [accessibility warning: embedded content lacks transcripts]

Disability-related PSAs cover a wide range of topics, but generally there are three main categories that the message falls into: how people with disabilities are viewed/treated by society, their value in the job market and society, and what their lives are like. Although these are pretty straightforward messages, there is a great deal of variety in the ways in which these basic messages are presented.

Michael Le at Racialicious: An Open Letter to Racebending.com Detractors

It’s easy to draw comparisons between the Airbender casting and an English actor playing an Irish one, or a Spanish actor playing an Italian actor. But it’s not really the same, and the reason is that Hollywood and media don’t consider whether an actor is Irish or Spanish or English. They think of that actor as “white.” The same is not true of actors who are Asian or Latino, who have to fight over the few roles specifically written for those ethnicities. And a lot of times, even when a role is steeped in Asian culture, even when a role is based on real-life individuals of Asian descent, those roles still go to white actors.

Garland Grey at Tiger Beatdown: CRAWLING OUT OF BED: Internalized Ableism and Privilege

In the two years since I have learned things about my own body. I have learned that once my knees start wobbling, GAME OVER. There is no powering through. There is no mystical internal light of determination that I can draw on – if I keep going my body will fail me. This has been a humiliating lesson to learn. But I can still walk. I can still exercise within limits and these limits expand the more I push them. I have also learned how much privilege I carry. I don’t have chronic insomnia like other members of my family. I’ve never lost a job because of being hospitalized, like my friends with Fibromyalgia. If I’m spending time with someone, and I don’t want to have to go into the whole story I can take an anti-inflammatory and ignore the pain, or blame it on fatigue.

Recommended Reading, July 5

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.

Blog Posts:

Katja at Broken Clay: Denise Through the Looking Glass

Let me start by saying that entering the world of disability (or alternative mobility) is a little like going through the looking glass, or moving to a foreign country. And like moving to a foreign country, things will work out better if you do some research in advance.

Tasha Fierce at Red Vinyl Shoes: Out of the (Gene) Pool: Disability and Biological Children:

People seem to think that when you have a disability that you could possibly pass down to a child, it’s their business to recommend that you refrain from having children. This is often disguised as fake concern for the well-being of the potential child-bearer, such as in cases where medication would have to be stopped due to the risk of harming the child in utero. Or, maybe they feel that it would be wrong for you to continue a bloodline that is tainted with disability, so they just have to speak up. Never mind that plenty of people who don’t personally have a disability are carriers of genes that may lead to disability. Disabled minds and bodies are viewed as acceptable topics of casual conversation, and your personal medical and life decisions are subject to critique and judgment. Basically, you’re a bad person if you make the decision to have a child despite the chance it will be defective like you.

SeekingFerret: [No Title]

But that wasn’t what I heard. I heard a Christian put a Jew on the defensive by reminding her that no matter how high she reaches, she still will be a minority in this country. I heard Senator Schumer, another Jew rendered uncomfortable by the question, jump in quickly to explain away the joke, to make sure it wasn’t taken the wrong way. I heard a nasty question, inadvertent or not, handled with a reasonable amount of tact by way of a reflexive display of “New York humor.”

And just once, I’d like to see this addressed for what it is. A minor but still noxious form of antisemitism. Jews are “allowed” to be funny. It’s one of the designated defense mechanisms they haven’t taken away from us. But they look down on us for it, sneer at the Jewish sense of humor and how nasty and edgy it is.

TorontoEmerg at Those Emergency Blues: Blatchford Bashes Health Care and Misses the Point [Part II]

This is the elephant in the room that no one will talk about: providing proper care for seniors is going to take significant and sustained expenditures now and into the future. In short, good care for seniors = higher taxes. I’m sure it will be a very cold day on Satan’s front porch before you would see Christie Blatchford, or even the editorial apparatus of the Globe and Mail, argue for that.

Daniel at Different Spokes: Travel Log: Shame On You, Savannah, GA!

During the second leg of our trip, we ventured to historic Savannah, Ga. to take in the sights. Beware, disabled travelers: do not take a trolley tour of Savannah! Not only was the fleet of trolleys not fully accessible (the one we used had no lift), but there was not even a place to put my wheelchair once Derin lifted me into my seat. We ended up taking the chair apart and storing it at our feet. Even more horrifying was the driver asking if I wanted to just leave my wheelchair with the ticket agent and pick it up once we returned. She failed to mention that the trolley lets off sightseers in a different part of town than it picks them up; So I’d be trying to tour the city without my chair…brilliant.

Access Tourism New Zealand: Catering for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Makes Good Business Sense

During Deaf Awareness Week (28 June – 4 July 2010), the UK Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID) is reminding businesses, shops, and services to seize the opportunity to expand their customer base by ensuring they are fully accessible to the 9 million people in the UK who are deaf or hard of hearing. This includes businesses in the tourism, hospitality, and travel sector. RNID is the largest charity in the UK working on hearing loss

Petitions:

Toronto Call: No More Police State Tactics

We the undersigned call for:
1. The immediate release of all those detained
2. A full campaign to defend the civil rights of those facing charges arising from this extraordinary policing regime, especially those facing excessive charges and/or punitive bail conditions that criminalize, limit mobility, and curtail rights in the long term.
3. An independent public inquiry into police actions during the summit, including disclosure on the role of police infiltrators leading up to and during events, and the chain of command for the extraordinary crackdown on legal rights and protests.
4. An end to the targeting of anarchists by the Conservative government and the police.
5. The resignation of Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair

News Media:

Canada: CBC [Mainstream Media] : New resource aids families after youth suicide

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

Depictions of Disability That Make Us Happy

media and pop culture, movies, Uncategorized, , , , , ,

Movie poster from Dreamworks' How To Train Your Dragon: a night-blue sky with a full moon, and a midnight black dragon with large, pale eyes stares down at a pale, brown haired boy who reaches up to try to touch its face. The poster text reads: Dreamworks [next line] How to Train Your [next line] Dragon [next line] 3D.We took The Kid to the base theatre on Wednesday night to see Dreamwork’s How to Train Your Dragon, which is loosely adapted from a YA Book series of the same name.

[Tame OYD Review with mild SPOILERS ahead]

It is a story of a teen boy, Hiccup, who lives in the Viking village of Berk, which is on an island. His village of one of fierce dragon slayers, and Hiccup is the only son of the chief, Stoick the Vast. Except, he isn’t really very good at slaying dragons, because he is kind of clumsy (I can relate). Longing to be accepted, despite his awkwardness, among his tribe and the other viking teens, and naturally wanting to win the heart of the beautiful girl, Hiccup wants to be a great dragon slayer, too, until he actually catches one of the fiercest and little-known about breeds of dragon, the dreaded Night Fury.

Just when Hiccup has the chance to Slay the Dragon, he realizes that he doesn’t have the heart to kill the creature that looks up at him and surrenders its will in such a helpless manner. He lets the dragon go, and in turn, the dragon doesn’t kill him, which goes against everything he has ever been taught. Slowly over time he earns the dragon’s trust, and learns that that the reason the dragon hasn’t left is because part of his tail has been lost when Hiccup captured him.

Using his knowledge of the forge, Hiccup fashions a sort of prosthetic half-tail for the dragon, and together he and the dragon learn how to fly together, because the dragon now needs assistance using the new tail piece.

There are many themes in the movie that I am not going to excuse. If you think by now that you are going to see a Dreamworks movie that has a fair representation of girl characters, you are wrong, as they even manage to throw in some boob jokes, and once again, the main character has lost his mother in another ridiculous excuse to not have to write one in or to draw out some sympathy for him. Mothers in pop-culture and YA literature/movies are never to be known and always to be mourned. If you think there is anyone who is non-white in this movie, think again. And if anyone tries to excuse it by telling me that “This is a Viking village!”, I can tell you that there were probably more non-white people around Villages than actual dragons, so they could have maybe thrown a bone in there, especially since they had America Ferrara voicing the female lead, because I think that might have been a nice nod to her character. (But at least she wasn’t a wilting lily of a wee girl.)

But I can tell you that I don’t have to love every aspect of things that affect my marginalization to be impressed when something actually goes right once in a while.

At the end of the Epic Battle (no I won’t spoil that), Hiccup loses his foot, and is fitted with a prosthetic one made in the forge, and other than two brief mentions of it, and a heart warming moment when his dragon helps him start to adapt to learning to use it, that was pretty much all the attention given to it. Hiccup, being a mechanical tinkerer, says he might play around with it and improve upon it, but, no one makes a Big Deal. While this might not be realistic and probably dismisses the reality of dealing with that type of loss (and in the mythical world they created this is a common thing they deal with), I liked that this loss of Hiccup’s foot was not treated as The Worst! Thing! Evah! Hiccup actually just goes out, and climbs aboard his dragon. Life as usual. In fact, his fancy new foot fits better into his riding harness, the one he made for the prosthetic tail for his dragon.

I like it when we can see people with disabilities in a positive light. Moreover, I like it more when the characters in pop-culture around this character aren’t reacting in a way that makes it seem as if this is the worst tragedy to ever hit their lives. They are Vikings, and in the long view of things, they have managed to avert a major crisis and now have dragons for pets, which is pretty cool. Stoick is thrilled to have his son, the person, with him, and the depiction of the girl is still…well, painfully stereotypical.

But this depiction of disability, it made me very happy.

Recommended Reading, July 2

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.

Dave Hingsburger: Disability Blog Carnival 67: Proud Voices!

People are proud of writing that comes from a place that’s often deep and secret. People are proud when they manage to put into words anger, fears, terror, tears, love, longing, regret, fury … I found myself going on a real journey here. My intros are brief, the blog is long. We have a huge number of contributors. I’ve only used the names that appear on the blog. These appear in no order, I did not attempt to group them, I did not attempt to make them flow. I think the haphazard way they bring up various topics works.

Jedifreac: It sucks to be right, it sucks to be right

Yesterday and today, Paramount screened The Last Airbender to Racebending.com for free as kind of an olive branch, and also to show us just how diverse the movie is–to prove us wrong. I’m a big bundle of emotions right now, I guess. Here’s the conversation I had with Ken about the movie, since he is better at ‘splainin feelings and stuff.

While we had a lot of concerns about racial sensitivity going in, we at least had some idea of what to expect. It was pretty much as bad as we thought. The poor way the movie treated women and feminism–in comparison to the animated series–other hand, floored me. I just…yeah. If you were expecting M. Night’s version of Airbender to at all reflect the way the animated series treated gender, well…

Stan at Teen Mental Health Blog: What Next?

If I had a dollar for every hour that a patient with a mental health crisis had to wait to be seen by the emergency physician in many of the hospitals that I have known, I could have retired a wealthy man. Why is it that people who have a mental disorder end up at the back of the line? Surely it can not be because of stigma in health providers? Surely it can not be because of inefficient care pathways? Surely it can not be because of inadequate numbers of mental health providers?

Links via Delicious (Thank you kind contributors!)

Matthew Palumbo at The Other Baldwin: Guest Post: Thoughts on Visual Disability

Another notable mention regarding activities with respect to visually disability regards movies and television programming. No matter the screen, even up close, I can’t ever make out everything that is going on. Thus, I largely rely on my wife, or a friend, to clear up those things I miss. Subtitles are a biggie for me in this regard. Interestingly enough, though, the exception to this issue comes when watching cartoons. The bright, vibrant colors of a cartoon seem to work well with my vision and, thus, I largely catch all that transpires in them. CGI and live action, though, are very hit-or-miss.

Mary Bullstonecraft at Hysteria:Rethinking Access, Rethinking (my) Feminism

Yes, yes, Justice Breyer. Anyone can use the steps to access the court. Anyone can walk under those grand “equal justice under law” columns. Anyone can access justice just by skipping up the front entrance.

Except, just kidding, they can’t. And we can see that they can’t if we just look at the Supreme Court’s illustration of the new entrances above, which is included with the New York Times article reporting otherwise. There, on the left: “This entrance is wheelchair accessible.” The main, grand, marble entrance–the one promising equal access, equal justice–isn’t equally accessible. It’s not accessible to people using wheelchairs, people with disabilities that make walking up giant marble staircases a problem, or people with children in strollers, or people who are several months pregnant, to name a few. People in these circumstances have always had to use the side entrance, the symbolically denigrated entrance. And the fact that using the same entrance as these people is cause for poetic outrage should make us stop and think a bit.

Videos

All videos have transcriptions.

By Mia at Leaving Evidence: Video: Crip Sex, Crip Lust, and the Lust of Recognition [Transcript available at source]

Recently, I met up with Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and Ellery Russian for an evening and got to capture some of our musings, sharings and stories. Whenever i get to hear crip stories, i am entranced. i love hearing our words (all of them, in whatever way they come tumbling out) and feel ever-so appreciative, especially knowing how long i went without ever hearing any of our voices tell our own stories and stumble through sharing and asking and loving. It’s so important for us to tell our stories–to each other. As much as we can. There are so many different stories that we have to tell about (queer) crip sex and about our relationship to crip sex, to sex period, to sexuality and more. Our stories are so different and complex and they all have value–we have value. Much love and gratitude to Leah and Ellery for sharing some of your stories, knowing that it’s not all of your story.

By Lisa at A Voice For Neli: Neli Tells His Story [Transcript courtesy of terajk at Transcripts for Everyone]

I have been searching my heart, mind and soul trying to figure out why this has happened to my son. I feel so powerless as a mother. We are supposed to protect our children, yet, I couldn’t save him from this. I’ve been living in sheer torture since the events of 24 May 2010. Now my son, who had a future is locked away due to police harassment and brutality. And in spite of my best efforts, I have not been able to get any news outlets to bring this story to light. I pray every day and I hope every day that we will be delivered. Neli is holding on, but each day he is gone like this, I’m losing a little part of him.

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Disability Living Allowance Exists for a Reason

Why should I again prove my disability to satisfy George Osborne?

Disabled People are Not Scroungers

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

Yes, I have a limp, and no, it’s not really any of your business

bodies, i'm right here, identity, normality, othering, small stories, , , ,

I have dealt with disability, in various capacities, for my entire life — this started when I was born three months prematurely and was affected by cerebral palsy (left hemiplegia, if anyone really wants to know) as a result.

I know what you might be thinking: You cannot possibly have CP, Annaham! CP is always severe.  It’s always noticeable to people other than the person who has the condition. CP always sticks out, blah blah blah, insert other sundry stereotypes about CP here (because there seem to be a lot of them).

And you’d be partially right, sort of like how my left leg is partially paralyzed. Oh, people notice my limp. Sometimes, they even point it out to me or concernedly ask about it, as if I am too stupid to notice that one of my legs is too short and that my left foot constantly makes a valiant effort to make up that difference:

“Are you okay? You’re limping.”

“You have a limp.”

“What’s wrong with your foot?”

“Why do you have a limp?”

Now, since I have no obligation to a.) respond, b.) educate these potentially well-meaning folks about my condition, or c.) give a shit, I have developed a coping strategy that works best for me, and it is to ignore these people and/or pretend like they might be talking to someone else. Surprisingly, it usually works, particularly when I do not care about seeming rude.

I don’t know what it is about certain bodies and the fact that some people feel entitled to treat said bodies as if they are public property. This body-as-public-property trope is commonly wielded at people with bodies that, through no fault of theirs, don’t fit the expected “norm” and who may be marginalized because of it: women, non-white people, fat people, trans and genderqueer people, people with disabilities, and others. And woe betide you if you fit more than one — or even several — of these non-normative categories, because then people might feel really entitled to comment on your body or its workings (or non-workings), if these things are at all apparent. In my fairly limited experience, it seems as though certain bodies and their parts constitute some sort of threat to an established order (in my case, this would be the abled order in which “normal” legs or feet do not have limps) that needs to be constantly pointed out and then monitored for the person’s “own good,” whether they are fat, disabled, unexpectedly gendered or not-gendered, or otherwise.

It seems vaguely panopticon-ish, and more than a tad creepily paternal: Hey, she has a limp, but she must not know it! We need to tell her for her own good, so that she knows and can maybe work on correcting it. No matter what the person’s intentions are (because these intentions may be sort of twisted “good samaritan” intentions), that’s the subtextual message that I get when somebody decides to inform me about my limp. Regardless of intentions, this sort of monitoring mostly ends up looking creepy and awkward for all involved. Some “good samaritan” may want to focus on my limp and how out-of-place or weird it looks, but just because I am out in public — limp and all — does not make the way that I move around (when I am not in too much pain to move, that is) any random stranger’s business.