Blog [with]tv

Lives Worth Living On PBS: Independent Lens, October 27

Click the following links for details of the recent PBS program, Lives Worth Living, which aired on Thursday October 27th, a compelling documentary on the disability rights movement, and its profiles of courageous people in the Independent Lens series.

Trailer for Lives Worth Living     Photos and Press Kit for Lives Worth Living

The Emerging Disability Industry: Purchasing Power On The Rise

From MediAbility Factsheet: An Impressive Emerging Market by Vince Staskel, MS, VPS MediAbility Consulting, and retired Legal Rights Advocate in IDEA, ADA, SSA Claimant Legal Representation, and Media Arts Inclusion. He is very active in the promotion of performers-with-disabilities in the entertainment industry:

As baby boomers age, and we see an inclusive media ascendency of performers, producers, writers, and filmmakers coupled with an emerging disability media industry, there is huge marketing potential.
Recent disability marketing statistics reveal that of the 54 million persons with long-term disability:

     - 73% are the heads of households
     - 46% are married
     - 58% own their own homes
     - 77% have no children
     - 48% are principal shoppers

The aggregate income of persons-with-disabilities tops $1 trillion. As the disability marketing statistics show, this is more purchasing power than the pre-teen and teen markets combined. Including families of pwds, companies can reach four out of ten consumers in the disabled community.We are very confident there is a bright future developing here.

First and foremost, we must utilize and advertise to the pwd community. Although the recent 2009 Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) report of $1 trillion a year in spending has been criticized as “happy fluffy numbers” because it included family and friends, that should be the point of the study. Disability appending DOES include family and friends.They are 

Property Tax Forgiveness as a Means of Promoting Social Inclusion

From a post by Gary Norman, Commissioner of the Maryland Civil Rights Commission -

Accessible parking, seating and restrooms at theaters, curb cuts, and an ever-increasing presence of assistance dogs in public venues constitute but a few examples of the outcomes of a “comprehensive declaration of equality”which the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, as amended, and its corollary statutory schemes have enacted in the several states. 

The majority of people with or without disabilities desire to be integral to the social fabric of their community, to age in place within their homes and to participate in the social life of their neighborhoods. The 2010 survey entitled, The ADA, 20 Years Later, revealed that people with disabilities still constitute the poorest members of our communities, bereft of equal opportunities for living, learning, and earning. My concise set of thoughts, following, will provide one strategy to ensure that people with disabilities of any age and older adults who may not self-identify as being disabled have the same access to these fundamental privileges, fostering their inclusion in communities.

In the experience of this attorney and Civil Rights Commissioner with a disability, there is continued need for translation of this law enacted 21 summers ago into practice in a way that maximizes the integration of the largest and poorest minority population in our neighborhoods, people with disabilities.  Read more ....

ADAPT Talks Medicaid Reform with The Gang of Six; Visits White House

Washington,D.C. --- May 4, 2011 - 300 members of ADAPT, the national disability rights grassroots organization, visited the U.S. Senate Gang of Six: the six Senators currently shaping the country's budget for fiscal year 2012.  The four day event included the arrest of 101 ADAPT members in the Cannon and Longworth House Office Buildings.

In ADAPT's view, reforming Medicaid long term care spending encompasses several factors. It is paramount to eliminate the institutional bias by mandating that a state can and should spend funds on community-based services and supports. Next, the federal government should take leadership in pushing to rebalance Medicaid long term care spending away from institutional settings and emphasize community based services. Also, making enormous cuts to Medicaid and block granting Medicaid to the states, as under the House-approved "Ryan Plan," would be a disastrous strategy for services that support people with disabilities all over America.

"The Senate has got to take counteractive measures against the damaging provisions of the Ryan Plan," said David Wittie, an organizer with ADAPT of Texas.  "We know that they are eyeballing Medicaid reform ...."  Read the full Press Release. View the photo gallery.

ADAPT is a national grass-roots community that organizes disability rights activists to engage in nonviolent direct action, including civil disobedience, to assure the civil and human rights of people with disabilities to live in freedom.

Disability and Language: a NY Times Article Review

This comment was left on a post by William Peace on his blog, Bad Cripple.   Therextras wrote " Thank you for an excellent expose of a typical media dissemination of language and attitudes we would like not only to reform but squelch. I hope you sent some response directly to the newspaper." 

Team [with]tv would like to second that remark.

Here is an excerpt from William's post. 

Monday, May 12, 2008

Disability and Language

Yesterday a long article appeared in the New York Times entitled "Taking a Chance on a Second Child". The article was written by Michael Winerip, a Pulitzer Prize wining writer. Mr. Winerip is a seasoned reporter, graduate of Harvard University and a gifted writer. Yet a day later I remain stunned and outraged by the language Winerip used. The article in question is about Jordana Holovach, her son Jacob who is severely disabled, and her decision to have a second "healthy" child.

The tone of Winerip's article is shocking. Each and every mention of disability is overwhelmingly negative. The language is antiquated, insulting, and devalues the life of a child and by extension all disabled children and adults. Among the snippets I found particularly appalling include the following:

In referring to Ms. Holovach's son: "And as much as she loves that boy and as hard as she's worked to make him whole...she felt snake bit"

Ms. Holovach's son is "confined to a wheelchair".

Ms. Holovach's son was responsible for her divorce: "Her first marriage ended in divorce under the strain" and "Jacob was a big reason".

Before Ms. Holovach's son was born "they were successful people" (note tense).

Oh don't stop here.  Keep reading, there is more....

Then stop by Patricia E Bauer's blog for this additional link.

 

Sandbox Lessons

Thank you, David, for sharing this with us:

I was listening to the song, “You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught” from the musical South Pacific. The song asserts that children are not born racist, they must learn to be racist. I think that same truth applies to ableism. Children are not born believing that some differences make a person inferior; they have to be taught. It's easy to see how Jerry Lewis’s Muscular Dystrophy Telethon, inaccessible buildings, overt discrimination, or the common use of words such as "retard" or "cripple" teach ableism. It is more challenging to realize that even well-intentioned people, themselves products of the culture we live in, can inadvertently foster the ableist paradigm in children.

My mom remembers a telling story that took place on an ordinary day many years ago. My two sisters and I were about 4 years old at the time (we’re triplets) and were playing in our backyard sandbox. It was a warm, sunny summer afternoon. My sisters were running back and forth between the sandbox and the hose to get water for our sandcastles. I was lying on my stomach, as I often did, playing in the sand with my hands, my shovel, and my truck. We were laughing and having fun.

The Naysayers

Written by: Ruth Harrigan 

We all know them. People who tend to be negative, who have difficulty thinking outside of the box, who go around, consciously or unconsciously, squelching dreams, ideas and visions.

I call them the Naysayers.

I’ve encountered a few of them in my own life and many more in the lives of the people for whom I advocate. Many of the phone calls I get are peppered with accounts of the effecct of Naysayers in the lives of pwd. From the kid with cerebral palsy trying to get his own apartment to the twenty something blind woman highly degreed and encountering employment discrimination, their stories are the same. Naysayers try to squelch their goals.

I tell them one simple thing: don’t let them. Don’t even listen to the list of reasons why you can’t do things. Keep being resourceful and creative. For every Naysayer, you will meet someone who supports your goals.

I can promise you that - even if sometimes that person has to be the one you look at in the mirror.

Here’s how to spot a Naysayer. Unlike someone who is an Ally and is trying to present sound suggestions or a balanced view of things (i.e. a reality check), their remarks tend to be one sided and close off all opportunities. They say things like:

“You can’t do that!” (a variant: “You shouldn’t do that!)
“Do you think you’re going to be the first (quad or fill in the blank) to pull that off?”
“You need to understand that not being able to (fill in the blank) is part of being disabled.”
“You’d be easier to be around if you would just accept that this is what is like living with a disability.”
“It’s selfish of you to want to do (fill in the blank) since it creates work for everyone else.”
“It would be so much easier if you would give up on (fill in the blank). Can’t you see that?”
“I hope after this last disapointment you see that you’re never going to be able to (fill in the blank).”

And so on.

Spotting Naysayers and dealing with them, whether they are teachers, employers, doctors, nurses, colleagues, family members, friends or others, is a great step toward removing barriers that will keep you from achieving what you want. Once you can see the difference between someone who is an ally and someone who is a naysayer, your support system will grow and nourish you no matter what your personal goals are.

Copyright 2007 Ruth Harrigan

Cross-posted on A Different Light

When a Man Loves a Quad

Written by: Ruth Harrigan

One of the negative attitudes toward the disabled I encounter socially is when I'm dating an able bodied man and someone assumes he's doing it out of pity or some misguided reason. (I also hate when I'm dating a disabled man and people say we're "cute together". Oh please.) People with disabilities are not asexual. Nor are we "less than" in terms of a catch, if you must think of it that way. (I hate talking about these things. It reminds me of awkward high school dances.)

Both before and after I acquired my disability, I've dated able bodied and disabled men. I never thought of it that way - putting people in categories. I dated a guy in college who was blind so I learned about radar canes and braille and such. We loved going out to dinner and theaters. When I dated an amputee, I learned about prosthetic legs. They, like the able bodied men I dated, had their own way of doing things in life. I don't see the difference if it happens to be about a piece of assistive equipment or a resourceful way to do something because of a disability. How is that any different from the able bodied man I dated who would only drive into New York city on one route and park in one parking lot? It was his way of doing things. Actually that was different - he was just being stubborn. But you get my point.

It's very difficult to write about this. There are a lot of bad memories-like the times when I've been at a social function with an able bodied man and another woman sidles up next to my wheelchair and asks "How did you catch him?" and I smile politely until she adds "with you in a wheelchair?" Or the people who ask him - or me- intrusive questions like whether I can have sex. Then there are the able bodied boyfriend's friends or family members who talk to me privately and suggest that I break up with him and not be "selfish so I don't ruin his life".

No, it's not easy to talk or write about this kind of thing from the point of view of the person who is being seen as the deficit. Much of it is like a quick hit and run where you don't even want to deal with the insurance company at all and prefer to take a hammer to the fender, bang it back in and pretend the accident never happened. But this behavior needs to be addressed just like other attitudes toward the disabled that continue to lurk around.

These attitudes come from a negative way of seeing the world - and disability. It says that a person with a disability is less than an able bodied person and a deficit as a partner. (When they refer to you as a "special someone", they don't mean it in a good way at all.) You might hold him back or, worse yet, "drag him down with you".

Into what? Where are we going? Where is all this fear coming from and where is it all taking us? Not toward inclusion. Not toward a vision of the world where all people are treated with dignity and respect. It is up to us to work out the boundaries and issues surrounding our relationship - the give and take and the reciprocity. This is the same as it is in all relationships. For those who assume that an able bodied person will become a burdened caregiver, I can only say this shows an exquisite lack of imagination as to the myriad possibilities that can be worked out. It exaggerates the situation in a negative way.

And if I have to be the special someone to say this, I will : jokes, sarcasm, crude and rude remarks, busybody interference and other misbehaviors are not only ableist but disrespectful of my autonomy and the autonomy of the man who loves me - as a quad

Cross-posted at Wheelie Catholic