Yearly Archives: 2009

Not So Silent

6 December, 2009activism, bodies, introspective, social attitudes, violencecharles-antoine blais, chelsea craig, december 6th, katie-lynn baker, marc lepin, murder, tracy latimer, violence, violence against womenAnna

As I’m typing this, it’s the wee hours of the morning of December 6th. Today marks the 20th year since the Montreal Massacre, when Marc Lepin walked into the Ecole Polytechnique and murdered 14 women, blaming feminism for ruining his life. (He also injured 10 other women, and 4 men, before turning the gun on himself.)

Over the past 20 years, I’ve probably attended 14 memorials for the Massacre. The ones I’m most familiar with were the ones held at the first university I attended. There, we would gather in a solemn circle lit only by candles. 14 young women would each read the name of one of the dead, and blow out their candle, and we would mourn.

Last year I attended Halifax’s first “Not So Silent Vigil”. Instead of focusing on the murders in Montreal, this vigil was for all the women in Canada who have been victims of domestic violence. Speakers, singers, dancers, and even a hilarious feminist comedienne took on the subject of violence and sexism. There was a moment of silence, in memory of our dead. There was a moment of screaming, for the women who cannot or will not scream.

We have this memorial for gender-based violence every year. In recent years, national vigils have begun to remind us of dead and missing First Nations women (Sisters in Spirit Vigil [PDF]) There are vigils around the world for trans* men and women. We are beginning, slowly, to talk about how these different identities mean that some women’s deaths count, while others don’t merit more than page B3 in the local news.

The Not-So-Silent Vigil (last year) was a group project where many women representing many groups in Halifax came together and created a dramatic and moving experience. I found it to be inclusive of First Nations women and Africa-Nova Scotian women, although others may have different opinions.

It was until I was walking home with Don that I realised that there had been no mention of women with disabilities.

I don’t fault the people behind the Vigil for this. They did a lot of hard work to bring together the groups that they did, and I have no idea if more people will be involved this year, if women with disabilities will be included. (If not this year, then I should get myself involved for next year – I think the women who do this work every year take on a great deal, and I wouldn’t want to ask them to do more than they already are.)

But I also wonder – would it be controversial for me to ask for a moment of silence and screaming for Tracy Latimer? Every time her murderer, her father, comes up for parole, the newspapers take the opportunity to argue whether or not it was morally wrong for him to murder Tracy. People argue that he should be released, because it’s not like he’ll kill again. Disabled children don’t come along every day, after all.

I don’t know, I don’t know. It’s really hard for me to write about this. I don’t want to risk being told that the murder of women with disabilities is a special interest that shouldn’t be brought up at this memorial. But at the same time, I have no reason to believe that I would be told that (except that I’ve been told that in the past, about other memorials to violence against women, but not by this group). Is it appropriative to want to name our names, to remind everyone that violence against us is sometimes considered okay, because our lives are considered less worthy?

Katie-Lynn Baker was starved to death by her mother. Her murderer argued that she could tell Katie-Lynn, who had Rett Syndrome (a form of autism) and couldn’t speak, wanted to die, so she just stopped feeding the 10 year old girl. Her murderer was never even charged with a crime.

Chelsea Craig was fed a lethal dose of medication by her mother, who was found not criminally responsible due to mental illness. The accused claimed she murdered Chelsea because she didn’t want to leave Chelsea alone with her father.

The murderer of Charles-Antoine Blais drowned him in the tub because his autism was too much for her. After her year of community service, she became a spokesperson for an Autism foundation in Montreal. He was 6 years old.

We don’t talk about these names, these deaths, very often. Tracy’s comes up whenever her murderer is up for parole, but I had a hard time finding information about the other names, about Chelsea and Katie-Lynn and Charles-Antoine. We don’t seem to have a national memorial, a day to honour the children who are murdered for being disabled, the women who are raped for being institutionalized, the beating and torture of cripples done out of boredom. We don’t recite the names of our dead.

Should we? Should I incite controversy and recite the names today? Should I shout them during our moment of screaming, for myself if no one else? Should I approach the women who have worked so hard on this vigil and ask to be a part of it, so next year I can recite the names of every woman with disabilities murdered in Canada in the next 12 months?

Is silence ever the right answer?

Today we remember our dead, killed for being women and daring to attend Engineering School, and I recite these names, like a rosary, every year.

Geneviève Bergeron
Hélène Colgan
Nathalie Croteau
Barbara Daigneault
Anne-Marie Edward
Maud Haviernick
Maryse Laganière
Maryse Leclair
Anne-Marie Lemay
Sonia Pelletier
Michèle Richard
Annie St-Arneault
Annie Turcotte
Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz

I hope you will all forgive me, but this has taken 2 1/2 hours to write, and I have no idea if I’ll be able to discuss it.

Hate Crimes against PWD

6 December, 2009justice, normality, politics, violenceabby jean

The FBI recently released the 2008 Hate Crimes Statistics report, summarizing hate crime data from over 13,000 law enforcement agencies in the United States. The Attorney General is required to compile and report on this data yearly. Although the majority of hate crimes are based on race, it includes reporting on crimes “motivated by disability bias,” which made up 1 percent of the reported incidents.

Of the total 9,168 hate crime offenses in the report, 85 were on the basis of disability: 28 against a person with a physical disability and 57 against a person with a mental disability. The most common offenses were “Simple assault” and “Intimidation,” with a number of “Vandalism” incidents also. The vast majority of incidents took place in the victim’s residence or home. This mirrors the overall data – the majority of all hate crimes regardless of basis were assaults and intimidation taking place in or near the victim’s residence or home.

What is most clear from the report is that the majority of crimes committed against people with disabilities are not considered or categorized as hate crimes on the basis of disability. The US Department of Justice released a 2007 report on crime against people with disabilities finding that in one year, approximately 716,000 nonfatal violent crimes and 2.3 million property crimes were committed against people with disabilities. Even considering that only one in five PWD crime victims “believed that they became a victims because of their disability,” these numbers are an order of magnitude larger that then total crimes against PWD listed in the hate crime statistics.

Whether crimes against people with disabilities should be considered hate crimes is a difficult and complicated question. One on hand, the DOJ report demonstrates that the rate of nonfatal violent crimes against PWD was 1.5 higher than the rate for TABs, with the rate of crimes against women with disabilities almost twice the rate for TAB women. It is hard to imagine that disparities this significant are unrelated to disability status.

At the same time, I am concerned about giving more power to the criminal justice system. I read a compelling piece at The Bilerico Project recently which, while focus on trans issues, seems relevant to this discussion:

No one can deny that particular groups are in fact treated with discrimination and even violence. But rather than ask how about how to combat such discrimination and violence, we’ve taken the easy route out and decided to hand over the solution to a prison industrial complex that already benefits massively from the incarceration of mostly poor people and mostly people of color. It’s also worth considering the class dynamics of hate crimes legislation, given that the system of law and order is already skewed against those without the resources to combat unfair and overly punitive punishment and incarceration.

What do you think – should crimes against PWDs? be punished as hate crimes? Is that an effective way to address and prevent continued crimes against PWDs?

I Don’t Trust Myself

5 December, 2009identity, introspective, mental healthabby jean

One of the aspects of my bipolar that I find the most exhausting is the need to constantly monitor my own moods. Even though I am medicated to the hilt and haven’t had a manic episode in 5 years or so, I spend at least part of every day worrying that I am edging too far towards mania or depression.

Part of this is good – I’m attuned to my moods, I know if I’m experiencing a big swing, I can immediately address it with my psychiatrist and adjust my meds or go back into therapy or whatever needs to be done. That has served me very well in the past, allowing me to catch hold of a rope before I slide so deep into depression I can’t manage to do anything to help myself.

But it also means that I have what I think of as a dual consciousness. One part of me experiences things, reacts to them, has emotions. And the other part of me sits back and watches and worries. Is that a reasonable response to the external stimuli? Is that within the normal range of emotion? Am I just a touch too upset about something? Is that bouncy happy feeling I have because it’s a sunny day, or because I’m starting to verge into mania?

This means I’m not sure I fully experience any of my emotions, because a portion of me is always reserved for this meta-cognition, this constant monitoring and evaluation of how I feel. And ironically, it’s the strongest or deepest emotions that cause me the most concern and trigger that meta-cognition the most, meaning it’s those emotions I experience the least. I’m not sure I have any idea what it feels like to be happy without that edge of worry. I’m not sure I have any idea what it feels like to be sad without part of my brain running through my recent sleep schedule and medication dosages.

This is why I value so highly the experiences that force my meta-brain to shut the hell up. The most recent example was a Nine Inch Nails concert where I was pressed between the bodies of strangers, drenched in sweat, with aching feet and legs, but the music and the beat were so loud they filled all available space and my brain was thinking of nothing but screaming along with the lyrics I’ve heard so often they seem like a part of me. I couldn’t feel anything but music and the bass running through my body, couldn’t keep hold of any thought except the words of the song. They filled me up so much that my meta-brain had no room to be separate. And I got some time to simply experience things, to just feel, without that separate evaluation and judgment going on.

I don’t know how to create those experiences for myself – when I’m so overwhelmed by sensory input that the meta-brain that usually sits in the balcony and comments on everything going on gets forcibly dragged to the floor to experience things with the rest of me. But at the same time, I credit that meta-cognition with keeping me safe and protected and getting help when I desperately need it, so I don’t want to turn it off entirely.

I just wish the checks I put on myself to keep myself safe didn’t lead so directly to feeling dissociated from my own emotions and experiences.

Chatterday! Open Thread.

4 December, 2009chatterdaylauredhel

a young brown and white foal galloping up a grassy hill This is our weekly Chatterday! open thread. Use this open thread to talk amongst yourselves: feel free to share a link, have a vent, or spread some joy.

What have you been reading or watching lately (remembering spoiler warnings)? What are you proud of this week? What’s made your teeth itch? What’s going on in your part of the world? Feel free to add your own images. (Anna insists that these should only be of ponies, but I insist that very small primates, camelids, critters from the weasel family, smooching giraffes, and cupcakes are also acceptable.)

Just whack in a bare link to a webpage, please – admin needs to deal with the HTML code side of things.

Today’s chatterday backcloth comes via The Daily Squee.

Which Is Worse: Reality TV or the commentary on it?

4 December, 2009blaming, media and pop culture, mental health, shaming, social attitudes, televisionabby jean

I’d heard mentions recently of the show Hoarders, on A&E. (I’m not going to link to their site.) The show, from what I gather, is a series with episodes focusing on individuals who compulsively hoard possessions. I’ve never watched it and do not plan to, as I’m extremely uneasy about television shows that focus on people in crisis to, well, entertain other people. I have the same issues with Intervention (also an A&E show) and the Celebrity Rehab/Sober House/Sex Addicts shows with Dr. Drew. I understand that on some level, they could be useful or educational or contribute to diminishing stigma and demystifying therapy and counseling, but mostly it just feels like taking advantage of people who are dealing with addiction or disability.

This is especially true as the core of all reality tv is, of course, drama – so the shows focus on people in absolute crisis, at proverbial rock bottom, relapses and failures. And the drama is heightened when the person’s disability or addiction is as extreme as possible. So the Hoarders show focuses on people who are extreme hoarders, having lost friends and family because of their compulsions, not someone who has a drawer in the kitchen filled with old takeout menus. This extremely heightens the message that the person in the show is an “other,” a “freak,” to be gawked at.

And that’s the problem – even if I never watch these shows, there are still people who watch them and then talk or write about them. I’ve managed to avoid the worst of it, but commenter Penny, catastrophe discovered this “gem” at Jezebel and sent it my way as an example of the ableism at its extreme. It’s bad enough that before I go any further, I should warn you that some of the quotes are truly horrifying and you may not want to read them. We start off on a great foot with the title: “Sometimes, A Hoarder Just Can’t Be Helped.”

The very first sentence of the post informs us that the author found Augustine, the woman who is the focus of this episode of Hoarders, “frankly, very hard to empathize with.” Red flag! You are not watching this television show to determine whether the person with a disability is worthy of your empathy! Or rather, if you are, you should turn the tv off immediately. This is a real woman, a person, a human. The premise of the show, indeed the title of the show, indicates that she has a disability that has had a monumental effect on her life and functioning. If you are watching a show about her without empathy, then you’re just pointing at a sideshow freak.

The post then goes on to applaud the professional counselors who come to help Augustine, “who miraculously remain positive and chipper throughout the entire ordeal” even though there is stuff in the hoarded material that the author clearly considers to be super duper gross. But in the author’s eyes, Augustine’s biggest sin is not hoarding icky things, it is that she “has no remorse for what her actions have done to her family and her community … and absolutely no gratitude toward the people who are trying to help her stay in her home. She only blames other people for her situation.” This is the point in the post where my jaw actually dropped open. Yes, the woman who the show profiles specifically and explicitly because she has extreme compulsions to hoard … has strong compulsions to hoard! The author seems to think that Augustine has been hoarding out of spite or stubbornness and now that these people are helping her, she will just “snap out of it” and repent. But that’s not how a disability works. And blaming Augustine for not being magically cured of her disability during the course of taping is cruel and ableist.

But wait – it gets even worse. We are not done applauding these saintly folk who have taken time out of their days to help this woman with a disability who does not even appreciate all that they are doing for her. “Watching this episode, it’s impossible not to be struck by the generosity and caring of the people who are helping Augustine, and to wonder if their resources couldn’t be used helping other people who actually want to change.” Yup. That’s a direct quote, really. Or, in other words, Hey, we sent a counselor down there, and she didn’t immediately change her entire life and patterns of thinking. So fuck her. We’re done with her. Because this woman with a disability didn’t act the way we wanted her to. “Augustine seems less like a person with a compulsion caused by feelings of loss who desperately wants to get her life in control, and more like the clinical definition of a sociopath.” Or, because she wasn’t disabled in the way the author expected her to be disabled, we should give up on her.

So for me, the commentary is worse than the show itself. The show just places the person with a disability in the public eye – it takes a member of the public to do the pointing and laughing.

Disability 101: Treatment Suggestions and Why They Are Not a Good Idea

3 December, 2009101, autonomy, blaming, bodies, identity, life changes, normality, resistance, shaming, social attitudesAnnaham

I suggested a treatment/”cure” to a PWD for her/his/zie’s condition, and they ignored my suggestion/did not throw themselves at my feet with gratitude/got upset. Why? I was only trying to help!

Many people who do not live with chronic health issues, perhaps in a spirit of wanting to help those they know who are in pain, disabled, chronically ill, or affected by a neurological or mental health condition, may suggest different treatments or ways that they believe the person with the condition, illness or disability should use to “get better.” Many PWDs and chronically ill people, however, have experienced this exact process before, and often to the point where such “well-meaning” pieces of advice get…well, annoying; a stranger, acquaintance, co-worker or relative might suggest something that has been suggested many times before. Such “well-meaning” suggestions may imply some very different things to the PWD, chronically ill person, person with a mental health condition, or non-neurotypical person, namely:

…that they cannot be trusted to manage their own health, disability/disabilities, or course of treatment. Many people with disabilities and chronic illnesses have found treatments that improve their quality of life. Even with these treatments, they will probably still remain disabled/ill or still have their condition; the treatments that they have worked so hard to find, additionally, most likely work for them. It is not your job, whether you are a friend, relative or other person concerned for the PWD’s “well being,” to bombard them with suggestions for different treatments, or push them to “just try” treatments (some of which may even be questionable in their effectiveness). There is a long history of people with mental health conditions, the non-neurotypical, persons with disabilities and chronically ill people being forced into undergoing treatments, into hospitals, and even into institutions by able-bodied people who presume that those with the health problems are not pursuing the “right” kind of treatment, and that this must be corrected—even at the expense of the individual’s humanity. Unless you are a professional, doctor or other specialist working with the person who has one of these conditions, and/or unless the treatment that they are undergoing is actively damaging their health, it is probably best to keep your recommendations about what course of treatment that you think the individual should be undergoing to yourself.

…that you are frustrated by the individual’s inability to “get better.” You may not say or even think this outright, but in some cases, actions speak louder than words.

…that you want to be given cookies/be thrown a parade/told you are fantastic for suggesting something that, in actuality, has probably been suggested to the individual many times before. In its more severe forms, this tendency is known as the “savior” or White Knight complex. Here’s the problem: Disability, chronic illness, mental health conditions, non-neurotypicality and pain, for the most part, are not things that can be cured. They can be dealt with, but it is oftentimes up to the person with the condition—-with appropriate support from family and friends-—to decide which treatments he/she/zie would like to pursue. Though you might like to, you cannot be the affected person’s able-bodied savoir. It is not the job of PWDs/chronically ill people to make you–an able-bodied person–feel better about yourself, whether by following your every treatment-related suggestion, or being uber-thankful whenever you deign to offer well-meaning advice that is related to their condition(s).

In addition, finding the right treatment(s) to improve quality-of-life can be a long, tiring, and agonizing process for many persons with disabilities, chronic illnesses, health conditions, mental health conditions, and neurological conditions. For many, starting an entirely new treatment for their condition(s) would, on some level, entail starting all over again; since getting to the point to where they are able to function and where their quality of life has been improved takes a long time, do you think that many non-able people would want to start from square one again to “just try” a treatment that’s been suggested, offhand, by a “concerned” person in their lives, that might not even work for them—-or that, in some cases, may make them worse? Because of each individual’s limitations when it comes to things such as time, finances, energy, tolerance/intolerance of additional discomfort or pain, or medication/treatment side effects, starting over with a “new” treatment might actually be a huge inconvenience for some people with disabilities, chronic health conditions, non-neurotypicality, or mental health conditions.

An earlier version of this piece was posted at Faces of Fibro on July 6, 2009.

Guest Post: Book Review: Everything Beautiful

3 December, 2009books, guest post, media and pop culturebook review, books, media and pop culture, young adult booksGuest

Karen Healey is an able-bodied author of young adult literature and a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne. You can read more of her musings on reading, baking, and social justice at her blog, Attention Rebellious Jezebels.

Everything Beautiful, Simmone Howell. Pan.

I am the maniac behind the wheel of a stolen dune buggy. Dylan Luck is at my side. We are tearing up the desert, searching for proof of God.

Riley Rose’s mother died two years ago, when she was fourteen, and everything went to hell. Now her father and her new stepmother have sent her to a week-long camp at Sprit Ranch, AKA the Palace of Suckdom.

I decided I would pack only frivolous things: eyelash curlers and costume jewellery and little jars of antipasto. If I had to go to Christian camp then I would go as a plague. I would be more like Chloe: outrageous and obnoxious — call me a plus-size glass of sin! It wasn’t until Melbourne was wavering behind us like a bad watercolour that reality hit. As the kilometres ticked I sank into my seat and practiced holding my breath. On a silo just past Horsham someone had painted an escape button. ESC – ten feet high against a concrete sky. I almost asked Dad to stop the car so I could press it.

There, she meets Dylan, who used to be a bullying jackass before the accident that cost the use of his legs. Now he’s just sort of a jackass, and his old Bible Camp friends don’t seem to know how to act around him in the chair.

Craig came forward. “Here you go, dude.” He clamped a hand on Dylan’s shoulder and handed him a shiny bundle. Dylan was slow to unfold it, too slow for Craig, who moved across and shook it out, and held it up for display. It was a vest identical to his. Craig draped it over Dylan’s shoulders and announced: “So this year there’s two Youth Leaders!” … I whistled and threw my lavender sprigs at the stage. A flower landed on Dylan’s chest. He watched it fall to his lap and then he picked it up. I noticed his cross then: thick and silver, hanging on a thin leather string. As he held the sprig of lavender, his face changed and I had a sudden flash that he looked on the outside how I felt on the inside: Lost. Moody. Superior. Charged.

Dylan smelled the flower and stared straight at me. Then he put it in his mouth and ate it.

HIJINKS ENSUE. Hijinks include [minor spoilers!] (skip)
Daring Escapes, Heartfelt Confessions, makeovers, loveable doped-up friends, the theft of a shroud, Mean (Christian) Girls who turn out to be real girls, and one of the sweetest, hottest, most beautiful love scenes I’ve read anywhere

I LOVE this book. I love that the two main characters have bodies deemed unacceptable by Western standards – Dylan because he’s a wheelchair user, Riley because she’s fat – and yet are developed as a romantic and sexy pair. I love that Dylan is not a Ministering Angel Who Inspires Us All, but a complex person who’s a moody jerk a lot of the time, but charming and wickedly entertaining a lot of the rest. Howell manages to pack a good deal of wheelchair etiquette and disability awareness into the narrative, but not preachily; mostly it comes as Dylan sarcastically noting something that Riley’s never had to consider before.

In fact, every person in this book, however quickly drawn, comes across as a portrait, not a caricature. Characterisation is Howell’s great strength. No! It’s dialogue. No! It’s humour. No! It’s pace.

Wait, maybe it’s description:

The sun dipped. The sky became the near-night blue of shadows and stolen moments. Now the ground was firmer. The land had flattened out and Dylan’s tracks were no longer visible. Here and there, I found little reflecting pools, and then at last I saw one great big one. The lake was a giant mirror reflecting a crazy-paving of tree and sky. Up ahead I saw a monster gum tree with wandering roots that looked like they’d waded right into the water and thought, fuck it, let’s stop here. Dylan must have thought the same thing. He was in his chair, facing the water, a little way back from the edge.

Everything Beautiful is. Highly recommended. I don’t know where it’s available outside Australia, but the Book Depository has it here, although I have Thoughts on that particular cover.

Jetstar, AGAIN – this time they refused passage to woman with guide dog

3 December, 2009accessibilitylauredhel

[Jetstar is a discount airline in Australia.]

Further to incidents where Jetstar expected Kurt Fearnley to cool his heels, completely dependent, in a non-self-propellable aisle chair for 90 minutes between checkin and boarding (“Let us drive the wheelchair! It’s safer!), and another incident where Trevor Carroll, being pushed in a chair by airline staff (after they broke his walking frame), was tipped on his head into a gutter (“No really, safer!”): Jetstar have gone the extra mile this week – refusing passage to a guide dog, then shouting at the customer.

The Age reports:

Blind pair says Jetstar refused guide dog

Two weeks ago, Glen Bracegirdle, who is significantly visually impaired but manages without a guide dog, called Jetstar’s call centre to book flights for himself and his partner, Kathryn Beaton. Ms Beaton requires the assistance of Prince, a four-year-old black labrador guide dog.

He said he explained that they would need to fly with the guide dog, at which point the clerk told him: ”No dogs, no dogs, no dogs.”

When he attempted to explain that the dog was trained by Guide Dogs Victoria, the clerk refused to budge*.

He said he was later cut off by a manager who became ”quite loud and angry”.

[*Jetstar’s written policies specifically note that dogs trained by Guide Dogs Victoria, among other trainers, are eligible to fly.]

Jetstar claimed this was a “breakdown in communication”, and once again claimed that they carry hundreds of passengers with disabilities each week without incident.

The couple have sent a complaint to the Human Rights Commission.

FWD/Forward

FWD (feminists with disabilities) for a way forward