Yearly Archives: 2010

Why “being nice” isn’t enough

accessibility, ,

On December 30, I wrote a post about the myth that people with disabilities are out to sue everyone else into compliance, booga booga fear the scary crippled people. In there I mentioned that Don & I had gone off to the mall and had difficulties getting into the shops, since apparently “wheelchair accessible” doesn’t mean “keep your aisles clear of junk”.

I wrote an email to the mall in question:

Subject: Accessibility and the Mall

Hello,

I recently visited your mall with my husband, a full-time wheelchair user. This was not our first visit to your mall, but it may be our last.

Many of the shops in your mall are not actually wheelchair accessible for a regular wheelchair user. The aisles between shelving units are rarely wide enough for a wheelchair user to not risk knocking something over. Often the aisles and open floor spaces are covered in sales items. Things jut into the aisles that could knock someone in the head. These issues do not even touch on sales staff that ignore people using wheelchairs [1. Oh, hey, we went to Don’s favourite Big & Tall shop in the other mall earlier this week. When he was by himself, and thus struggling with the sweaters, he got completely ignored. When I came into the shop to find him, I was offered assistance immediately. Even though she was standing not a foot from where Don was wheeling around looking for more sweaters, the same sales assistant completely ignored him. So, yeah, I’m going to be writing another email. But I’m especially annoyed because this is the only shop we’ve been to that sells clothing in Don’s size – where else are we going to go?], or stores that are so crowded that a wheelchair user cannot get around – both of which are human-related issues, and not ones I would expect mall administration to be able to deal with, although some sort of policy discussion on that would likely be helpful.

Although your mall has an accessibility policy, I can see nothing on your website that discusses if the stores within the mall are expected to uphold it, or what expectations the mall has that stores will be accessible.

We planned on spending the day yesterday taking advantage of the extended Sunday hours and Boxing Week Sales. Instead, we purchased one item and left. It was impossible for my husband to enter many of the stores that carry items we would want to purchase, or, if he could enter them, he could only get part of the way through the store before the above issues made it impossible for him to go any further back.

I feel many of these issues could be solved if the mall enforced an accessibility policy for the stores within it.

Thank you for your time,

Anna [Last Name]

I did get an email back, which was very polite and understanding and full of fluff. I won’t quote the whole thing, but this one line stood out to me:

Unfortunately we cannot enforce an accessibility policy, but we will be making every effort to encourage our retailers to provide barrier free access through education and an incentive program.

I don’t quite know why the mall can’t enforce an accessibility policy. I do know there is not a Canada-wide accessibility policy, and Nova Scotia is not exactly noted for accessibility-friendly policies.

In a world where people just needed to ask for assistance and voila, it would appear, as though magic, we wouldn’t need an accessibility policy. I could just drop an email to the mall, and that would be the end of it. Heck, I probably wouldn’t need to drop an email to the mall – from the goodness of their hearts, they would already have a thorough accessibility program in place, covering things I never think to ask for, like scent-free policies and braille signs and more seating [1. Well, I used to remember to ask for more seating, and then Don got a wheelchair and now I have to think about it.] and… well, things I never think to ask for.

This is why I’m displeased that my country doesn’t have even a token-effort federally mandated accessibility law. The mall, which can mandate things like “required to follow fire codes” and “required to open during mall hours” cannot (or chooses not to – I suspect the latter, frankly) require the same stores to follow an accessibility policy.

But yeah – if we’re all just really really nice, maybe they’ll do so anyway.

Recommended Reading for January 10th

recommended reading

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

AbleGamers: 2009 Accessible Game of Year – Dragon Age: Origins

Dragon Age: Origins offers some of the most astounding accessibility options seen in any game this year. With only one accessibility complaint, Bioware far exceeded expectations for an accessible title. However, the relatively small font size was immediately addressed by Bioware, bringing the number of accessibility problems to zero.

Alex at Border House: Interview with Mark Barlet of AbleGamers.com

What are some important things to look for when determining the accessibility of a game?

It is very hard to say “THIS” is what we are looking for. Depending on your disability game accessibility can mean anything. So what we look for are options. I am not deaf and do not need subtitles when I play, but is there an option for subtitles? Steve [Spohn, Associate Editor of AbleGamers] does 99% of his interaction with his PC by use of the mouse, so a game must be playable using just a mouse. That said, others can not use a mouse at all, so we look to see if a game can be played by using the keyboard.

Tiffany at Disaboom: BBC to debut groundbreaking wheelchair dancing reality show

The celebs will be paired up with wheelchair dancers, and most of the wheelchair-users will be new to dancing too. After training, they’ll compete a variety of classic ballroom dances, from the Paso Doble to the Cha-Cha-Cha, all performed within the parameters of Wheelchair Dance Sport, a official sport requiring at least one dancer to use a wheelchair. The winning couple will go on to represent the UK at the Wheelchair Dance Sport European Championships in Israel this Fall.

Wow. This actually sounds official. Like it’s a real competition or something, not some pity-party looking for a sympathy vote. LOVE it.

Meris Stansbury at eSchoolNews: Five key trends in assistive technology

“NCTI hears this plea from … parents and caregivers as well. Too often, the sophistication of the features or interface of new devices precludes easy use by direct consumers or their parents, teachers, and friends. With more students being served in general-education classrooms of up to 30 students, devices need to offer as little complexity and facilitate as much independence for the user as possible,” the brief says.

“It’s not just about adding new features to the stuff we already have,” explained Tracy Gray, director of NCTI. “We must ask the question: What do we need to solve, and how can we do that?”

Fox News: Mind-Reading Systems Could Change Air Security

The WeCU system would use humans to do some of the observing but would rely mostly on hidden cameras or sensors that can detect a slight rise in body temperature and heart rate. Far more sensitive devices under development that can take such measurements from a distance would be incorporated later. […]

One system being studied by Homeland Security is called the Future Attribute Screening Technology, or FAST, and works like a souped-up polygraph.

It would subject people pulled aside for additional screening to a battery of tests, including scans of facial movements and pupil dilation, for signs of deception. Small platforms similar to the balancing boards used in the Nintendo Wii would help detect fidgeting.

New York Times: The Americanization of Mental Illness

Modern-day mental-health practitioners often look back at previous generations of psychiatrists and psychologists with a thinly veiled pity, wondering how they could have been so swept away by the cultural currents of their time. The confident pronouncements of Victorian-era doctors regarding the epidemic of hysterical women are now dismissed as cultural artifacts. Similarly, illnesses found only in other cultures are often treated like carnival sideshows. Koro, amok and the like can be found far back in the American diagnostic manual (DSM-IV, Pages 845-849) under the heading “culture-bound syndromes.” Given the attention they get, they might as well be labeled “Psychiatric Exotica: Two Bits a Gander.”

Recommended Reading for January 9th

recommended reading

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

Media Access Australia: Human Rights Commission requests further information from cinemas

The Australian Human Rights Commission is currently assessing an application from Hoyts, Greater Union, Village and Reading cinemas for a temporary exemption from the Disability Discrimination Act in relation to captioning and audio description while they expand the current accessible circuit from 12 to 35 cinemas. […] In summary, the request asks for responses to the following issues: […]

2. Objections to the fact that individuals would lose their rights to lodge complaints under the DDA.[…]

4. The financial justification by the cinemas of why it is not possible to move towards 100% compliance when millions of dollars are being spent on 3D cinema.

Portland Press Herald: Three men with cerebral palsy suing Maine

Three men with cerebral palsy are suing the state, alleging that its policies have forced them to remain confined in nursing homes.[…]

“I do not want to spend the rest of my life here,” Van Meter wrote on his Web site.

“We live in a society that places great emphasis on independence, personal rights, and ensuring that each living creature is living in an environment suited to them. We protect wetlands so that frogs, insects and the like can live in an appropriate environment. We protect the natural habitats of polar bears, eagles and lady slippers yet we allow young individuals in need of physical assistance to be placed in nursing homes,” Van Meter wrote. “We have no age appropriate settings aimed at fostering a normal social lifestyle. It does not seem right or fair.”

Susan Niebur at Toddler Planet: In the name of awareness

But eventually, life moves on, and the wounds scab over, and the scars begin to form.

Until one day, one day, when a harmless meme rips them off, and you realize once again that you will never be the same.

Wharfedale and Airedale Observer: Pedestrians treated as second class citizens, says disability campaigner

The leader of a disability group is demanding action to allow people to use Wharfedale’s pavements safely during icy weather. Town councillor Neville Birch, who is registered blind and chairs Otley Disability Advisory Group (ODAG), says he has been virtually housebound because he has not wanted to risk walking on unsafe paths during the recent cold snap. […]

“We seem quick enough to grit the roads to make sure the motorists can get on with things and get where they need to, but what about pedestrians?” […]

A council spokesman said: […] Our advice would be to always wear sensible, sturdy shoes and to take care on pavements as they may be untreated and slippery, and only venture out when really necessary.”

Times of India: Jagannath temple to allow people in wheelchairs

The Jagannath temple in Puri, one of the most revered Hindu shrines, has decided to open its doors to wheelchair-bound devotees, an official said. But the temple authorities have taken no decision on building ramps for the wheelchairs. […] A disabled person cannot go into the temple with a wheelchair. But the temple authorities do allow entry to disabled, old and paralysed people with the help of family members and temple servitors.

“Every human being passes through phases in his life where he or she is dependent on someone else. The Lord (Jagannath) himself is limbless. But the anomaly is that wheelchair-bound limbless devotees can’t have access to the Lord,” said Ravi Tripathy, a handicapped and disabled rights activist.

The Age: London’s pop poet

At the age of seven Dury was struck down with polio. It almost killed him, leaving him withered on his left side and obliged to wear a calliper. His disability was to shape his life; it led to him being bullied as a child, it was the root of his anger and of his determination.

Dury took a confrontational attitude to his condition. He would often describe himself as a ”raspberry” – getting his retaliation in first (”raspberry ripple” is rhyming slang for cripple) – and he actually considered calling his first solo album The Mad Spastic.

Lines in the Sand: Daly, Showalter and Tactics of Exclusion

activism, autonomy, blaming, bodies, feminism, gender, identity, intersectionality, justice, language, normality, politics, shaming, social attitudes, , , , , , , , , , ,

The second-wave radical feminist theologian and professor Mary Daly died earlier this month, and there has been a veritable outpouring of eulogies from various feminist blogs.

Few of these eulogies have acknowledged Daly’s transphobia and racism.

I do not deny that Daly was an important figure in second-wave feminism, but to mourn her passing without a nod to her work’s more problematic aspects, or explorations of these aspects, are, to put it mildly, not good. In particular, the intense, hateful transphobia found in some of her writing, and her issues with unexamined white privilege and racism — which both QueenEmily at Questioning Transphobia and Sungold at Kittywampus cover very well in recent posts — strikes many as both deeply disturbing and an old pattern that has, and continues to, rear its grotesque head in certain segments of contemporary feminism. I include myself among those who are deeply troubled by Daly’s transphobic sentiments and her questionable record when it came to examining the entrenched racism and issues surrounding white privilege in the second-wave feminist movement.

I should probably mention at this point that I do not mean to appropriate or co-opt the struggles of trans* folks in any way, although my cis privilege will most likely be unintentionally reflected at points in this piece. Though the struggles of trans* people, trans feminists and PWDs and disabled feminists are not the exact same, some exclusionary tactics of certain cisgendered feminists and those of abled feminists sometimes take similar forms, especially within the mainstream feminist movement. The oppression of trans* folks and PWDs in cis, abled culture intersect in a number of ways; this post, however, barely scratches that surface. I believe that the many issues present in Daly’s work–as well as the reaction to her death around the blogosphere–can serve as just one entry point to discussions of the similarities in oppression(s) that trans* people and PWDs face. There are also clear differences, among them the fact Daly used language that can only be called genocidal, while many other feminists of her generation did not advocate such an extreme path when it came to keeping certain individuals out of feminism. I will be focusing on feminism’s exclusion of trans* and PWDs as reflected in the work of two very influential second-wave feminists here, but there is, of course, much more to these stories.

Daly’s penchant for exclusion and outright hatred (particularly of trans* individuals) couched in oddly phrased academic rhetoric unfortunately brings to mind another famous second-waver’s similar issues with people (particularly women) with disabilities. Princeton scholar Elaine Showalter — best known for bringing feminist literary theory to the fore in the academy at a time when such a discipline was, for the most part, inconceivable — dismissed disabling conditions like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Gulf War Syndrome and mental health issues such as Dissociative Identity Disorder (referred to in the text as Multiple Personality Disorder) in her 1997 book Hystories.

In Hystories, Showalter attempted to debunk “modern media epidemics” such as the aforementioned disabilities as well as more traditionally disproven phenomena such as alien abduction and satanic ritual abuse. In the book’s chapter on Chronic Fatigue, Showalter rather disingenuously declared that she did not want to “disparage the suffering” of people with such conditions only a few pages before she called CFS an extension of Western “fin de siecle [end of the century] anxiety.” She followed this stunning assertion with the claim that the Western news media was primarily responsible for making CFS into an escalating “psychogenic epidemic” (117, 131).

Like Daly’s severe opinion of trans* people as dupes of the medical industry (which Kittywampus cites in her post), Showalter also seemed to be taken with the idea that people with CFS are somehow being duped into thinking that they are ill because of the media focus on their condition. She wrote that many CFS patients and their defenders are “hostile to psychiatric or social explanations” of the condition, and that many of them react in a way that is not friendly to the labeling of CFS as “psychiatric” (128). However, the reactions of these same patients make sense if considered from a non-abled perspective. Showalter also seemed completely mystified by these “hostile” reactions. If CFS is just a manifestation of “fin seicle anxiety,” as she contended (adding that “emotions have tremendous power over the body”) she seemed to push the conclusion — without any scientific or medical proof — that many people with CFS have somehow been brainwashed into believing they have it; thus, the media-driven “hysterical epidemic” has worked.

Nowhere are feminists with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or related conditions consulted; the not-so-feminist implication here is that feminists with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome either do not exist or are just victims of a “hysterical” media-led epidemic and therefore cannot be “real” feminists. This is similar to how trans* feminists were erased, excluded and castigated by Daly as somehow not “real” women or feminists, and as benefiting from patriarchy in a way that “real” women and feminists could not. To put it crudely: This is exclusionary bullcrap, and it does not do trans* people, people with disabilities, feminists who fit either (or both) of these categories, or the feminist movement as a whole any favors whatsoever.

Exclusion is not radical. It has never been radical. It is, in fact, extraordinarily status-quo. No one should be able to arbitrarily pick and choose who “belongs” in the feminist movement and who does not, especially if those who are being excluded because of their gender identity, sexual identity or disability actively identify as feminist. Feminism should be for a wide variety of people; exclusion, however, is something that is not — and has never been — very  feminist.

Author’s note: I will be moderating this thread with an iron fist; please have the courtesy to not try to tell me how Daly really was an ally to trans* folks, or how Showalter didn’t mean what she said about CFS *that* way, or that either author’s influence on the feminist movement somehow excuses their hatred and bigotry. Thank you.

[Cross-posted to Ham.Blog]

Chatterday! Open Thread.

chatterday

an awkward, spiky grey baby flamingo stands in the foreground, adults in the backgroundThis 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 Zooborns.

SSRIs, Violence, Walking, and Dogs

blaming, medical practice, mental health, policy, shaming, violence

Recently a link was making the rounds on Tumblr about how SSRI anti-depressants caused violent and homicidal reactions in people (h/t to the lovely Cara for making sure we saw it). I was largely ignoring it because, frankly, there’s a lot of unproductive discussions about whether SSRIs, or anti-depressants in general, or even psychotropic drugs as a whole, are teh most awesome things ever! or an evil tool of big pharma or poisoning our children or should be put in the water supply to help the population at large. And my attitude towards psych treatment, whether it be therapy or medication or anything else, is pretty similar to my attitude about religion: everyone has the right to make their own determinations about their treatment and whether they would or would not like to take psych meds, and just as my atheism doesn’t make someone else’s faith any less valid, I can support someone’s decision to reject psych meds without lessening my own right to believe they help me personally. (To extend that, I support anyone’s right and decision to pursue or not pursue any kind of treatment, to identify as they feel appropriate, and to reject the whole framework and basis of psychiatry.)

That said, I thought it might be useful to take a look at this article to discuss some of the issues I see in a lot of these arguments and discussions. The basic gist of the article is to publicize an archive of “3,500 crime related news reports linked to the use of SSRI antidepressants … Pharma and the FDA may still be agnostic about SSRIs causing violence but 700 murders, 200 murder-suicides and 47 postpartum depression cases, including the 2006 case of Andrea Yates who drowned her five children on Effexor, don’t lie.” The article describes the site as “more of a public service than the FDA which has yet to withdraw the drugs named in the 3,500 stories–or even call them dangerous,” so the clear goal of the article is to encourage prohibition of SSRIs as a class.

That’s a pretty broad goal to be supported by such thin and unconvincing evidence – and that’s my problem with these kinds of arguments. Whenever I talk about these kinds of science articles, I often use the same phrase: “correlation does not equal causation.” This means that although two variables may be very closely associated, there’s not enough information to figure out which of them causes the other, or even if the two are related by anything more than chance and coincidence. A simple example is that everyone who orders food at McDonald’s is a human. Can we assume that if a dog walked into McDonald’s and ordered food, it would magically transform into a human because of the correlation between ordering at McDonald’s and being human? No.

To unpack this further, let’s look at the fact that a lot of people who walk in my neighborhood have dogs. I know some people who got dogs specifically in order to encourage themselves to do more walking – so the dog is influencing how often they walk. However, I also know people who do a lot of running or hiking and got a dog to keep them company on their outings – so their walking/running influenced their having a dog. So does being a person who walks outdoors make you more likely to get a dog, or does having a dog make you more likely to walk outdoors? We just do not have enough information to figure that out. This means my observations of walkers and dogs should not justify a public policy to issue dogs to every household to ensure people walk outdoors.

To extend this to the SSRI stories, there’s not enough evidence for us to determine if people who are not violent or homicidal become so when they are given SSRIs, or whether people who are already violent or homicidal are likely to be given SSRIs for treatment. And that’s a very important thing to be absolutely clear on when we’re talking about having the FDA eliminate an entire class of anti-depressants that some (including me) rely on for treatment.

There’s a couple other factors in the dog analogy that I also see at play in this SSRI story:

  • Observer bias: I think dogs are pretty cute, so when I’m out and about, I tend to notice pedestrians with dogs more than I do pedestrians without dogs. So if I see 10 pedestrians and 4 of them have dogs, I’m much more likely to notice and remember the dog people and think that the majority of pedestrians have dogs. Similarly, self described “anti-SSRI advocates” are more likely to notice and prioritize instances where SSRIs occur with violent behavior.
  • Who is observed: I happen to live two blocks from the most popular dog park in town, so people from miles away drive here in order to hike with their dogs. There are a lot of trails that don’t allow dogs and if I lived right next to one of them, I’d likely see a lot more walkers who are dogless. So I’m not looking at the entire population of walkers and dog owners when I’m observing a connection between those two characteristics – I’m looking at a population more likely to suggest to me that the two are connected. Similarly, the SSRI stories are drawn entirely from crime reporting. Stories about people who take SSRIs and do not engage in violent, homicidal, or otherwise criminal behavior are not going to be in a crime story – so the archive is looking at a subset of SSRI-takers that is more likely to confirm their perception that SSRIs cause criminal behavior.
  • Interpreting evidence to fit desired results: when growing up, I tried out the “dogs will make me walk and exercise more” argument on my parents. This is because I wanted to get a dog, and I was trying to put together any argument I could to support that conclusion – I had started with the conclusion instead of with the evidence. Some of the stories mentioned in the article make me wonder if the SSRI stories suffer from the same problem. One of the quoted stories is “Lynyrd Skynyrd harmonicist Mike Caruso’s remark that, ‘the doctor put me on Cymbalta. That turned me manic.'” To me, giving an anti-depressant to someone with undiagnosed bipolar and triggering manic behavior is a very different argument than if taking the SSRI created violent or homicidal behavior that hadn’t previously existed in the person.

In order to convince me that SSRI used caused these behaviors in people who otherwise would not display them, I would want to see a clinical study where people were observed before and after starting SSRI treatment and a control group was also monitored while not having SSRI treatment. Those kinds of scientific studies are the only way to meaningfully determine whether the two variables have any kind of causal relationship.[1] And without that data, this article does a lot more harm than good – by reinforcing existing perceptions that criminals are all mentally ill and by shaming or scaring people who take and benefit from SSRIs.

[1] I should note that requests for data and scientific studies are often used to invalidate or minimize reported personal experiences from marginalized groups, an academic privilege argument of sorts. I do and continue to credit individual experiences where SSRI treatment caused specific behaviors for that individual, but I feel very uncomfortable making blanket decisions about whether or not these drugs should be available at all, for anyone, based on third party descriptions of the experiences of others.

Recommended Reading for January 8th

recommended reading

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

Diary of a Goldfish: It’s my pavement and I’ll cry if I want to

It may be that there are incompetent scooter-users driving into market stalls and store aisles. Or it could be that having no consideration for people with mobility-impairments, market traders and store workers have piled displays and produce up in walkways, leaving only narrow gaps for people to walk through and insufficient room for a wheelchair, scooter, anyone with crutches or an otherwise wide gait. My wheelchair is not nearly so bulky as a scooter, but even in a supermarket I bump into things because there isn’t enough room.

I rarely bump into people, but it is hard work not to. Some pedestrians can be extremely absent-minded, expecting to be able to move about at terrific speeds and suddenly stop or change direction without collision. Quite apart from the fact that such people put themselves at risk, they are a genuine menace to those ambulant disabled people who walk slowly and are vulnerable to being knocked down.[…]

However, articles like these (compared to the same story in the Telegraph, which isn’t perfect but a great improvement) are a bit of a filler about nothing that give people with non-disabled privilege a license to moan about disabled people taking up space. They read that grannies are running amok with mobility scooters – even though there’s no evidence of a widespread problem – and this is highly satisfying. So they’ll be allowed to tut at and patronise scooter-users, blaming them for any accidents and bothering a little less about accessibility because half these people shouldn’t be allowed out.

BBC Ouch! Disability Bitch hates pedestrians

Scooter users get a bad press. Yes, there are some rubbish drivers and yes, they should be reprimanded; I’ve had a couple of near misses with reckless scooterers myself and they weren’t fun. But the thing is, as a wobbly walking stick user, I have near misses almost every time I step out into a public space. I’m here to tell you that these are very rarely due to the carelessness of other mobility aid users.

Mostly, readers, the cause of my bumps and bruises are fully able bipedal pedestrians. You know, the ones who hurry past you and jab you in the ribs with their elbows, who skittle by on escalators and stairs knocking you asunder, the ones who poke you in the face with their umbrellas, who jabber into their mobile phones and don’t keep a watch out for any less stable bystanders.

princess at where they go hardcore… : So how does an awesome girl like me come to have an Eating Disorder? [has trigger warning][via geekfeminism]

If you’ve ever wondered how a girl like me gets an eating disorder, I think it may be time for us to sit down and talk. Because I think there are some misapprehensions out there, and it’s really time I get them cleared up.

Ben Mattlin at NPR: To One Of The Lucky Ones, The New Year Means More

So, why do so many people feel sorry for me?

They don’t know me, of course. They don’t know that I grew up in a great family, graduated from Harvard, get my writing published, got married and fathered two terrific little girls. There are a lot of reasons why I consider myself lucky.

Still, people have said to me, “If I were like you, I’d kill myself.”

This is supposed to be a compliment, I think. They mean to commend my perseverance. So how come I want to say back, “If I were like you, I’d want to kill myself, too!”

Cowra Guardian: Disability advocate and Olympian set for ambassadorial duties

Athlete Gabrielle Clark is Cowra’s Australia Day ambassador.[…]

Clark has achieved a great deal as an athlete and a person with a disability. A self-advocate for people with Down Syndrome, she has represented Australia and the state of New South Wales at both international and national forums and sporting events for a period of twenty years. […] Gabrielle’s goal in life is to improve the social image of people with an intellectual disability.

ABS-CBN News: Cebu Pacific hit for refusing ‘special child’ passenger

Budget airline Cebu Pacific may face civil and criminal cases after reportedly refusing the entry on board of a special child. According to Marites Alcantara, the Gokongwei-led carrier’s purser and cabin crew pressured her and her son, John Arvin, to get off the plane bound for Manila from Hong Kong. Alcantara said the crew members flatly told her that John Arvin is a special child and is banned from boarding Cebu Pacific planes, citing company rules.

“They have a manual daw. Bawal daw sumakay ang mga mentally ill…pilit nila kaming pinapababa na para kaming kriminal na kulang na lang ay hatakin palabas ng eroplano ‘yong anak ko,” she told ABS-CBN News.

(“They said they have a company manual, which states that mentally ill people are not allowed inside the plane…they pressured us to get out of the plane as if we were criminals.”)

Followups: Rights body urges carriers to review policies
Cebu Pacific: We don’t discriminate against special children
Couple to file suit vs airline despite apology

Question Time: Disability Quotes

Question Time

Question Time is a series in which we open up the floor to you, commenters. We invite you to share as you feel comfortable.

What’s your favourite disability-related quote? It can be about a particular experience of being disabled, something you keep being reminded of in life, a saying that gets you through tough times, given by a famous disabled person or a little obscure, anything along those lines.

Recommended Reading for January 7th

recommended reading

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

ACTION ALERT for USAns: Fight Inappropriate Restraint – Free Zakh Price! [h/t Sarah from Cat in a Dog’s World]

Now we’d like to ask you to help us take action to help protect an 11-year old Autistic boy in Arkansas named Zakhqurey Price, currently being charged with felony assault after fighting back when two staff members restrained him in response to behavioral challenges. The school has ignored repeated efforts from Zakh’s grandmother over the course of the last five months to obtain needed IEP supports to improve his educational options and manage his behavioral difficulties.

According to the suspension notice, the restraint was in response to Zakh destroying school property – something beyond the scope of what would be allowed under recently introduced federal civil rights legislation around restraint and seclusion in schools.

More information:

KPS4Parents: 5th Grader with Autism Charged with Felony Assault

Cat in a Dog’s World

Pink News: Gay son prevented from donating blood to dying mother

Friends and family members were asked to give blood to see if they were a match for her. Although Bentley did not know whether he was a match, he was prevented from donating under rules which bar men who have had with another man from giving blood.

She died ten days after developing an infection in her brain on August 14th.

NTs Are Weird: Are Some Service Animals More Equal?

Too many service animal activists have focused on physical and sensory disabilities, intentionally distancing themselves from animals that provide help to people with less evident disabilities, particularly those disabilities that are “in your head”. Out of this movement, there have come a variety of technical definitions for animals, like “therapy animal”, “service animal”, “emotional support animal”, “psychological support animal”, etc. Now you won’t find consistent definitions for all of these categories, but “service animal” is the top dog in this list. It’s the only category that allows the animal nearly unrestricted access. The others are, at some level, considered “pets”, at least to some people.

William Peace at Bad Cripple: O’ Canada: Citizenship and Disability:

This time a French family who were encouraged to move to Montreal by an embassy official in Paris hasve been told they cannot remain in Canada. The reason given is the same one the Chapman’s heard: their daughter, who has cerebral palsy, would place an “excessive burden on social services”.

The Independent: Disabled workers ‘worst hit by cuts in recession’: Charity accuses employers of targeting disabled for redundancy

Discrimination against disabled people is increasing in the workplace as employers target them for redundancy and unfairly turn them down for new jobs, according to a report by Leonard Cheshire Disability. The report, Disability and the Downturn, warns that the employment gap between disabled and able-bodied employees is growing as more people compete for fewer jobs during the recession.

More than half of respondents (52 per cent) had experienced discrimination in the workplace in the past year, an increase of 11 per cent since 2007. More than four in ten (43 per cent) believed that they had been turned down for a job because of their impairment, seven percentage points up on 2008.

The charity described the trend as “worrying” and warned that current regulations for tackling disability discrimination were proving inadequate.

New Jersey News: he doesn’t mince words, and some don’t like it

Today, after a swift and sometimes bumpy ascent in the realm of national autism politics, he [Ne’eman] is the first person with autism to be nominated for a seat on the National Council on Disability. […]

Some find fault with Ne’eman because, in their view, he’s not quite autistic enough. Ne’eman has Asperger’s syndrome, a relatively mild form of autism. Those with Asperger’s typically have difficulty with social interaction, a hallmark of autism. They’re often physically clumsy and intensely focused on a few subjects, almost to the point of obsession.

But they’re also typically of average or above-average intelligence, with good communication skills. Many people with more profound autism can’t speak at all, leading families to suggest Ne’eman isn’t the most appropriate advocate.[…]

“We should be spending at least as much money on improving our quality of life instead of trying to get rid of us,” he said.

NorthJersey.com: Room for special kids

All the glassware in the Alpine Suite at the Clinton Inn Hotel in Tenafly is unbreakable — the wine glasses, the water tumblers, even the glass in the cabinet doors. The furniture has rounded corners with soft bumpers. A round table has replaced a square one. Flower vases and other décor have been glued down. The iron is stored behind a safety lock, and the windows are locked. The television is fixed securely to the wall, instead of sitting on a credenza, as in other guest rooms.

Everything in the suite has been designed to give peace of mind to guests who have children with autism.

Even the inside lock on the door of the suite is mounted high, out of reach of small grasping hands. Most important of all, the door has an alarm that sounds — beep, beep, beep — if a child attempts a hasty exit.

There are lots of blogarounds and drop it like it’s hots and self promotion threads about the femiblogosphere. Up till now, we haven’t had a “drop your link here” thread. I’m going to experiment with making this a space for linkdropping. So, for the rec reading, for now, here’s the rule on using the comments to drop links:

There must be substantive disability rights content, with a feminist lens; AND: the only links that can be dropped are those written by writers who self-identify as PWD and who aren’t cis men.

As always, you’re also more than welcome to talk about the topics raised in the post, instead of (or as well as) dropping links.

Why I don’t think it’s funny to use Limbaugh’s drug abuse as a punchline.

blaming, i'm right here, politics, shaming, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Short background: Rush Limbaugh (link goes to Wikipedia article) is a US conservative radio talk show host who has risen to prominence in the US by inciting “controversy” after “controversy” with hateful rhetoric. He also went through an ordeal some time back for addiction to prescription painkillers, an incident that the US left likes to use against him. Recently he was rushed to the hospital again, which has spurred a new round of derision from US liberals.

Rush Limbaugh isn’t exactly a sympathetic character. His politics are vile and he makes a career out of escalating white male resentment into white male supremacy. And that causes real harm to real people who don’t meet the requirements to be part of Limbaugh’s He-Man Woman-Haterz Club.

How did he end up abusing prescription painkillers? I don’t know. Was he taking them for legitimate pain due to injury, surgery or a medical condition, and the usage got out of hand? Was he consciously using it as a recreational drug? I have to say I am still somewhat bitter about people who use the stuff I need to be able to get on with my daily life as a quick and easy “high,” ultimately making it harder to access needed medication. (But that is argument from emotion, mostly; I would posit that the real problem is a medical field and larger culture which does not take seriously the needs and concerns of chronic pain patients and is eager to punish people who step outside accepted boundaries.)

But even if he was just out for a high, I still feel unease when I see people use that angle to criticize him.

Because, here’s the thing… the same narrative that you are using to condemn this despicable figure is the narrative that is used to condemn me.

You are feeding, growing, reinforcing the same narrative that codes me as an abuser, that makes me out to be a good-for-nothing low-life, that makes it difficult for me to access the medication I need to be able to live my normal daily life.

When you laugh, joke, or rant about Limbaugh’s abuse of narcotics, you are lifting a page from the book of people who would call me a malingerer and interpret my behavior (frustration at barriers to access, agitation and self-advocacy to try to gain access) as signs of addiction. People who would, in the same breath, chastise me for “making it harder for the real sufferers.” (See why my bitterness about recreational use isn’t actually serving the right purpose, in the end?)

Maybe you don’t really think this way. But maybe the people laughing at your joke do.

And maybe, you just made them feel a little bit safer in their scaremongering about “addiction” and deliberate attempts to make life harder for us.

Scoffing at Limbaugh’s hypocrisy is one thing — but when your scoffing takes the form of a very common, quite harmful cultural prejudice — even when you don’t mean it to — it has real effects on real people’s lives. Sort of like that casual incitement that we hate Limbaugh for.

(Cross-posted at three rivers fog.)