Blog [with]tv

Best Advocacy - Be Seen in Public with PWDs You Know

Commentary by Howard Renensland, Founder/CEO of [with]tv:
"I saw Timothy Shriver recently. While I admire the work he and his family have done and continue to do and  respect his intent to eliminate the use of the words 'Retard' and 'retarded' as in, "what are you, a retard?", "Hey, retard", "OMG, that is so retarded." I just don't believe it is the most effective approach.

Let's face it - when someone is hitting you, does asking them to stop usually do the trick? We need to go out with our loved one, family member, friend, etc. who is developmentally disabled, intellectually disabled or - my choice - a person with disabilities. Go with them everywhere. Work, worship, shopping, leisure etc. The more people see and meet them, the less likely they will be to think, talk or act disrespectfully, because in knowing them comes respect.

The harm that these words do - 'retard', 'intellectually disabled/challenged', 'developmentally disabled', etc.- is in the labeling which is not apt. My own daughter has intellectual skills and deficits all over the place; yet she continues to seek knowledge, is curious about all things, and acquires knowledge, information and experiences hourly.  Many, many people I know who are not labeled operate in society without being singled out, but truly have not had a new, kind, thought about PWDs since middle school.  Not to make fun of them - who of us is perfect? Who of us does not do things each day that are ill conceived, short-sighted, unfortunate, misguided, ignorant, cruel, or mean-spirited? Such is the human condition. But hopefully, at the end of the day we have also done kind, thoughtful and supportive things.

Love your loved one with a disability. Share them with the world, don't exclude them. Share them. Only then will the community as a whole progress as it can. And I mean the whole world community, not just those of us with loved ones with a disability or disabilities of our own.

[with]tv needed in China. STAT.

Dr. Mark Mostert, host of the blog Disability Matters, recently wrote:

Well, well, well.

A day or two ago, London’s Times reported that official, but curious, Chinese attitudes towards people with disabilities have surfaced in the run-up to this summer’s Olympics, and, perhaps more unfortunately, for the World Paralympics also scheduled for Beijing in September.

It turns out that the official Olympic guide for both events, “Skills for helping the disabled,” distributed to 100,000 Chinese volunteers, contains a curious mix of plain old prejudice and plain old ignorance.

Read on:  Disability Dust-Up in Beijing

ADA Restoration

ADA Restoration Headed to House Markup on Wednesday 
ADA Restoration Moves Forward in the House 
Disability, civil rights and employer groups are working hard to secure support for the negotiated legislated language that has been circulated on JFA and now has the support of more than 50 national and 60 state and local disability groups, the US Chamber of Commerce, the Society for Human Resource Management, the National Association of Manufacturers, the Human Resource Policy Association, and a growing list of companies, including McDonalds, General Motors and Honeywell. Lobbying on the House side for this negotiated deal began in earnest yesterday, focused on the members of the House Education and Labor Committee and the House Judiciary Committee (which also plans to mark up the bill next Wednesday).

To avoid confusion with the bill that was introduced last July, we have begun referring to the negotiated legislation as the ADA Amendments Act. In anticipation of next week's markup, we are working to counter any efforts in either committee to attach an ADA notification requirement to the bill, a cause that was championed in prior Congresses by Representative Mark Foley of Florida and that is strongly opposed by the disability-civil rights employer coalition working to enact the ADA Amendments Act. We are also working hard to secure White House and Senate Republican support for the negotiated bill.

:::TAKE ACTION:::
At this point, it looks like the bill will receive strong bipartisan support in the committee markups in
the House. We have included a list of the members of the House Education and Labor Committee and the House Judiciary Committee below. 

·      Contact Members on the House Education & Labor Committee and the House Judiciary Committee between now and Wednesday morning and urge them to support the bipartisan negotiated language that will become the Chairman's mark in both committees. The names are below.

Locate the Members' contact information online, or call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-1904 (V) / (202) 224-3091 (TTY) and ask to be connected to their offices by name. 

·      If you haven't already, consider having your organization "sign on" to the proposed deal language by sending an email to Anne Sommers, JFA Moderator, at [email protected]. Support of the deal language means you not only approve of its language and terms, but that you also agree to defend it against all attempts by Members of Congress to amend it--unless both sides agree to the amendments.

We will continue to share the list of organizational support with Members of Congress as ADA Restoration moves forward in both the House and Senate in coming weeks. 

·      Attend the markup! The House Education and Labor Markup is scheduled for Wednesday, June 18th, at 10:00 in the Rayburn building, Room 2175. Advocates are encouraged to show their support through numbers. The accessible entrance to the building is the main entrance with the horseshoe drive off South Capitol Street.

Parents of Children with Disabilities Want Us to Know...

Ruth, of The Wheelie Catholic has placed a link to a short YouTube video by Javier Prato "where parents of children with disabilities talk about their concerns and also their joys."

Crimes Against People with Disabilities

Crimes Against People with Disabilities: A brand new blog and A Place to Tell It Like It Is 

 

In 2002 Professor Mark Sherry, then at the University of California, published an intriguing article about the grievous underreporting of hate crimes against people with disabilities in the United States.

The most important dimension of this piece resides in the FBI’s suggestion that hate crimes against the disabled are statistically negligible. The findings of an accompanying study by the UC Berkeley’s program in disability studies suggest that police and law enforcement officials are often reluctant to categorize crimes against people with disabilities as hate crimes because officers aren’t sufficiently trained to identify biased based crimes. Additionally, it is easier to classify a crime as simple assault.

Alas, not much has changed in the six years since this article was published even though disability rights advocates have continued to point out the seriousness of this underreporting problem.

The aim of this blog is to give people with disabilities and their fellow advocates a place to publicly record narratives of abuse against PWDs. These narratives might be first person accounts or associated stories drawn from the news media or the internet. They might be links to blogs or links to announcements concerning public policy and law enforcement initiatives aimed at addressing these problems. Other posts might include articles or bibliographies about these issues.

Above all else it’s safe to say that the gathering of this information will be timely.

Cross-posted on Planet of the Blind

The Price of a Lack of Sensitivity

By now you may be well aware of this story: Steak & Shake Denies Service to "A Deaf Mom"

Keep an eye on Karen's blog - A Deaf Mom Shares Her World - for updates and statements from both parties involved.  Here is the most recent, and very interesting post regarding the power of "word of mouth" or in this case, the "power of bloggers" to draw attention to things that matter.  The executives at Steak & Shake must be "shaking" - in more ways than one.

“Listening to customers must become everyone’s business. With competitors moving ever faster, the race will go to those who listen (and respond) the most intently”

--Tom Peters, Thriving in Chaos
(Managing Knock Your Socks Off Service)

Unbelievable

Speaking of disability in the media, by now you're probably quite aware of the Brian Sterner video in which he can be seen being "dumped" out of his wheelchair by a disbelieving officer from the Hillsboro County Sheriff's Department.  I won't post the video here.  If you haven't seen it yet you can view it on the Rolling Rains Report, where Dr. Scott Rains has also posted numerous links covering this story.

Today I stumbled on a post that referred to Brian Sterner as a "dumbass" who, it would seem in the view of the author of this particular post, kind of had it coming to him.  My words, not his.  This blogger acknowledged that it was inappropriate to dump "the cripple" out of his wheelchair, but in a way he couldn't blame the deputy who did it.  Apparently Mr. Sterner was not on his best behavior that day.

"To quote JJ 'its always the dumbasses who get abused by cops and get paid big money. why cant the cops abuse someone nice?' "

Oh no.  Could it be that this media focus on Brian Sterner is nothing more than a lost opportunity?  Is it being wasted on him?  If only he had "behaved" that day.  If only he wasn't such a "*#*&%@*" 

Perhaps it would have been better if the cameras had been rolling on Ruth when she, the Wheelie Catholic, had her wheelchair pulled out from underneath her and broke bones in both her wrists as a result.  No, apparently Ruth was no angel that day either.  As nice as Ruth is, she apparently  "chose to move" too slow as she so often does.  I guess Ruth wouldn't make the perfect victim either.

Let's hope someone really nice, someone really innocent, gets abused by the cops - and soon.  Then maybe he or she can sue, "get paid big money", and give us all reason to be appalled.   THEN all this media attention will be justified, don't you think?  And we'll all feel better, wont' we?