cripchick’s weblog

Although many people do not know that the disability community holds the record for the longest occupation of a federal building, today marks the 31st anniversary of the 504 sit-ins.

I love celebrating 504 because it is a reminder of what can be done when people with all sorts of disabilities come together. Interdependence is the truest form of freedom and we must always make time to celebrate the times we come together and are victorious.

Happy 504!!!

(photo from DREDF. Many people with wheelchairs are present and a sign language interpreter is on the right. These activists are sitting outside of the HEW building)

An excerpt from the victory speech given by Ed Roberts:

We have to begin to think very clearly, that what we need to do is help raise the consciousness of our fellow Americans with disabilities, to help them come out from behind, from the back wards, from the institutions, from the places, the garbage heaps, of our society. We have to stop the warehousing, the segregation, of our brothers and sisters. We have a long way to go. But we have one giant step ahead.

Together we have achieved something that relatively few people achieve in their lives. We have learned more than anything else, about each other, about how much we love each other, and that commitment, that dedication to each other, will carry through the rest of our lives.

We have begun to ensure a future for ourselves, and a future for the millions of young people with disabilities, who I think will find a new world as they begin to grow up. Who may not have to suffer the kinds of discrimination that we have suffered in our own lives. But that if they do suffer it, they’ll be strong and they’ll fight back.

And that’s the greatest example, that we, who are considered the weakest, the most helpless people in our society, are the strongest, and will not tolerate segregation, will not tolerate a society which sees us as less than whole people. But that we will together, with our friends, will reshape the image that this society has of us.

We are no longer asking for charity. We are demanding our rights!

To find out more about the 504 sit-ins, check out NPR’s article. They also have many videos and pictures.

A few months ago, I wrote a post about individualism and our culture’s need to have a hero. After this post, I talked to YD about Justin Dart [considered to be father of the Disability Rights Movement] and found out that as much as we put him on a pedestal and beg, pray, and wish for another leader like him, he wasn’t about that. She shared this quote with me and told me different stories where he was constantly emphasizing community in a personal and political way:

“The notion that any one person is the single cause of any significant social change-that Abraham Lincoln alone freed the slaves-is a devastating stereotype which robs individuals of responsibility and credit, and actually inhibits social change.”
—Justin Dart

I then saw this video on Slant Truth’s page and this commentary about Dr. King titled Why is the Only Good Civil Rights Leader a Dead One?. The video is about 10 things Dr. King said that you haven’t heard. I am reminded how our society and our educational system twist these people into a new myth that is often not what they were originally about.

Even radical concepts— like disability pride in a world that says disability is ugly— are watered down into completely messages to promote other agendas, like mainstream inclusion and other things that can be important but use pride just as one tool instead of a lifestyle change. A friend, who is an Obama fan, and I had a conversation last night about Barack Obama as a celebrity. I haven’t totally pinned down my feelings on this but as I watched the Yes I Can video over and over last night at 2 am and was inspired (which is what it’s supposed to do), it made me uncomfortable that Si Se Puede was used without any historic mention of it (is that any different from appropriation?). And it’s more than just appropriating a term or phrase, it’s the idea that voting in a new president is revolution though his policies are identical as Clinton’s and as a politician he is not in a position to really create really militant change. Though I support Obama and will vote for him in our May primary, it really worries me about the after effects of having a politician masquerading as a community organizer and using the mantra of real change as a means to get him in office. What will happen if he loses or doesn’t deliver the change people have been promised?

I like what Grace Lee Boggs wrote here:

To build the movement for change will not be easy. The challenges we face demand profound changes not only in our
institutions but in ourselves. To become part of the solution,we must recognize that we are a large part of the problem. That means we can’t leave it all to Obama. Instead of being followers of a charismatic leader,we must be the leaders we’ve been looking for. This is the best way to make Obama less vulnerable to corporate funders and lobbyists. It is also the best way to protect him from the assassins who gunned down so many charismatic leaders in the 1960s.

500 ADAPT members are in Chicago protesting the American Medical Association (AMA), Illinois state government, and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) to stop the trampling of civil rights for people with disabilities. They are protesting for the thousands of disabled people incarcerated in nursing homes against their will. ADAPT is a nonviolent, direct-action disability rights organization.

Check out the news coverage of the protest at the AMA at WGN and live coverage at Not Dead Yet. The Roving Activist and the people at FRIDA are both in Chicago protesting with ADAPT.

A lot of people don’t think the institutional bias is a real issue, although thousands are incarcerated in nursing homes against their will. These people trust the medical establishment [industry] enough to believe that everyone in nursing homes needs to be there for medical reasons and that it has nothing to do with society’s patronizing views or the large, lobbying nursing home complex. Many people in institutions are simply there for personal care services that they could receive in their homes and want to.

One of my best friends, a 22 y/o disabled woc living in my town, had to live in a nursing home last year simply because after being exploited by her fosterhome, she had nowhere to go and was on a looooooooooong list for housing and personal care services. The institution she lived in was horrible— definitely not the pretty retirement place people like to picture when shipping their older parents off. My friend’s story is common; people are instantly put in nursing homes by the stroke of a doctor’s pen or a lack of services. I have another friend (again disabled woc in her 20s) living in this same town, who is in an abusive home but knows she can’t move out yet because of the gap there would be in personal care services. She would have no other option but to live in a nursing home while on the personal care services and housing list. (more…)

“The very human desire for cures . . . can never justify a television show that reinforces a stigma against disabled people.” –Evan J Kemp

Jerry Lewis is the host of the Muscular Dystrophy Association’s Annual Telethon, a telethon that occurs every Labor Day to raise funds for cures by using disabled people as posterchildren. Disabled people protest the telethon because of its outdated, negative portrayal of disabilities. These images that the telethon promotes sticks in people’s minds and continually serve as a barrier for disabled people. Disability is not the problem, but rather the attitudes and barriers that society places on us.

What can we do? Protest. Write a Letter to the Editor. Tell people about the charity, medical, and social model of disability. Blog. Kara and I, along with the Disability Activist Collective (website coming soon) are organizing a campaign against the telethon and the charity model of disability. We need bloggers (not only disability bloggers but all! feminist, queer, woc, environmentalist, activists, great time to build alliances) who will agree to write about this! The campaign will work much like a blog carnival and will be heavily publicized in listservs and other sources of media. We encourage you to participate! To participate, please a comment or email us a consciouslycrip@gmail.com We will be announcing the campaign on Thursday via media and will tell them to check the website postings on Monday. The campaign will be posted on Kara’s site.

Here are more links you can check out to find out more:

• “When I sit back and think a little more rationally, I realize my life is half, so I must learn to do things halfway. I just have to learn to try to be good at being a half a person … and get on with my life.” –Jerry Lewis on what disability must be like.
• “People with disabilities are proud citizens, not objects of pity! We will not stay in our houses. We will protest the Jerry Lewis Telethon this Labor Day!” —cripcommentary.com
• The Kids Are Alright!
• “Pity? [If] you don’t want to be pitied because you’re a cripple in a wheelchair, stay in ya house!”—Jerry Lewis

A template letter the Disability Activist Collective wrote for you to use:

To the editor,

We write in protest of the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA)’s Labor Day telethon. The telethon is based off of the ableist idea [discrimination shown by favoring people who are not disabled] that people with disabilities are tragic victims. The disability community refers to this as the charity model of disability because it categorizes disabled people as nothing more than the objects of pity.. As people with disabilities, we do not need pity. We want and deserve equal access to public space and services and respect as fully participating members of society.

Many non-disabled people believe that exploiting people with disabilities on TV (through actions such as this telethon) is okay, as long as the funds go to “helping” to find a “cure.” We want the world to hear directly from us. We want the world to know that no amount of money can make pity and discrimination okay. Our society would not promote a cure for gender or race; why is disability any different? We fight for disability to be viewed as a natural part of life and not as something that needs to be changed.

With disability pride!!

Disability Activist Collective