And what I have realised is that there is a sixth component to zvi‘s rules, and that is that complaining about and calling out what you do not like does help, slowly, painfully, get rid of it.
Every time I see friends who make locked posts about fic that Others them, that writes appropriatively and ignorantly and dismissively and condescendingly and fetishistically about their identities, I think — there needs to be a space where this can be said.
Writing a short ficlet in which someone who has been abused/injured/disabled/etc is “comforted” and feels better seldom bears much relation to the reality of abuse/injury/disability/etc. Which, OK, we write a lot of unrealistic things. The problem with this one is that the idea of hurts being easily cured/comforted is one that also exists in the real world and harms real people. Almost anyone with a real-world, serious “hurt” has had people dismiss and belittle their experience on the assumption that they “should be over it by now” or that “if you just did X” the problem would go away. People are often treated badly or denied care on these grounds.
“Shingles vaccination has become a disparity issue,” Dr. Hurley added. “It’s great that this vaccine was developed and could potentially prevent a very severe disease. But we have to have a reimbursement process that coincides with these interventions. Just making these vaccines doesn’t mean that they will have a public health impact.”
Nine months later, the joyous mood has soured. Five research teams trying to confirm the finding have reported in journals or at conferences that they could not find the retrovirus, known as XMRV, in patients diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, casting grave doubts on the connection.
To Lehrer, who has spina bifida, “Disability and art are natural partners. In order to have a good life with a disability, you have to learn to re-invent your world almost hour by hour. You discover ways to re-imagine everything, and how not to take the average answers to everyday questions…”
You see, my parents got a discount on my adoption for two reasons. The first one was that I am black. Black babies weren’t as popular in 1990, so I was in foster care for a while. The other reason they got a discount was due to the fact that I was supposed to be intellectually challenged, and had a few physical issues. Not being a white, healthy infant lowered my price.
I think this says something interesting about whose bodies we value. We don’t value black bodies or disabled bodies. Thus, in order to encourage potential adoptive parent to look at children like me involved lowering my adoption fees, my cost. This feels wrong. I will say that my parents didn’t put any preference for race on their application and there were only a few disabilities they didn’t feel able to handle.
How this fails to work in Open Source is that Open Source is a community. A reputation economy, as the nerds are so fond of talking about, but also a group of likeminded people who chat and bond and stuff. You know what they bond over, in large part? Women’s bodies. Tits, how much they like them. Bitches and how crazy they are. You know, locker room stuff. Guy culture. The sort of male homosocial bonding that is how guys grease the social gears (in the US, anyway). You know something? People with tits can’t be a part of that conversation! Because they are being talked ABOUT. They are not the ones doing the talking! They are the thing that is being used to prove how well we all get along. This is where women have to decide whether or not they want to try to be “one of the guys” too. Some groups are gracious enough to let their token female do that, as long as she is willing to join in the girl-bashing. Some groups are not that gracious but are still kind enough to let their token female become the hackysack in the girl-bashing party. They’re willing to let her demonstrate her loyalty to the group by putting up with being kicked around! It’s very nice of them. But should she ever try to say that This Shit! It is Not Okay! Well then she is a killjoy, a frigid bitch, ruining everyone’s fun, girls have no SENSE OF HUMOR and guys are SO PUT UPON and ZOMG PC POLICE!!1! What is this world COMING TO when no one can have a FRIENDLY CONVERSATION without someone telling them they are offending puppies or something!
Creating Collective Access – Check it out!
Are you a crip and/or someone with a chronic illness that is going to be in Detroit this summer for the Allied Media Conference and/or the US Social Forum?
We know that for many of us, access is on our minds when it comes to traveling, navigating the city, movement spaces, buildings, sidewalks, public transportation, rides, the air, the bathrooms, the places to stay, the pace, the language,the cost, the crowds, the doors, the people who will be there and so so so much more.
Would you like to be connected to a network of crips and our allies/comrades who are working together to create collective access?
When reading a lot of scientific dissection of bad science, I’d get outraged but I’d also want to go further – WHY are these stories being written in the way they are? Why is so much scientific reporting in the mainstream press so piss-poor? A lot of the above writers list deadline-pressures, budget-slashes at national newspapers, lack of specialist journalists etc. But as journalists churn out health and science stories under undeniable pressure, they are all too often also resorting to and replicating tired and lazy stereotypes.
Borderline Personality Disorder – a feminist critique
By Anji Capes | 11 June 2010, 14:32
Among my many diagnoses, I have what is known in the UK as Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder (Of The Borderline Type), known elsewhere as Borderline Personality Disorder. BPD is described by Wikipedia as “a prolonged disturbance of personality function … characterized by depth and variability of moods.” It manifests in many ways, including rapid cycling mood swings, ‘self-destructive behaviour’, black and white thinking, disassociation and extreme fear of abandonment.
BPD is a serious mental illness and is difficult to diagnose. Unfortunately it is also well-known as being used by psychiatrists and mental health professionals as a way of labelling ‘difficult’ or ‘problem’ patients – I know at least one woman who was threatened with a diagnosis of BPD by a mental health professional because she wouldn’t do as she was told.
Three-quarters of patients diagnosed with BPD are female. I’ve spent some time since my diagnosis wondering why that is, when one would expect the split to be roughly 50/50.
The March for accessibility was conducted in Sweden on Saturday 29 May 2010. Despite bad luck with the weather, almost 3,000 people joined the marches at 31 locations around the country.
Only a few days after the march, the ministry of Integration and Gender Equality announced a proposal that the Swedish discrimination act should include a new provision prohibiting discrimination in the form of lack of accessibility for persons with disabilities. The act is proposed to take effect in 2012. But first, all concerned should have the opportunity to have their say.
There are still some places available for European surf week from 22-28 of August in Willebroek, Belgium. The event is held by the Belgian organisation Recreas and personal assistants are welcome so that you can learn to surf with your personal assistant.
If I could, I would dare them too look in her eyes. There is hurt there. Deep, deep hurt. I would challenge them to look deep in those eyes, oh trust me, I would if I could.
She is reaching out from behind others. Her staff has stopped to speak to me, thank me for my lecture. I had just spoken about the teasing and bullying of people with disabilities. About the pain that that damn word ‘ret@rd’ causes. About the need for people with disabilities to have skills to understand teasing and the need for us all to rise in protest at the use of hateful words used with the intention of hurt.
Canada: CNIB Pondering Human Rights Complaint Over Transit Service “Duncan Williams of the Canadian National Institute for the Blind says his organization has been working with transit officials to improve service for partially sighted or blind riders.” [Halifax, NS]
African Doctor Fights Eye Disease “The physician who leads a Calgary charity’s work in Africa hopes to open the public’s eyes to a nasty, but treatable, disease that’s stealing the eyesight of millions of people in the developing world.”
A woman holds up a sign reading Time to act... NOW! The Disability Action Force on Housing is a grouping of people with disabilities, particularly developmental disabilities, engaged as self-advocates, along with their allies. They hosted a rally to push for action on the housing crisis. It was on the steps of the provincial Legislature of Alberta, in Edmonton, on June 11, 2007.
We have all heard stories about people who have lost their jobs because of pictures that surfaced on the Internet that show their after-hours behavior. A similar, but unfortunate tale is the one of the individual with a disability who is denied employment or resources because of someone’s assumption about that person’s disability which they uncovered on the Internet. Though this is not always the case, it illustrates how imperative it is for all individuals, especially those with disabilities, to decide what, when and how they disclose. You have to be aware of everything you say and do on the Internet. Here are some general guidelines that are important for all online users, including people with disabilities, to keep in mind.
Many in the disability community have been calling for Hollywood producers to cast real people with real disabilities in roles where the disability has little or nothing to do with the plot. The people behind the Paul Reiser Show, a series which will soon be broadcast on NBC, will apparently do just that. Twelve year old Brock Waidmann has been cast in the role of Zeke, one of Paul Reiser’s two sons on the show. This interview with Brock Waidmann took place by email over a couple of weeks in June 2010. This is Brock’s first ever interview.
This is why today, Good As You is participating in a blogswarm with AMERICABlog, AKAWilliam.com, Bilerico Project, Blabbeando, Change.org, DailyKos, David Badash, Firedoglake-The Seminal, Joe Mirabella, LGBTPOV, Mike Signorile, OpenLeft and Rod 2.0. We, as a coalition, are asking you to submit public comment in support of revising the discriminatory and medically unwarranted FDA lifetime ban on blood donations from any man who’s had sex with another man (MSM) since the time when the first Star Wars was on the big screen (1977).
Kanner saw a bunch of people and grouped them together. He observed some things about them. Some of the observations were accurate. Some were more conclusions than true observations. Then he came to conclusions based on both types of observations. Many of his conclusions were false. (Note: Most of Kanner’s patients would today have a high chance of being diagnosed as AS and all but maybe one or two fit at least one definition of high functioning. Several went on to college. There are many modern myths about who these people were.)
The next person came along and put more people into the category of autistic. These people included people who appeared like Kanners patients appeared, people who were like Kanners patients were, people who appeared like Kanners conclusions, and people who were like Kanners conclusions.
“Sexual reassignment surgery is no longer a prerequisite for passport issuance,” [the State Department] said in a statement.
From June 10, “when a passport applicant presents a certification from an attending medical physician that the applicant has undergone appropriate clinical treatment for gender transition, the passport will reflect the new gender,” the statement said.
Law Enforcement Braces For Wave Of Autistic Young Adults [I’m really struggling with this article. It’s an investigative piece about law enforcement and both tasering and shooting of autistics. It tries to balance a few different viewpoints. I’m not sure it does that in a way that’s necessarily effective. There’s reference to “waves” of autistics, and a sense of emergency about this. I don’t want people to go into the article unaware that that is there.]
Indeed, individuals with developmental disabilities such as autism encounter the police on less than ideal terms far more often than does the general population. They are about seven times more likely than others to have “contact” with law enforcement, autism expert Dennis Debbaudt, the author of Autism, Advocates and Law Enforcement Professionals, and Dr. Darla Rothman wrote way back in April 2001, in the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin.
So many of these conditions need more awareness! So many are poorly understood and under-researched/under-funded. So many involve patients whose experiences are not validated by our society or even their own loved ones (especially true for the “invisible illnesses”). Many patients are accused of exaggerating or of having “psychosomatic” illnesses. I struggle with how to give fair time to each of these illnesses. Which way should I turn? Which illness is facing the most pressing issues? Which illness is having an awareness day/week/month? How can I best help the causes that are dear to me? What is the most efficient use of my time?
Where should I go next when there is so much to do?
Headlines:
New Zealand: Autism a learning preference, not a disability “New Zealand schools should view autism as a learning preference, rather than a difficulty or disability, says UK educationalist Neil Mackay.”
“Automatically labeling autistic students as disabled, rather than recognising and responding to their unique and preferred ways of learning is not only limiting but also damaging. Placing a focus on preference rather than disability enshrines the right to be autistic.”
A total of 10 workers have committed suicide at the company’s base in Longhua, southern China this year. They were all young migrant workers, among the millions of people who leave the poor hinterlands of China for the boom towns of the south and east coastal areas.
Another worker died late in May from what his family said was overwork, a claim the company denied.
The string of deaths have focused attention on working conditions in a region experiencing growing labor unrest and have triggered investigations by Apple and other big Foxconn clients, including Dell Inc.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs called recent suicides at the plant troubling but said last week the site was not a sweatshop.
Canada: Restraint technique led to Hyde’s death: lawyer. “The death of a mentally ill Nova Scotia man who fell unconscious after struggling with jail guards was the result of a dangerous restraint technique that stopped his breathing, a lawyer for the man’s family told an inquiry Wednesday.”
Namibia: Are Namibian Women Being Forcibly Sterilised?* “A landmark court case, alleging that HIV-positive women were forcibly sterilised in Namibian state hospitals begins in Windhoek’s High Court on Jun. 1. Human rights groups claim the practice has continued long after the authorities were notified.” [Via bonesarecoralmade]
I have [redacted]. I am a clinically depressed woman who doesn’t always take her antidepressants or go to the doctor when scheduled or do what she’s supposed to, and I have [redacted]. [Redacted] is one of those things where, if you have it, (according to the local prescriptivists) you need to see a doctor and stay on antidepressants and take care of yourself so that [redacted] doesn’t become [even more redacted]. I’ve heard arguments about [redacted], saying that people with depression coinciding with [redacted] don’t have any rights to their autonomy any longer, that they have, just by having [redacted] have turned in their bodies as forfeit to whomever is deemed as having medical authority over themselves. We are no longer autonomous, because people just don’t trust those with [redacted] to not [even more redacted].
But the report then doesn’t note the factors which lead to these institutional barriers: it appears good enough to note 24% of disabled people have no formal qualifications or that over half are not in work and offer no reasons for this. The effect is to create a suspicion whichs fall on disabled people as not trying hard enough to gain a qualification or get a job – something it is convenient not to correct in order to maintain the overall narrative.
(Similarly, pupils with Special Educational Needs face some of the most significant barriers to educational achievement it is possible to face. However, the only mention of pupils with SEN in the report (in the educational disadvantage section) is to note that 9.2% of pupils with SEN are ‘persistent absentees’, compared with 2.1% of pupils with no SEN.)
Thus, if you want to build a narrative, it is perfectly possible to do so. Taking this approach, at best, the report draws the wrong conclusions based on the evidence available; at worst, it is willfully ignorant.
On my trips in the past I have participated in guided tours. Some have been better than others, but I think that having a tour with the blind in mind would be the best. There are a lot of visual cues that tour guides rely on. Also, by having the tour be self guided, blind and sighted patrons can take as much time as they need.
As many of you know, June is the month of LGBTQ Pride and I couldn’t think of a better time to call out a few tropes that inundate comics and media when it comes LGBTQ characters/themes.
Tropes that if I never see again for the rest of my existence, I’d be eternally grateful.
While this by no means covers every trope/issue/fail, it definitely hits the major ones.
Take thorough notes, I’m gonna move fast, and this will not be pretty.
They replied that they needed confirmation from my doctor that as a deaf person it was safe for me to exercise.
I felt annoyed, mildly insulted, and completely inconvenienced, as this means asking one of my friends to call my doctor to request a note, as funnily enough I can’t do this myself.
Prison doctors in Wisconsin, as in some other state prison systems, have for some time provided hormone therapy for some transgender prisoners, since hormones are part of the accepted medical treatment for many transgender people. Back in 2005, after the Wisconsin legislature got wind of this practice, it passed the “Inmate Sex Change Prevention Act,” which barred state prisons from providing hormone therapy or sex reassignment surgery to transgender prisoners. The new law over-rode the medical judgment of prison doctors and cut off hormone treatment. The ACLU, in partnership with Lambda Legal, sued immediately, securing a preliminary ruling that any prisoners already on hormone therapy could continue their treatments. Senior Staff Attorney John Knight, along with ACLU of Wisconsin Legal Director Larry Dupuis and lawyers from Lambda Legal, tried the case in the fall of 2007.
It took a few years to get a decision, but it was worth the wait.
Even more curious is the immediate slippage from nobility to “legal incompetence” and “mental institution.” Don’t know what to make of that. Some thoughts. You can be declared “legally incompetent” and not be “confined.” I cannot believe that having spent some time in a residential care facility invalidates (deliberately used) your capacity to be and value as a citizen. And if it doesn’t, why does immigration need to know? USCIS doesn’t ask about all medical conditions requiring residential care…. And what of “legal incompetence?” I have no idea what the implications of this are for immigration. I know a little bit about what it entails in the area of family law and medical self-determination, but immigration? Beats me. Suppose, however, that the answer is yes. That you were declared “legally incompetent” midway through the application process and that at the time of interview, your status was not determinable and that you might never be able to affirm your desire to become a US citizen. Does that invalidate your application? How much does being able to communicate that you still wish to become a citizen affect your application, if, say, you would qualify on all other grounds?
Recently I was thinking about hugging and remembering what physical affection was like at the ASD school where I interned last summer.
I remember the last day I was there I asked my favorite kid, R.D., if I could hug him. He said yes, but when I put my arms around him he didn’t put his arms around me. I remember that this was something I did at his age, and it was because I saw hugs as an opportunity to get my whole body squeezed tightly. But I also wonder if, given the culture of the school, R.D. felt that he had the right to say he didn’t want to hug.
New Zealand: Auckland’s newest all-access playground opens: This unique playground features an inclusive, all-access play space that is accessible to children of varying abilities, including disabled children.
Why do feel the need to apologize for our bodies’ needs and justify the choices we make about them? As I continue to incorporate body positivity into my life, I still find myself listing off what I ate all day to justify why I’m hungry now, or explaining, in detail, what made me so tired that I need a nap.
Sometimes people, usually neurotypical people with no sensory impairments, don’t use these, almost invariably because it looks ok to them. They can read it, so they don’t understand that other people won’t be able to.
And while all of the details of these women’s identities are not disclosed (and thus any or all of the following issues may have in fact applied to their stories), the accounts do not even begin to explicitly discuss the brutal and specific challenges faced by victims who are of color, trans*, disabled, poor, queer, and/or sex workers, due to the prejudicial hierarchies regarding who are “real” victims of sexual assault.
Someone I know recently made the claim that Schizophrenia and “exceptional creativity” are “practically the same”.
This stems from a very common misconception that I see, regarding the understanding of Schizophrenia and other schizotypal spectrum disorders (Schizotypal Personality Disorder, Schizoid Personality Disorder, Paraoid Personality Disorder and in some cases Schizoaffective Disorder). Specifically, stemming from ignoring the negative effects it can have on ones life in favor of the positive, in order to try to paint the spectrum as nothing but shiny rainbows and glitter.
i remain forever confused by people who are condescending, derailing and offensive but think because they said it all in a “nice way” that the fault lies with the person who points out what was hurtful in what they said/wrote.
Until we have a diagnostic test that’s based on blood markers or imaging, we probably won’t have a perfect diagnostic test. (This is true of many diseases, especially neurological ones.) Still, researchers believe they’ve come up with something that works better — they say when the looked at a group of previously diagnosed fibromyalgia patients, the tender-point exam was about 75% accurate, while their criteria caught it 88% of the time.
Earlier this week, Yahoo! announced a plan to try to leverage its Yahoo! Mail users’ contacts into a social network of friends who will receive your Yahoo! Updates. Once the most visited website in the world, Yahoo! now ranks fourth worldwide, reaching about a quarter of all Internet users each day. Like Google Buzz’s ill-fated launch using Gmail contacts, Yahoo! wants to jump start its social networking plans with the hundreds of millions of people who already use its email and messenger services.
While Yahoo! made some effort to avoid the worst aspects of the Facebook and Google Buzz privacy controversies, ultimately the plan conflicts with two principles of the EFF Bill of Privacy Rights for social network users. The program will begin a roll out next week, and Yahoo! users need to opt out if they do not wish to participate.
In the last two months I have been approached not once, but twice by young men who want to cure my blindness by praying for me. I must first tell you that as a non-believer, this made me very uncomfortable. To be nice I allowed the prayers to take place. Both times the young man was surprised that my blindness had not been miraculously cured.
Princess in the City [Please note comment rules before commenting at Seeking Avalon]
And just as I was beginning to understand the level of boredom and lack of focus that might lead individuals to think getting drunk is an amazing idea – It occurred to me, that Sex and the City is a 21st century fairytale.
To be specific, a 21st Century Fairy Tale for white, cis, het, currently able bodied western, North American, Christian leaning/familiar women.
Should we laugh at disability? I’d like to make myself clear… I believe teasing, taunting and mean spirited gestures have NO place in our world. But is there such thing as “good clean funny”? Sarah Palin was outraged at Family Guy when the character Chris dated a girl with Down Syndrome, but Andrea Friedman, the actress who voiced the girl has Down Syndrome herself and is an advocate for people with disabilities. Friedman said herself she felt a good sense of humor is healthy and that she positively portrayed a person with a disability.
We parked up and had a look about and decide on somewhere to eat, I couldnt find a dropped curb so my OH and the lad went in first and were being show to a table and the chairs were being pulled out for them by a waiter when I entered, the manager told me I couldnt go in because they didnt have room for wheelchairs but Im welcome to sit outside!
I ask him why I couldnt go in, we dont allow wheelchairs he said, I asked why again, we dont have much room , I asked if he knew that was illegal and he said so what and I lost my temper after about 5 minutes of disableist insults, he said my Oh and lad were welcome but unless I could walk to the table I wasnt and either I sat outside or we all do we wernt welcome.
Headlines:
US: L.A. Unified to shutter 200 classes, campus for disabled students: The schoolchildren will be transferred to other classes, sometimes meaning longer commutes to other schools. It’s part of the beleaguered district’s attempts to deal with a $640-million deficit.
The Philippines: DepEd laments failure of House to ratify Special Education Act The Department of Education (DepEd) expressed its disappointment on Saturday after the House of Representatives failed to ratify the Special Education Act of 2010 due to lack of quorum during its last day of session last Friday.
Canada: Margaret Trudeau open about disorders Margaret Trudeau does not seem like someone who suffers from bipolar disorder, as she jokes candidly about dinners at 24 Sussex Dr., and speaks openly about meeting Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and their life together.
US: E.C. Glass Graduating Senior Sees Past Her Disability Yes, this article is as bad as you think it is. The witty pun is totally because she is blind, and it’s so amazing that a blind person is graduating from high school. But I include it because people don’t really seem to think these articles exist.
Roger Duke is a Vietnam veteran, a retired Marine lieutenant colonel and a licensed marriage and family therapist. Since 2006, he’s spent at least one weekend a month embedded with a California National Guard unit. Duke, 57, wasn’t deployed with the unit’s soldiers in Iraq and Kosovo, but he’s a trusted face whom the soldiers confide in before and after their deployments. “Some of the best conversations I have with them are at one in the morning in a Humvee during a training exercise,” said Duke, who’s part of a California program designed to help returning Guard and Reserve members by attaching mental health counselors to their units.
Threadbared – Hanky Pancreas: insulin pump accessories and cyborg embodiment [this post was so nuanced and complex and beautifully written that I hesitate to even do a pull quote because I strongly (strongly) encourage you to click through and read the whole thing]
Floeh’s designs permit wearers to make a strategic double-move around camouflage and visibility, simultaneously hiding the pump and drawing attention to its location (i.e., waist, hip, bustline). When I’m in disability-pride mode, I’m troubled by this kind of hiding, following the logic that visibility is good (i.e., wearing the pump on the outside makes us legible, shows the limits of clothes designed for bodies without peripherals, disrupts conventional, hetero feminine gender presentation) and hiding is, well, hiding, with its affective companions: shame, fear, desire for normalcy, willingness to pass.
But visibility is only one tactic among others, and hiding the pump can also be a radical act – especially if it facilitates feeling-good-while-diabetic (for example: the best act in my burlesque repertoire hinges on repurposing a strap-on harness as an under-dress pump-holder; most of the time, my solution to the dress-problem is a jury-rigged system involving a black garter with small cosmetics pouch from Benefit, bra straps, and safety pins to keep things from sliding down my leg – unless I’m already wearing a garter belt). Of course, in the case of hiding or disguising one’s pump, feeling good can also mean feeling closer to a conventional femininity and mythic norm. I don’t want to elide that possibility, but I also return to the reality of living with chronic illness: that we live in a space of contradiction, that we work with what we have & do what we need to do to claim our (sick, cyborg, incurable) bodies as desirable. In my ideal world – one I suspect Floeh wants, too – we’ll recognize thattransformation can (and should) mean more than transforming the pump, or the wearer’s relation to it, to align more closely with a dominant, normate feminine ideal. Creating, enabling, accommodating, and celebrating a multitude of diabetic, cyborg embodiments — and advocating for wider access to the pump (with all of its troubling potential) for those who are uninsured and can’t afford the $6000 price tag — these are the kinds of social transformations that need to happen in conjunction with personal ones.
Only 5% of medical research in the UK is into mental health, despite 15% of disability resulting from disease being due to mental illness. Last week, one of the major research funders, the Medical Research Council, published one of the most up to date reviews of the strengths and challenges of mental health research in the UK. It not only showed that the research that does get funded is world-class but that the UK is well-placed to lead the way in this area. The review concludes that there are several opportunities to fund more research in the UK that would help accelerate progress in developing new treatments, or lead to better ways of preventing mental illness in the first place.
Xcel Energy’s new tiered-rate program [for electricity] began Tuesday. Customers whose lives depend on electricity aren’t given an exception. Xcel users who need electricity 24 hours a day to power oxygen tanks or ventilators have to pay the same usage costs as someone who wastefully keeps on their air conditioning.”That’s what the problem is, it’s basically a surcharge for disability,” said Julie Reiskin, executive director of Colorado Cross Disability Coalition.Reiskin told 7NEWS her organization was never notified by the Public Utilities Commission prior to the tiered-rate system decision. The PUC oversees Xcel.”I was shocked we did not know about it,” said Reiskin. “It’s disturbing that the PUC saw fit to get input from Xcel, but not from the people who are directly affected by this.”
SO. My brother—my clinically depressed brother—was met by police today. You know why? Because he mentioned to his friends that he had suicidal feelings. So what did they do?
CALLING THE POLICE, TELLING THEM WHERE HE WORKS, AND HAVING HIM HOUNDED BY THEM ABOUT HIS PERSONAL FEELINGS IN FRONT OF HIS COLLEAGUES.
I am in tears right now. Enraged tears.
My brother has a mental illness. But he is still an autonomous, competent fucking person. He can make his own goddamned decisions without alleged friends having him hunted down like a fucking criminal.
[and finally, a mystery in which I ask for your assistance! I have seen several blog mentions of this thing – product? service? – called ‘Buddy’ that has a contract with the NHS and is supposed to help people with disabilities and I cannot understand it! Perhaps you can help?]
Buddy is a post-digital social care service that seeks to improve the well-being of people living with long term conditions, and at the same time, reduce the cost of service provision. At the heart of Buddy is a social media radio which lets users broadcast from a physical device, to a range of social media platforms. By using social networks, Buddy extends the community of carers around an individual beyond healthcare professionals, to friends, families and peers. Our idea is to decentralise and socialise care, creating a more people-powered service, where friends and families are working alongside professionals to support individuals, in real time. Co-production is the jargon.
The problem with impeaching someone’s anti-racism based on attendance at a specific march or even public rallies and protests in general is that it assumes that a) attending such events is a more real, valid, and important means of expressing anti-racism than any other means, specifically online and b) that attendance is a feasible option for everyone.
Marching at a rally or attending a protest is all well and good, but it’s not something that is an option for everyone. It’s quite ablist to ask such a question as though the privilege of being able to attend excludes the antiracist work of those who use other venues.
Somewhere between sleep and awake, a new day and last night and tomorrow, like they’re all in a circle around me but I’m somewhere in bed where I can almost read the sentences except they blur away from me, and I keep thinking maybe sleep, maybe this is more sleep except I don’t know if I want more sleep.
I will not bring up my disability, because I don’t talk about it here, except to say that if that part of me appears in a story, it will be as either a clever gimmick (and a chance for a main character to grow as a person) or a sob story (and a chance for a main character to grow as a person). (No, there will never be a main character just like me. Most of the time I think that’s normal, and then I look at, say, SF and think standard-issue straight white guys must have a whole different experience on this issue. How weird would it be, to have basically all mainstream media written for you like that?)
The team, led by a Nobel prizewinning geneticist, found that experimental transplants in mice cured them of a disorder in which they groom themselves so excessively they develop bare patches of skin. The condition is similar to a disorder in which people pull their hair out, called trichotillomania.
Despite their lack of a body, my friends are still quite active in the world of Social Networking which acts on the physical world in much the same way things on our mind do. The contents of the Internet affect the physical world through many of the same processes as the contents of a mind, yet the contents of the Internet as a public mind can affect many more minds, and many more bodies than a private mind.
I’m not an expert in either of these disabilities. But I know enough about ableist jokes to recognize it when I see it: jokes that appropriate experiences and conditions without thought, without care, without any kind of redeeming value beyond a short laugh from a likely mostly able-privileged audience. And that is what both of the above instances look like to me.
I like both of these comics, and I’ll continue reading them. But this synchronicity of ableism was pretty disappointing.
The pressure to be a “Strong Black Woman” plays a huge role in the way many of us were taught to deal with stress. Related to the concept of a “Superwoman”, the “Strong Black Woman” appears to hold everything in her life together seamlessly. Yet, there is often nothing further from the truth.
Disabilities that directly rule out paid work** involve not only medical identity questions, but material consequences, too. Under capitalism, for example, everyone in the working class who is “able” to work — able to try to sell their labor power — is forced to do so in order to survive. People who are unable to work may or may not be sufficiently supported by governments and families, but regardless are often seen as burdens (unlike non-working owning-class people, whose mere existence and proprietorship are supposedly essential to a functioning economy). And so “disability” becomes its own system of distribution and class organization under capitalism. Welfare services help keep permanently unemployed disabled people alive (at least the ones deemed “worthy”), while both stigma and artificial scarcity of benefits help ensure that everybody else keeps working.
Well, I am not internet famous, and I don’t particularly aspire to be internet popular. So I am just going to say this, and I hope you will say it with me: not seriously considering your white privilege when you are repeatedly called on it, and calculatedly using cultural appropriation to make yourself seem marketable and “glamourous” is racism. And deleting comments that call you out on this behaviour is unsurprising, but equally shitty behaviour.
Almost a month ago, Worn Journal posted a condensed version of this interview on their website. It caused quite a stir, being linked everywhere from Jezebel, to Bitch Magazine, to Sociological Images. Today, if you haven’t already seen American Able somewhere in the blogosphere, you can catch it on the TTC in Toronto. And you can read the entire extended interview and article here!
Of interest: 70 books on feminism – note for ableist language throughout the piece. *sigh* And, of course, no books about disability & feminism. However, there are a long list of books there, and I know “what books should I read to get a taste of feminism” is a common question.
A dark body protrudes from the left, with many thin tendrils along it, showing orangey red.
Second-harmonic generation microscopy image of a primary cultured Aplysia neuron stained with the membrane dye DHPESBP. The signal is modulated by membrane potential and was found to be capable of recording action potentials with 0.6 µm and 0.833 msec spatiotemporal resolution. The high-resolution and deep tissue imaging capability of this nonlinear microscopy technique should prove valuable to future electrophysiology studies. (Journal of Neuroscience) [Not entirely sure what all that means, but I find the brain endlessly beautiful and fascinating.]
I am writing this to you because I want you to remember. I want you to remember that you love unicorns and crystals, pinned butterflies and christmas beetles, love hearts and sea shells, sequins and puppy dogs. You feel special you have your ears pierced even though you are only six and you already know Santa isn’t real. You love fairies but don’t tell many people because you are tough and like playing with the boys. You can catch and throw a ball and love to dance. Dressing up will always be your favourite even when you’re big. Even though somewhere deep in side, you are sad, you love a lot and you see beauty everywhere. You are smart and quick and can already talk the tail off a donkey. You question everything and most people do not realise your careful quiet soul. One day, when you are older, you are going to lose your mind.
Pulse Media – For Enlightened White Guys [a useful set of tips for anyone participating in a group in which they have privilege]
5a. Count how many times you put your ideas out to the group.
5b. Count how many times you support other’s ideas for the group.
6. Practice supporting people by asking them to expand on ideas and dig more deeply before you decide to support the idea or not.
7a. Think about whose work and contribution to the group gets recognized. 7b. Practice recognizing more people for the work they do and try to do it more often.
An advocacy group for the disabled today filed a federal civil rights complaint with the Department of Justice over the state’s handling of a drinking water crisis earlier this month. The complaint made by the Disability Policy Consortium says the state wasn’t prepared to adequately respond to the needs of disabled and elderly people when a water main break left nearly 2 million eastern Massachusetts residents under an order to boil their water for several days.
FIRST Lady of Bauchi State, Hajiya Abiodun Isa Yuguda and Founder, Challenge Your Disability Initiative, CYDI, yesterday at 2nd Vanguard Children’s Conference, called on corporate organisations across the country to learn to include children with disabilities in their programmes as part of efforts to show love and care to such group in the society. Addressing the children at summit held as part of exercise to mark this year’s Children’s Day celebration, Mrs Yuguda said children with disabilities should not be left out in programmes, particularly, programmes that would help shape their lives as future leaders.
Nearly 2 million people are waiting to find out if they qualify for Social Security disability benefits. It will be a long wait for most, even if they eventually win their cases. The Social Security system is so overwhelmed by applications for disability benefits that many people are waiting more than two years for their first payment. In Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota and other states, the wait can be even longer.
Penhurst Asylum Archives. No excerpt, just a recommendation to browse the astonishing range of original source documents available at this archive of Penhurst State School and Hospital, which was surrounded by and eventually closed in response to allegations of abuse and neglect. A lawsuit after the facility closed led to a Supreme Court decision establishing that people who are involuntarily confined are entitled to “reasonably safe confinement.” The site is a testament to those who were subject to conditions that nobody could call reasonably safe. There’s some interviews and personal accounts, papers documenting problems at the hospital, and even redacted patient reports.
zvi‘s rules, and that is that complaining about and calling out what you do not like does help, slowly, painfully, get rid of it.
