FWD/Forward: FWD (feminists with disabilities) for a way forward: Page 28

Today in Journalism: You Mean They Can Ride Horses Too?

By s.e. smith on 24 September, 2010

This delicious little story in the Carluke Gazette by Craig Goldthorpe is pretty much your run of the mill profile of a local person with disabilities by a journalist who has no idea what he’s talking about, but, gosh, thinks it’s actually neat! Milena Canning is an equestrian who enjoys riding Clydesdale horses, which isn’t exactly a news item, except for the fact that she’s blind. The story is cringe-inducing, but the real standout in the piece, to me, is the level of astonishment at the idea that a blind person could ride horses. Alas, I can’t pick up a copy in person to read the promised expanded version.

I’ll be sure to tell blind Paralympic athlete Ann Cecile Orr of Norway, who took two silver medals in Sydney in 2000, that she has talents that ‘can’t be believed.’ Likewise, I’m sure the International Blind Sports Federation, which recognises dressage in particular as a sport practiced by blind and visually impaired athletes worldwide, will be interested to know that blind people can’t ride horses. The folks over at Blind Equestrians will be surprised to learn they can’t ride or handle horses and the rapidly expanding Para-Equestrian community should probably be alerted as well, as should therapeutic riding schools that work with blind and visually impaired students, like the Marianna Greene Henry Special Equestrians Program (yes, I know, the name leaves something to be desired) at the Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind.

If there’s one thing I hate, it’s stories in the news about how amazing a disabled athlete is, simply because of the disability. While I think it’s good to profile disabled athletes, for a number of reasons including the fact that it’s important to alert people to the fact that, yes, people with disabilities do engage in sport, articles like this don’t do much to educate people. Goldthorpe could have written about blind equestrian sports and discussed the various adaptations blind riders use to engage in high level competition (people, it does not get much higher than Olympic-level sports, which is what the Paralympics are) instead of engaging in a ‘wow, look at the blind person!’ story. He could have pointed out that the story takes place within the larger context of a long history of disabled athletics.

Like other blind athletes, blind equestrians may work with guides and spotters. Callers are stationed around the ring for sports like dressage (where riders are also expected to memorise their own programmes) and I’d note that nondisabled equestrians also rely on callers and spotters during their own training; many people who have had an opportunity to be around horses probably remember riding while someone else controls the horse with a lunge line, to learn balance, focus on your seat, and get better connected with your horse. Blind and sighted riders have more commonalities than disparities, not just a love for horses and equestrian sport, but shared learning experiences.

I have an interest in equestrian sport and a love for equestrians because I used to ride, although I never reached a very high degree of proficiency. Thus, I tend to look out for stories about horses and riding, and I always watch equestrian events when I can. I love the connection that develops between horse and rider, where a working team can reach a very high level of communication and focus, and many equestrian sports are also just beautiful. Dressage, for example:

(Photo by Flickr user Axel Bührmann, Creative Commons License)

(Photo by Flickr user J.harwood, Creative Commons License.)

Articles like this, with their patronising attitudes about blind athletes, don’t do much to break down social attitudes. They tell readers that the subject of the article is astonishing and send the message that we should gawk at disabled athletes because they are disabled, not because of their athletic abilities. They also don’t leave people with more information; say, for example, information for blind folks about how and where to take riding classes, if they are interested, or information for people interested in watching athletic events. (Of course, given the writer’s level of surprise that a blind person could write horses, I’m guessing he probably doesn’t know there are entire events organised just for disabled riders in general, in addition to events for blind riders in particular.)

There are, of course, dangers to equestrian sport, but those dangers are present for all riders at all levels of ability, and the commonsense steps to address them are the same. Horses used in therapeutic riding programs are trained and handled especially carefully to address concerns about new riders who may not have the experience or the strength to control frightened and nervous horses, and riders, disabled and nondisabled alike, learn about safety as soon as they start handling horses. Riding is dangerous. Skiing is dangerous. Boating is dangerous. People participate in all these sports at all levels of ability because they want to, and find them interesting, and journalism that suggests that sports are just not accessible, or highly unusual, for people with disabilities frustrates me.

It’s not ‘remarkable’ that blind people ride horses and participate in competition, any more so than that anyone rides horses. What’s remarkable is that journalists still can’t be bothered to do any research when it comes to talking about disabled athletes, and still repeat the same old chestnuts in most articles profiling disabled athletes.

Posted in 101, media and pop culture, social attitudes | Tagged blind, blind athletes, disabled athletes, equestrian, sports

Extra Homework for PWDs

By abby jean on 24 September, 2010

I’ve recently gone back to school and today had my first class session. This week has consisted of various orientation activities, meeting the faculty, sessions on academic integrity and what constitutes plagarism, learning about the library and the career services office, all that kind of thing. I’ve finished each day exhausted and unable to do anything more than flop on the couch – as has everyone else in the incoming class.

The first thing the professor did today was say that this was her return to teaching after serving for several years in a university position to increase diversity. The second thing she did was announce her rules for the 3 hour class – no laptops, no cell phones, and no eating. And I cringed. My disabilities don’t really require accommodations for any of those policies. I have the hand strength and fine motor control to take notes by hand, although in the past when I’ve had more problems with muscle tremors, I’m not sure that I would have. I also don’t need a cell phone alarm to remind me to take meds at specific times, or to record the lecture or discussion for me to refer to later. One of the meds I take requires me to keep my blood sugar and salt levels fairly stable, so I sometimes find myself in a crisis and needing to eat something immediately, but I could make sure to eat right before class and keep something in my bag to eat during the 10 minute break if I needed to.

So I’ll be ok – which is good, because just imagining what I would have to go through to get an accommodation made me even more exhausted than I already was. My first step would have been to talk to the professor about the policies and ask for an accommodation. Frankly, I found her somewhat intimidating and not super approachable based on her initial lecture and the idea of disclosing my disability status to her was not exceptionally appealing. If I’d needed the accommodations during the first class session, I would have had to interrupt the entire class to ask to speak with her outside, alerting everyone there to my special needs. She explained to the class that the exclusion of laptops and cell phones was designed to facilitate and encourage class discussion and minimize distractions during the class session, so I can imagine that she might have made an exception to that policy for accommodation needs. But she explained her exclusion of food was because she “didn’t want to hear you chomping on a sandwich,” which would still be a problem if I were eating for disability reasons.

In either case, it would have been immediately and obviously apparent to the other students in class that I had gotten permission to violate the stated policy. Given that the laptop and cellphone ban was not enthusiastically received by any of the students, I am sure I would be questioned about why I got to have a laptop, or why I was special, and why couldn’t they have one too.

But imagine that the professor did not agree to provide an accommodation, or that I needed the support of the Students with Disabilities office to make the request or document my need for such an accommodation. I identified myself as a student with a disability on my application materials, but I believe that information was simply for diversity purposes, rather than identifying me to professors or to the Students with Disabilities office. I would have to call the disability office to schedule an in-person intake appointment. I have no idea if they require documentation of my disability – I don’t have any medical records documenting my diagnosis and so would have to request those from my psychiatrist.

The mere thought of going through all this made me weary.

How could this have been avoided? I think if the professor had announced the policies and then added “if anyone needs disability accommodations regarding any of this, please talk to me during the break or after class.” Signaling awareness of the possibility that students may need accommodations and willingness to discuss and provide those accommodations would have eliminated a lot of my potential concerns in less than 10 seconds of extra time.

As it turns out, I’m dropping the class for other reasons, so I don’t need to follow up on the eating issue. Which relieves me greatly.

Posted in accessibility, normality, othering, policy | Tagged education, school

The Canadian Government Is Going To Court So They Don’t Have To Make Web Content Accessible To Screen Readers

By Anna on 23 September, 2010

[Content Note: Not all of the links I have included in this piece have comments, but many of them do, and those comments are basically full of "Stupid disabled people wasting everyone's time and energy by wanting the world to treat them like human beings" comments.]

If you’ve been following Canadian politics this week, you could very easily come away with the impression that the most significant – or perhaps even the only – thing going on with this week’s opening of the Federal Parliament was the Gun Registry Vote.

That there’s a federal court Charter challenge brought forth by Donna Jodhan arguing that blind Canadians are being discriminated against by the Federal Government for refusing to make their website content accessible to screen readers is not really getting a lot of attention. (Cripples these days! It’s like they don’t sell papers/make page views.)

A little bit of background information first. Canada has a Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which went into effect in 1982 and is the Thing against which laws and the like must be “tested” in order to be considered actually legal in Canada. To give some lovely controversial rulings, the reason Canada has no abortion law is because it was found to violate the Charter’s guarantee to security of the person (and no law has since been passed) and it was found that refusing to include “homosexuals” in protections against discrimination violated Section 15, or the right to Equal Protection Before the Law, even though sexual orientation wasn’t included in Section 15.

Section 15 is the important one here:

15. (1) Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.
(2) Subsection (1) does not preclude any law, program or activity that has as its object the amelioration of conditions of disadvantaged individuals or groups including those that are disadvantaged because of race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.

Now, I Am Not A Lawyer, and it’s been about 10 years since I studied the Charter, so I’m going to leave that out there and not discuss my personal interpretations because they don’t matter. What matters is two things: 1) What the court says and 2) That the Federal Government is arguing that they shouldn’t have to be accessible to screen readers in court.

The latter is, of course, being read as Jodhan wasting tax payers money in a frivolous lawsuit, not the Federal Government for refusing to have accessible content.

From what I can tell, this is what’s going on: In 2004, Jodhan attempted to apply for government jobs online. However, the site wasn’t set up to allow screen-readers to access the site, so she was unable to do so. In 2006, she attempted to fill her Census out online, and again, the federal government website was not accessible to her screen reader.

On Tuesday [September 21], Jodhan will argue in federal court that her inability to apply for a position on the federal jobs website or complete the online version of the 2006 Census breached her equality rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

She will also argue that this violation and her ongoing inability to access the government’s online information and services constitute a breach against all blind and partially sighted Canadians, said Jodhan’s lawyer David Baker.

About 3 million Canadians have visual or other impairments that make it difficult to access the Internet.

The Federal Government is, in turn, is responding with “What, you think you should have a right to access the same information that everyone else can? Ha ha! Ha ha!”:

Internet access to government services and information is not a right guaranteed in law, the government says in its written submission to the court.

“Alternative channels available did allow (Jodhan) to access services and information independently, in a manner that respected her privacy and dignity,” it says.

With more than 120 government departments and agencies and more than 23 million web pages, “it is unlikely that the government’s web presence will ever be perfectly accessible to all,” it adds.

Frankly, if the Federal Government doesn’t think that their websites provide information in a timely fashion, and that access to that information isn’t something that they should prioritize, why are they bothering with them in the first place? And if they do think it’s important, why are they in essence arguing that “It’s important for most people, but not for the three million Canadians who won’t be able to access it?”

I support Donna Jodhan’s fight for equality of access to information for all Canadians. I hope you do, too. If so, I strongly encourage you to email your Member of Parliament and let them know. Perhaps if enough of us contact the government and let them know we value accessibility for Canadians with disabilities, they’ll start acting like we shouldn’t have to go to court just to get it.

This is the email I sent to my MP, who happens to be Megan Leslie, and cc:ed to the leader of the NDP. Please feel free to adapt it to send to your own MP. (This should give you their email address.)

Dear Megan,

I recently learned of Donna Jodhan’s Federal Court case, arguing that the Canadian Government must provide screen-reader accessible content on their websites, as reported in the Toronto Star (http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/863379–blind-woman-says-federal-websites-discriminate-against-the-visually-impaired) and the CBC (http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/09/18/to-blind-accessible-feds.html) In light both Section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and Canada’s recent signing of the Declaration of Rights of Disabled Persons, I’m appalled that the Federal Government would waste tax payers’ dollars in arguing that 3 million Canadians should not have the ability to access government services online or apply for government jobs online.

In this day and age, it’s ridiculous for the government to argue that access to the internet is not necessary. According to the Toronto Star, government lawyers are arguing “Internet access to government services and information is not a right guaranteed in law”. While I agree that this is technically true, in refusing to provide this access, the government is arguing that blind and visually impaired Canadians should have less access to government services and information than Canadians who are sighted.

Megan, every day it is clearer to me how many societal barriers are put in place that prevent people with disabilities in Canada from full participation. The time and energy the federal government is frivolously spending in defending their lack of web accessibility could be far better put to use in bringing the government’s websites up to the same standards as those in other countries, standards that are reasonable to expect in the 21st Century.

This is such an important issue, and I hope that the NDP will work to bring awareness of it to Canadians, and encourage the federal government to stop fighting against people with disabilities, but fighting for them.

Thank you,

Anna P.
cc: Jack Layton

In The News: Toronto Star – UPI – CBC – Globe & Mail

Posted in accessibility, Accessible Tech, activism, anna rants, blaming, disability activism, how to be accessible, justice, make the world a better place, news, normality, othering, policy, politics, signal boost, social attitudes, technology | Tagged canada, canadian

So, When Will You Have the Money?

By s.e. smith on 23 September, 2010

In New Jersey, Disability Rights New Jersey is suing to demand that the state deinstitutionalise almost 2,000 people with developmental disabilities. The advocacy group is arguing the suit on the grounds that the Supreme Court has ruled in favour of deinstitutionalising people with disabilities and allowing us to live in ‘the most integrated setting’ possible; i.e., that we have a right to community-based care. This was established in Olmstead v. L.C., a landmark case for disability rights. In 2009, on the 10th anniversary of the decision, President Obama actually launched an initiative to more actively enforce Olmstead.

This seems like an especially timely matter this week as ADAPT protests in Washington, DC. These protests have gotten essentially no coverage in the media or anywhere else, despite the fact that they deal with some very critical issues. Forcible institutionalisation still happens, it’s a serious problem, and we continue to fight for the right to live in our communities, among our friends and family. Housing discrimination is another major obstacle we encounter; Mia Mingus is documenting her search for accessible housing in Berkeley, widely regarded as a very disability friendly city, on Twitter, and the results are frustrating:

“Well, I mean, it’s not that many stairs. My grandmother’s handicapped and she can do it.”

“Does she really need to be able to get her wheelchair into the bathroom?”

“You’re helping her? Ha. You look like you can barely walk yourself.”

I regularly encounter pushback when it comes to the idea that we belong in our communities, not in institutions. Appealing to basic humanity doesn’t seem to work, and neither does pointing out the economics. It’s cheaper to provide community-based care than it is to warehouse people in institutions. Saying that needless institutionalisation is against the law doesn’t seem to have much of an impact either.

A similar case recently came up in Florida, where Michele Haddad sued for the right to community-based care and won. Haddad was backed by the Department of Justice, which has been cracking down on enforcement of Olmstead and fighting for the rights of people with disabilities in the United States to live in our own communities. When we talk about unnecessary institutionalisation and forced institutionalisation, cases like hers come to my mind; she was effectively told she had to live in an institution if she wanted to get care. So, yeah, she could have ‘chosen’ to do so, but this clearly would have been a false choice, and it was also against her expressed wishes.

So, what’s happening in New Jersey?

New Jersey is too broke to move 1,850 people with developmental disabilities out of institutions in the next five years, so a lawsuit demanding it do so should be dismissed, an attorney representing the state said [yesterday].

Oh. The cost argument comes up a lot when it comes to disability rights. Everything costs too much, whether it’s making a business accessible or providing people with community based care, even when people are provided with evidence to the contrary, like a demonstration that meeting legal obligations (and doing the right thing) will actually be lower cost than the system currently in use. People say it ‘costs too much’ and ‘maybe later’ and we are expected to wait, and we do, until we realise the money’s never coming.

“Every state says ‘we don’t have the money now,’” said Samuel Bagenstos, a deputy attorney general from the U.S. Justice’s Department’s civil rights division.

According to the department, he said, “It’s $70,000 cheaper to serve a person in the community’’ than in an institution. “The state would save money because they could close a wing, a floor, a building.’’

The DOJ is on the case, which is good, because making a federal case (literally!) out of these things is difficult without either deep pockets, or the backing of the federal government. The Civil Rights Division is supposed to represent the government’s interests in civil rights cases and it’s very exciting to see it taking a more active role in disability rights cases.

The story in New Jersey gets better, though. You see, the ‘we can’t pay for it’ defense was actually the second defense presented by the state in an attempt to get the suit thrown out. What was the first? I’m glad you asked.

…that the state cannot be sued and the 20-year-old disabilities act violates states’ rights and should be declared invalid.

This defense was thrown out, which is a very good thing, because we do not want the Americans with Disabilities Act being deemed invalid on the grounds that it violates states’ rights. That would be very, very bad. The ADA is one of the primary mechanisms of enforcement for disability rights in the United States and numerous gains we’ve made legally and socially hinge on this piece of legislation. By making it clear that the sovereign immunity defense won’t fly in this case, the judge also laid the groundwork for throwing out this defense if people try to use it in other states in the future.

The case in New Jersey will proceed to trial, despite the best efforts of the state. The only logical verdict seems clear to me and hopefully it will seem clear to the judge as well.

Posted in autonomy, news | Tagged community based care, deinstitutionalisation, United States

Tell The Discovery Network that their transphobia is unacceptable

By Anna on 22 September, 2010

Late last week, PinkyIsTheBrain on tumblr began a campaign to bring attention to the new Investigation Discovery show “Who the Bleep Did I Marry?”, which equates someone being trans* with being a serial killer, a con artist, or a bank robber.

[Note: If you're unfamiliar with Tumblr, it can be a bit hard to navigate. "Conversations" or comments or follow-up tend to be nested.]

Transcript:

Music plays in background: “Love and marriage, love and marriage”

The video opens on a scene of a wedding in an idyllic location surrounded by trees with an arbor of flowers. The camera zooms in on the bride, who turns and says:

(Marriage officiant in the background): Join this man and this woman in holy matrimony.

First Bride: Five years from now, I’ll find out that he’s a bank robber.

The camera cuts to a different couple, walking under a portico with their backs to the camera. The bride turns to the camera and says “Serial murderer.”

A zoom in on another couple, standing like they are being photographed with their families.
Third Bride (loud whisper): Russian spy!

Another couple, cutting a cake.
Fourth Bride: Cheater. With three other wives.

Another couple, surrounded by a crowd, the bride sitting on a chair while her husband kneels to pull off her garter.
Fifth Bride: And he’s a… a she.

(Gasps)

(Kissing noise.)

We cut back to the original couple, kissing at the altar.

The closing shot is of a fancy black car driving away, trailing ribbons, tin cans, and toilet paper. ‘Who the (bleep) did I marry’ is chalked on the back window.

Marriage Officiant (sounding disgusted): Who the bleed did you marry?

Voiceover: Who the bleep did I marry? All new [episodes?], only on Investigation Discovery.

This is not just a ridiculous comparison, it’s a pretty damned offensive one that equates being trans* with being a serial killer – and once again equates being trans* with lying, which is the same argument that murderers make with they murder trans* people.

FuckYeahFTM looked up the contact information for the Discovery Network, encouraging people to get in touch and point out how bloody offensive and shitty this is:

Here’s more info about the show:

Who The Bleep? [Opens with sound & Video]

The other episodes they have include: Married to An Embezzler, The Biggest Con, Married to a Spy, Married to A Bank Robber

And they are including marrying a transman, or in their words “He is actually a She” on that level, with criminals and murderers.

Discovery doesn’t actually make it easy to contact them with concerns (I had to use a search engine to find the Contact page because it wasn’t anywhere on the Who The Bleep? page), so here’s how I did it:

32. How can I contact you with programming comments or questions?
We welcome your e-mail comments and questions, which you can send to us by clicking here.

This is the most efficient way to contact us. Comments or questions directed to anyone else at Discovery Communications will be forwarded to Viewer Relations, which means it will take us longer to follow up.

You can also write to us at:

Discovery Communications
Viewer Relations
One Discovery Place
5th Floor
Silver Spring, MD 20910

There is actually a lot of “required information” before Discovery will let you contact them. They want your age, your name, what network you’re writing about (Investigation Discovery in this case), post code, Cable provider, program time, and “information needed” (along with several other pieces of non-required information) before you can fill in your comment. I believe it’s five steps before you can tell them what your concern is, the site is very slow (at least for me), and I have no idea how accessible it is. (It does not like my computer at all)

However, reaching out and making it clear to Discovery that this stuff is not okay, that being trans* is not a crime, is not lying, and is not the equivalent of being a “Russian Spy” or a “Bank Robber”, is important, and I hope as many of you as possible will contact them and make that clear.

This is what I wrote, if you are looking for a template:

Hello Discovery Network,

I am disgusted and appalled at your decision to equate being a trans man with being a criminal, a spy, or a murderer. A trans man is not “really a she”. He is a man who married a woman. The decision of your network to “out” someone like this is especially dangerous, as many trans people are murdered for allegedly “faking” or “lying” or otherwise “cheating” their sexual partners.

I hope you will reconsider your decision to air such an exploitive, dangerous, and abusive program.

Again, here is Discovery’s Contact Form. I emailed them last week and have so far received only a form letter, but if we overwhelm them with numbers, surely they have to pay attention, right?

Posted in activism, bodies, gender, intersectionality, make the world a better place, othering, representations, signal boost

Representation: Actors With Disabilities Playing Characters With Disabilities

By s.e. smith on 22 September, 2010

Here in the United States, the 2010/2011 television schedule is kicking off, and my mind naturally turns to representation for people with disabilities. I decided to compile a list of actors with disabilities playing characters with disabilities. This list is not necessarily complete; there are probably characters and shows I am forgetting about and unaware of, and it is entirely possible that actors with undisclosed disabilities are appearing in disabled roles.

One thing I note about this list is that these actors all share disabilities with their characters; we have, for example, Shoshannah Stern, a Deaf actress, playing a Deaf character.

And, although this list is in the US, fans of shows airing outside the US who want to add more representations, please do so!

Michael Patrick Thornton, who has a spinal cord injury, will be returning as Dr. Gabriel Fife on Shonda Rhimes’ show Private Practice. I’ve written about Dr. Fife here before, and I am looking forward to seeing more of him. Evidently he will be returning later in the season because he was working on a play when the first half was being shot.

Luke Zimmerman, an actor with Down Syndrome, will presumably be reappearing as Tom Bowman on The Secret Life of the American Teenager, an ABC Family drama. I haven’t caught very many episodes of this show so I can’t speak to how well the character is depicted, but I do not that Bowman is a sexual character and he appears to be a fairly complex character, rather than a one dimensional stereotype.

The Fox drama Lie To Me has hired Deaf actress Shoshannah Stern (whom I adore after her work on Jericho) for an unspecified number of episodes where she will be appearing as a graduate student assisting Dr. Lightman (Tim Roth) with research. Evidently, her presentation on the show revolves around concerns that because she is Deaf, she will have difficulty doing the work, but Dr. Lightman decides to hire her anyway. I think this storyline could either go really well, or really badly. I guess we’ll find out!

I think it’s safe to assume that both Lauren Potter and Robin Trocki will be reappearing on Glee. Lauren Potter as Becky Jackson has been spotted in some promotionals and an appearance has definitely been confirmed for the season opener. Robin Trocki, playing Jean Sylvester, will presumably show up at some point as well, undoubtedly in another ‘touching’ scene designed to humanise Sue Sylvester.

Long-running CBS hit CSI will be bringing back Robert David Hall as pathologist Al Robbins. One of the things I like about Robbins, although it has been a number of years since I watched CSI, is that he plays a character who happens to disabled, rather than a character who is all about his disability. His disability rarely comes up and while he walks with canes on the show, a big production isn’t made about his disability or how he acquired it.

These representations span the map in terms of how well they depict disability. I think they pretty neatly illustrate that any representation is not necessarily a good representation. However, when you contrast them with roles where nondisabled actors are playing disabled characters, the picture changes; these depictions are fairly positive, while nondisabled actors in disabled roles are not so positive and in some cases heavily criticised for setting depictions of disability back. Clearly the cripface is a problem in these roles, but is that the only thing? Obviously, the writing of these characters is also a major issue, as is the research (or lack thereof) that goes into those roles, and it’s not always clear how much influence actors have on the writing of their characters; is it that shows using disabled actors put in a little more effort?

When we talk about pop culture at FWD, we tend to get a slew of trolling comments claiming that we don’t want to see disability on television at all or that we never want to see nondisabled actors in disabled roles. On the contrary, I want to see more disability on television, I just want it to be good depictions. Since the bulk of the good depictions are played by disabled actors, it begs the question: Can nondisabled actors appear in good depictions of disability, or are there inherent barriers that just make it impossible? Are there some depictions of disability played by nondisabled people that stand out in your mind as good depictions?

Posted in 101, creative work, media and pop culture, television | Tagged CSI, depictions of disability, disabled actors, disabled characters, glee, Lie To Me, private practice, The Secret Life of the American Teenager

ADAPT Protests partially lock-down White House! Media Yawns, Changes Subject

By Anna on 21 September, 2010

I spent most of my weekend pretty much glued to Twitter following ADAPT’s latest action in Washington, DC and wondering where the media was, especially after a huge group of wheelchair users blockaded one of the White House gates and 16 people were arrested. I actually thought that the White House security arresting a group of people with disabilities would surely be the sort of thing that the media would pick up on.

Foolish me! Just like with the Arnieville protests that s.e. wrote about last week, the media is basically ignoring this four-day-long protest in Washington in favour of more important things. Despite repeated hunts by me and several other people, the only mention of the protest, “partial White House lockdown”, arrests, and march is this CNN report, which only quotes White House staff and the ADAPT webpage. Apparently CNN couldn’t even find someone from ADAPT to quote directly. (Also, the photos of the event that ADAPT have posted make it clear that CNN’s report is factually inaccurate.)

[If you would like to read NationalADAPT's tweets, a good place to start is their September 18th tweet, and just keep going from there. Their timeline includes a variety of photos taken of the event, and also will point you towards other tweeters that were there.]

ADAPT has been protesting at the White House at least once a year (sometimes twice a year) since 1997, and has been holding protests in other cities across the US for 25 years. The focus of their protests for the last 11 years has been the Olmstead Decision and the Community Choice Act.

Eleven years ago, in the Olmstead decision, the Supreme Court said that Americans with disabilities have the right to live in the most integrated setting. Yet today, states are responding to budget shortfalls by drastically cutting home and community-based services. These draconian cuts are forcing seniors and people with disabilities into nursing facilities and other institutional settings because they don’t have the services they need to remain independent.

On Sunday, ADAPT held a funeral, complete with casket, to both mourn and bring attention to the number of people with disabilities who have died in nursing homes around the country while fighting to get out of them. Monday involved marching directly on the White House. While CNN reports that 9 people handcuffed themselves to the White House gates, the ADAPT photos and Reports make it clear that far more than 9 people were involved in this action.

The Park Police had closed the sidewalk and street in front of the White House around 10 in the morning as ADAPT approached. When the police used an SUV to block ADAPT and the sidewalk, the bulk of ADAPT charged into the intersection of 15th and G Streets stopping traffic completely. The police had believed they had successfully stopped the line of activists when suddenly all the traffic was stopped and the intersection was packed with activists.

“The people they thought were meek or expendable,” said Jennifer McPhail about the police force, “were the people who had taken their power.”

While ADAPT’s actions continue today across Washington, DC, members who are required to attend court this morning after being arrested have been illegally challenged at the court to produce documentation for their service animals, and need to bring attention to ADA violations to the very people one would expect to be enforcing the ADA.

When a local Washington paper was challenged on their decision not to report anything about the ADAPT protests, their response was first that they don’t cover national protests and then, when it was pointed out this was also a local protest, that it was a matter of debate, and there were protests every day in DC. Other media sources haven’t responded to questions about their lack of coverage.

I do understand this, to a point. Certainly I’ve attended protests that have received very little media coverage, and most of that in either local papers or in grass roots news organizations. However, at what point do we start to seriously question why multi-day – or, in the case of Arnieville, multi-week – protests by people with disabilities are getting ignored? The ADAPT actions have decades of history, and touch on issues that are hot-button topics in the US right now, such as health care, funding for social programs, and the standard of living.

And yet, still, despite everything: we protest, and are ignored.

Posted in activism, autonomy, disability activism, events, i'm right here, invisibility, justice, make the world a better place, news, policy, politics, resistance, social attitudes

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