Tag: ableism

Did these people [in academia who claim that they are not exposed to disabled people] realize that when they encountered the work of Rosa Luxemburg (who limped), Antonio Gramsci (a crippled, dwarfed hunchback), John Milton (blind), Alexander Pope (dwarfed hunchback), George Gordon Brown (club foot), [Jorge] Luis Borges, James Joyce, and James Thurber (all blind), Harriet Martineau (deaf), Toulouse-Lautrec (spinal deformity), Frida Kahlo (osteomyelitis), Virginia Woolf (lupus), they were meeting people with disabilities? Do filmgoers realize when they watch the films of James Ford, Raoul Walsh, André de Toth, Nicholas Ray, Tay Garnett and William Wyler that these directors were all physically impaired? Why is it when one looks these figures in dictionaries of biography or encyclopedias that their physical disabilities are usually not mentioned – unless the disability is seen as related to creativity, as in the case of the blind bard Milton or the deaf Beethoven? There is an ableist notion at work here that anyone who creates a canonical work must be physically able. Likewise, why do we not know that Helen Keller was a socialist, a member of the Wobblies, the International Workers of the World, and an advocate of free love? We assume that our ‘official’ mascots of disability are nothing else but their disability.

Lennard J. Davis, Enforcing Normalcy: Disability, Deafness, and the Body (via irwonder)
Source: irwonder

Advocacy group for disabled loses provincial funding (Manitoba)

pom-seedss:

allthecanadianpolitics:

allthecanadianpolitics:

The Manitoba League for Persons with Disabilities, which was founded in 1974, says it may have to call it quits after the province denied its core funding for the year.

It’s a “devastating blow,” the league that advocates for Manitobans with disabilities said Thursday in an open letter to its members. The provincial non-profit organization promotes accessibility and inclusion for people of all abilities. Its executive council said it recently learned that the provincial government will not be providing core funding of $50,000 for the 2018-19 fiscal year.

“It’s extremely difficult for organizations to operate where there is a lack of core funding,” said disabilities advocate Carlos Sosa.

The league has been the voice of Manitobans with disabilities for more than 40 years, pushing for changes in attitudes toward people with disabilities, Sosa said. One of its biggest accomplishments is the creation of HandiTransit in Winnipeg, which has opened doors for thousands of people, he said.

Continue Reading.

Your friendly reminder that Conservatives HATE disabled people.

Friendly reminder that Conservatives would rather disabled folks die and decrease the surplus population than be allowed to live with dignity.

If anyone believes the Scrooge line is an exaggeration, it is not. 

$50,000 is nothing to a provincial budget but it is a fatal blow to the organization. They want us gone, make no mistake.

Advocacy group for disabled loses provincial funding (Manitoba)

thebibliosphere:

I try, when talking about certain things, not to talk from a place of panic. Speaking from experience, panic spreads like wildfire and can just as easily burn down the thing you are trying to protect just as readily as the thing you are trying to protect it from.

The people in charge know this, and are relying on you being frightened of them. Wilful obedience would be better, but fear is also a malleable thing they can work with. It helps people to bend, thinking it will prevent them from being broken. Except the people trying to make you bend, don’t give a single fuck if it breaks you. Control is more important to them, control and the continuing illusion of power. Anyone else that gets smashed under the wheel of their authority is considered *gestures vaguely* negligible and acceptable damage.

So while I understand the inclination to run screaming in circles over certain recent events (trust me, I do it often enough myself) it is vital that you don’t let it own you. Fear is a vital part of our survival instinct, but only if we know how to use it. It lets us know, much like pain, that something is very wrong and we should do something about it.

And you don’t have to be fearless to be brave. To quote our dearly beloved Space Mother, Carrie Fisher, “stay afraid, but do it anyway.”

(And I know it’s hard for a lot of us, I really, really do. There are some days my clusterfuck of mental health issues are just so bad I can’t uncurl from the fetal position long enough to stay hydrated, let alone fight the good fight. But even on those days merely existing is an act of rebellious defiance.)

So you see, I’m not trying to be blase when I talk about certain things. Just because you don’t see me visibly screaming in terror doesn’t mean I’m not doing it on the inside. By remaining visibly calm, I am in fact trying to help other people to not be afraid. To give them some sense of understanding and feeling of control over the situation so that in turn they might be better equipped to help me and others so inclined like me, to fix this shit.

Acknowledge your fear. Let it pass over and through you, breathe it in and hold it in your lungs, then let it out like fire.

You do not need to be a ray of sunshine to be the positive change you want to see in the world. Sometimes you can be a very small, very afraid flicker in the darkness. Just don’t let that flicker go out.

turtwig387:

To any and all disabled people, sick people, people with illnesses, spoonies, people who spend a lot of time in doctors and/or hospitals, or anyone else at all that can relate,

Your body is your own. It’s your body.

And I know that you feel like it’s not your body because you can’t control it sometimes and other people sometimes control it instead and sometimes people think they know better than you about your body and you can’t choose how much you show people sometimes and you can’t choose what people know and don’t know sometimes… and everything… but it’s your body.

It sucks I know and I can’t promise it will get better but it is your body. You’re in charge of your body, when you can be at least. I know you wish things were different sometimes and that you wish you had more control over your body.

But as long as your disability or health does not prohibit you from doing so, because it’s your body, you can

Get piercings

Get tattoos

Dye your hair

Wear different clothes

Have your hair cut or styled

Draw on yourself

Paint your nails

(Similarly, feel free to style up those mobility aids. These are also, in a way, part of you, if you want to think of them as such.)

Because it’s your body. It really is, even when it doesn’t feel like it.

Also, if someone outside of a medical environment wants to know “WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU?” You do not have to answer. You are in no obligation to tell them. You don’t have to educate people’s children if you don’t want to. You don’t have to inform anyone at all if you don’t want to. You don’t owe them anything, and it’s none of their business, because it is your body.

allthecanadianpolitics:

tigressjasper:

Lisa Macleod the minster of child services and social services laughed when told about how ontario citizens on ontario disability support program and ontario works felt heightened in their anxiety and depression and suicidal thoughts when waiting to hear what the progressive conservatives were going to do with these programs. Then called the second part of Lisa Gretzky’s question a joke. 

It is great to know as a canadian living with mental illness, my illness is seen as funny and a question about my livelihood is a joke. 

Link to video:

https://twitter.com/LGretzky/status/1065729837594226688

Ontario NDP: Ford redefining disability means vulnerable Ontarians will be turned away from ODSP benefits

allthecanadianpolitics:

The Ford government has announced it’s changing how it defines a disability — a move that means many more Ontarians will be turned away when they apply for the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP).

“For people in Ontario living with a disability or serious illness, this change is going to make them more destitute, and more desperate,” said NDP Social Services critic Lisa Gretzky.“ This is a callous way to deliver a cut on the backs of the most vulnerable people in Ontario. It’s taking Ontario’s social services from bad to worse.”

Conservative Minister of Children, Community and Social Services Lisa MacLeod announced Thursday that the province will change the definition of disability to match the federal definition. The most common federal definition applies to Canada Pension Plan Disability (CPPD) applicants, who can only get support if their illness is likely to prevent them from ever working. If Ford applies this definition to ODSP recipients, Ontarians whose disabilities allow them to work occasionally, or those who may one day be able to work, will be denied support. This could include people with cancer, common forms of diseases like MS, and certain mental illnesses.

The move enables the Ford Conservatives and Lisa MacLeod to make a deep cut to social service programs. Her ministry, which includes Children, Community and Social Services, is budgeted at about $1 billion less than the 2018 budget allocated for those ministries when they were separate.

“The Conservatives have already made deep cuts to a social assistance system that gives much-needed support to nearly one million Ontarians,” said Gretzky. “Doug Ford has already cut in half a planned increase to social assistance from three per cent to 1.5 per cent. He killed the Liberals’ three-year basic income pilot, a project that has been helping 4,000 low-income earners across Ontario.”

These cuts are causing serious anxiety for Ontarians struggling to make ends meet on the existing social assistance payments provided by Ontario Works (OW) and ODSP.

“The Conservatives are taking things from bad to worse,” Gretzky said. “In Windsor, one in four women and one in four children live in poverty – the highest poverty rates in Canada. For MacLeod to pass this change off as anything but cuts to Ontario’s most vulnerable people is disgusting.”

In Toronto, the Daily Bread Food Bank recently reported that over 60 per cent of its users rely on social assistance to make ends meet. Last year, the food bank had 914,000 visits. Doug Ford’s own riding of Etobicoke saw the largest surge – 170 per cent – in food bank users. Daily Bread Food Bank CEO Neil Hetherington warned that Ford’s cuts to social assistance will only drive these numbers up.

Ontarians, and Ontario’s most vulnerable, deserve better.

Ontario NDP: Ford redefining disability means vulnerable Ontarians will be turned away from ODSP benefits

There are danger signs in Ford government plans to reform welfare

nrh61:

allthecanadianpolitics:

As political tactics go, it’s not a bad one.

Drum up fears that the social assistance program than sustains nearly 1 million Ontarians might be gutted. Do this by talking about how it costs taxpayers $10 billion a year, isn’t sustainable, and doesn’t encourage people to work.

In short, terrify the people who can barely survive on what they’re getting now that something much worse is coming their way. Then deliver a series of changes that, at first glance anyway, aren’t as bad as expected, and even include the potential for improvements down the line.

To be sure, Ontario’s social assistance system does not work as well as it should for anybody. But where the rubber always meets the proverbial road is figuring out how to fix it.

Doug Ford’s government unveiled its plan this week to “restore dignity, independence and empowerment” to those on social assistance.

The biggest change is redefining disability to more closely align with federal guidelines. Lisa MacLeod, the minister of children, community and social services, says this will provide “clarity.”

Perhaps it will. But the government isn’t doing this to make paper-pushing easier. This change will make it harder for new people to qualify for the Ontario Disability Support Program. And the obvious underlying suggestion is that there are people on the program now who shouldn’t be.

People with “severe disabilities” who can’t work will be treated with “compassion and dignity in our new system,” MacLeod promised. Those who can work will also be treated with dignity and better supported to find jobs, she went on. “If you can work, or if you can’t, we have a plan to help you.”

But part of the plan, clearly, is to move people from one group to another by ruling more injured workers or those suffering mental issues ineligible for disability support. That leaves them with no option but the Ontario Works program, which provides substantially less support. The monthly maximum for a single person on disability is $1,169 compared to just $733 on welfare.

Continue Reading.

I just can’t with these fuckers. Is everyone taking that in? $733. Where in Ontario can you pay basic rent for 700 bucks, let alone eat or meet any other expenses? But that’s what you’re going to survive on if you’re only 95% disabled in Ontario now. Ontario works is already a joke and now we’re going to expect people who are disabled to live on it too.

There are danger signs in Ford government plans to reform welfare