ADAPT Little Rock Protests ... What They're All About

This is a really well-edited video that explains last week's ADAPT protests in Little Rock, Arkansas.

I feel like ADAPT protests always risk conveying sensational images without adequately explaining what they are protesting. To the ordinary observer, not familiar with disability policy, ADAPT protests can look spectacles whose only object is excitement and personal empowerment for its participants. ADAPT protests certainly are both exciting and empowering experiences. For disabled people, especially, there is something really ... special ... about using our physical differences and uncompromising presence to make useful nuisances of ourselves.

However, ADAPT is also an utterly practical, disciplined organization, laser-focused on very specific policy goals that are at the heart of what most concerns disabled people ... getting the help we need to survive, but with the personal control and autonomy we need to thrive as well. There are well-tested, proven, cost-efficient ways to do this that work for people with all kinds of very "severe" disabilities, and that do not involve nursing homes or similar "facilities".

That's my favorite part of this video montage, the local reporter who perfectly described ADAPT's point. We don't want more facilities that protect and control us. We want services that we control and that liberate us to live and work in our own communities like everyone else.