If you are disabled, then your judgement and objectivity can't be trusted. On the other hand, if you demonstrate sound judgement and express sensible ideas, then you must not be truly disabled, which means that your ideas about disability aren't relevant to actual disabled people.
Tuesday, November 11, 2014
Monday, November 10, 2014
Losing A Teacher
Steven E. Brown, Disability Visibility Project - November 10, 2014
“Mouth” magazine was one of my first introductions to disability culture and what we might roughly term “radical” disability philosophy, back when I was a new staff member at a Center for Independent Living. Along with the somewhat similar “Disability Rag” / “Ragged Edge", Lucy Gwin’s “Mouth” is where I discovered that disability rights and awareness are about more than a few ramps and superficial acceptance. In the newsprint pages of these two pre-Web journals, I learned:
- Why, exactly, nursing homes and other institutions are terrible, not just distasteful. They not only rob residents of their full humanity, they are an outdated, inadequate, and inefficient way to meet the needs of elderly and disabled people who need some help with everyday tasks. I first read well-researched details about all this in the “Mouth”.
- How the experiences of physically disabled people are similar to those of cognitively or mentally impaired people … surprisingly similar to me, at the time when I read about it.
- The various “Catch-22” traps all sorts of disabled people face daily … For example: Either you’re too disabled to be trusted to run your own life, or you aren’t disabled enough to get services you need to function with the disabilities you do have.
- That truly horrific injustices happen all the time to disabled people, not just small indignities and embarrassments.
- That the sheer absurdity of ableism is it’s key weakness, and laughter is one of our most effective weapons.
The “Mouth” was one of my textbooks, which I guess means that Lucy Gwin was my teacher. I suspect there are hundreds, maybe thousands of other disabled people, and allies, who can say the same. I’m so sad that she’s gone.
Sunday, November 9, 2014
It's Just Creepy
Josh Dehaas, CTV Toronto - November 8, 2014
It's an interesting comparison I kind of wish I'd thought of ... catcalling or "street harassment" of women, and the staring, gaping, and weird comments disabled people get out in public.
I suspect that both stem from roughly the same thing ... the unregulated impulse to look at a person who "stands out” somehow and blurt out a variation on, "Wow, look at that!" I chose those words deliberately. I think that when this happens, to women and to disabled people, we are not hes or shes, we are THATS. We are pieces of scenery, curiosities. That's what makes it galling.
One key difference is that in catcalling, the man usually wants the woman to hear, while most people who are rude to disabled people in public spaces try to hide it. No matter. It feels shitty either way.
To be clear, it doesn't matter what people say. The problem is the presumption by total strangers that it's okay engage with us in a way they wouldn't with other strangers. It's much the same with men catcalling women. "Smile, honey!" is friendly on paper. In person, tossed at you by a total stranger, it's creepy at best. So is, "Hey, little man!" from someone you've never met or even seen before.
Weekly Wrap-Up
Well, Two-Weekly, Actually ...
Sunday, October 26, 2014
Monday, October 27, 2014
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
Wednesday, October 29, 2014
Friday, October 31, 2014
Monday, November 3, 2014
Friday, November 7, 2014
Saturday, November 8, 2014
Saturday, November 8, 2014
Disability.TV Podcast - Ep. 15 - Mini-Cast
In this Mini-Cast I, fish for feedback, check on who’s listening to the podcast from where, and once again appeal for hosts to talk with me about disabled characters on TV shows. Plus, all about the Disabled TV Character Face-Off!
Email comments to: apulrang@icloud.com.
Friday, November 7, 2014
Season 1, Episode 6 of “Red Band Society"
Gotta Watch It!
We pick up immediately after the last scene of the last episode. Nurse Jackson has just switch Coma Boy’s blood sample. Now she’s carting a crate full of blood samples down the hall, each step bringing her closer to the point of commitment, when she hands over the samples and leaves behind any possibility of changing her mind.
Monday, November 3, 2014
Brief Update
The last few days in disability world has mostly been about:
a. People incorporating wheelchairs into elaborate Halloween costumes, and
b. People killing themselves or allowing loved ones to be killed, legally, because “compassion” or “dignity” or something.
I’m still working on a thing, so it may be Wednesday before I post anything more substantial.
P.S.: If you are a U.S. citizen, please vote tomorrow ... especially if you live in Texas. And remember the candidate in a wheelchair isn't necessarily the one who's best for disabled voters.
P.S.: If you are a U.S. citizen, please vote tomorrow ... especially if you live in Texas. And remember the candidate in a wheelchair isn't necessarily the one who's best for disabled voters.
Friday, October 31, 2014
Disability.TV Podcast - Ep. 14 - Ironside (2013)
Kamilah Proctor and I conduct a postmortem on the short-lived 2013 remake of Ironside, starring Blair Underwood. We discuss our histories with the original Ironside and the new, compare notes on what we liked and didn’t like in the new version, and speculate on what might have been … and what still could be with this still vital TV character with a disability. Special thanks to Rebecca Coakley of the National Council on Disability for suggesting Kamilah as a guest host. You can find Kamilah on Twitter @KamilahProctor, and at the Martin M.S. Alliance Foundation.
If you haven't already, listen to my solo review of the original Ironside, in Episode 3 of the podcast.
Wednesday, October 29, 2014
Another Blogging Note ...
I'm taking a short blogging break, from now until Monday, November 3. It's got nothing to do with that difficult post I mentioned yesterday. It's just that I'm working on a grant proposal for my local CIL, and I want to have the bulk of it done before the end of this weekend.
I will, however, finish and post the Disability.TV podcast featuring my discussion with Kamilah Proctor, about the 2013 Ironside remake. That will still come out Friday.
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
Blogging Note ...
I am working on some kind of blog post about that recent case in the United Kingdom where a judge ruled that a mother had the right to order a stop to care and feeding for her disabled daughter in a hospital, leading to the girl's death. She wasn't "brain dead", and she wasn't on mechanical life support. She died because the hospital, at her mother's request, backed up by a judge, stopped giving her food and water.
As I say, I am working on a blog post about this, but right now I'm having trouble being coherent about it. So, it will just have to wait. Maybe tomorrow.
Monday, October 27, 2014
Bullying
Joy Resmovits, Huffington Post - October 22, 2014
I have often wondered why I was never bullied in school.
Conventional wisdom would suggest that I should have been picked on mercilessly. I was very short and weak. I looked weird. I wore glasses. I was brainy and nerdy. I went to high school in a semi-rural, semi-suburban community in the early 1980s … decades before diversity and tolerance became prominent concerns in public schools.
Yet, I can’t recall a single incident of bullying, based on my disabilities or anything else. Not everyone liked me, but that’s normal. To my knowledge, I was never picked on because of my differences, and my relations with classmates never caused more than occasional anxiety or stress. It’s possible that people talked about me in bullying ways behind my back. But if I never became aware of it, then who cares?
If I escaped bullying because of things that I did right, I have no idea what they were.
If it was because of things my school did right, I don’t know what they were or whether their practices would be applicable today.
Was it because my disabilities were only physical, not mental or cognitive?
Were kids in the ‘80s nicer than they are today?
Was I just lucky to attend an especially harmonious, well-adjusted high school?
I know that to people who have directly or indirectly experienced bullying, this is an enviable mystery. But it feels like a mystery well worth trying to solve, since stopping or curtailing bullying seems to be such a puzzle. Most articles on the subject focus on simply recognizing bullying and deciding to fight it. Few offer any hints about how to do it … for schools, parents, or even disabled students themselves.
P.S.: This is the 1,000th post at Disability Thinking.
P.S.: This is the 1,000th post at Disability Thinking.
Sunday, October 26, 2014
Home Care, Overtime, & Unintended Consequences
Josh Edelson, Bloomberg Businessweek - October 23, 2014
Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Association of New York State - October 24, 2014
This is one hell of a mess of an issue, and the headline on that Businessweek article is horribly misleading. Here’s how it breaks down:
- Most disabled people who use home care don’t pay for it out of pocket. It’s usually paid for by Medicaid. Medicaid sets the pay rates, so if you are disabled and get home care through Medicaid, you have no control over how much your aides are paid. You can’t give them a raise, and you can’t, on your own, start adding overtime to their paychecks. In fact, under Medicaid, you don’t write the paychecks at all.
- Aides should be paid for overtime. Or, rather, they should be paid more overall, and have better benefits. Most disabled people agree, and would love to be able to pay their home care aides better. But again, most disabled people have no control over what their aides are paid.
- Medicaid is a joint federal / state program, but rates and budgets for home care are set by states. So, while the federal government certainly has the authority to insist on aides being paid for overtime, it can’t force states to increase their home care budgets to pay for the increased costs. If they do, then fine. But states that don’t respond to the mandate will have to cut or cap hours of service. As both of these articles point out, the 50 states have different budgeting schedules, so even under the best case scenario, at least some states won’t increase their budgets until well after the overtime mandate goes into effect.
- A few of hours a week less service can truly make the difference between independence and being forced into a nursing home. Home care programs already pare services down to the absolute minimum for each individual person served. Most disabled people can’t just “make do” with less aide time. It’s not a psychological thing. Home care aides aren’t like security blankets, there to make disabled people feel safe. Arbitrary reductions in services upset the whole foundation of disabled peoples' independence.
- Home care aides are not butlers, maids, or cooks. They aren’t quite the same as nurses in a hospital, either. Home care work lies somewhere in between. But the key thing to keep in mind is that for the people who need it, home care isn’t optional. It isn’t a luxury. It makes independent life in the community possible, not just easier.
- There are probably ways to make this work for disabled people while also increasing pay to home care workers, but getting it all done, in every state, before the overtime mandate is due to kick in is a long shot.
Apart from the actual damage this whole thing might do if it isn’t handled correctly, it is a prime example of what can happen when well-meaning policy wonks … with a lot of good instincts … don’t know squat about how disability-related programs actually work.
Sadly, this mainly technical problem threatens to pit disabled people against workers, and vice-versa, when in fact both constituencies have so much in common.
Weekly Wrap-Up
Awareness, Employment, and More Politics ...
Sunday, October 19, 2014
Monday, October 20, 2014
Wednesday, October 22, 2014
Thursday, October 23, 2014
Saturday, October 25, 2014
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