Monday, February 3, 2014

March 1 Vigils


"Saturday, March 1st, the disability community will gather across the nation to remember disabled victims of filicide--disabled people murdered by their family members or caregivers."

I think this is really important. If it works and people hear about it who don’t know about or think about these things, it will shock them, in a good way.

I’m the sort of person who wants to understand why people do terrible things like school shootings and murder-suicides. Condemning “evil” people isn’t something I can relate to most of the time. But that doesn’t mean I have sympathy for people who do horrible things, even if I can understand bits ad pieces of what brought them there. I think that people who think about or carry out murdering disabled spouses or children are typically victims of a combination of ingrained prejudice and institutional failures to support people who need support.

That said, when news stories telegraph the idea that these crimes are somehow more “understandable” that other murders, and then fail to question why people become so desperate, they leave the impression that it’s the disabilities that are intolerable, not the lack of support.

Plus, I don’t think we can discount the fact that at least some of the people who do these things are, for all intents and purposes, “evil” … angry, above all, that their lives have been “ruined” by “defective” relatives.

P.S.: I am really admiring the Autistic Self Advocacy Network these days. Along with ADAPT and Not Dead Yet, they are becoming a really effective team addressing the ableism in society that really matters most.

Photo Of The Day

Man with muscular upper body, lifting hand weights, while sitting in purple wheelchair, lit up underneath
From the mitos Tumblr blog, via Independent And Visible.

Light Blogging Notice / Keeping It Simple

I’m working on another grant application for my local Independent Living Center, so my posting may be light this week. For today, I just want to share a priceless little post by one of my favorite Tumblr bloggers, wheeliewifee. She’s responding to someone who asked about who should or shouldn’t use accessible bathroom stalls:
"The accessible bathroom question has a very simple answer and I think that’s why I get so impatient with receiving it over and over: If you need it, use it. If you don’t need it, stay out.
I’m not a doctor. I have no idea whether a person [is] capable of shitting in a regular stall. So people need to have a conscience, be a grown up, and figure it out for themselves!”
Sometimes it’s a relief when someone just cuts to the chase. I mean, a lot of these disability issues aren’t that complicated folks, and frankly, some of us who have disabilities are the ones that make them more complicated than they need to be.