Tag: disability rights

workingclasshistory:

On this day, 30 October 1919, residents of the Pennsylvania Working Home for Blind Men demanded higher wages for their work, threatening to strike the following week if they weren’t granted. The visually impaired men made brooms, whisks, carpets and other goods, and their home had increased the rent with no increase in their wages. They formed a union and affiliated with the American Federation of Labor. The boss claimed that the men “like the rest of the world, have got strike fever”.
Pictured is the home around that time https://ift.tt/2PskDGY

anti-bioreductionism:

Someone’s rights to their own bodies does not expire when they

  • get a certain diagnosis
  • you find them irrational
  • do something to their bodies you find absurd
  • are disabled, physically, mentally or intellectually
  • get pregnant
  • go against medical advice (if I never went against medical advice I’d be somewhere between bedridden or dead at this point, but it’s still legitimate even when following the advice does not have catastrophic consequences)
  • weigh what others consider too much or too little
  • cope in ways others don’t like
  • have made mistakes in the past
  • are described as not ‘themselves’ anymore

fierceawakening:

lgbt-history-archive:

“DISABILITY PRIDE” – “WE CAN’T PARK HERE BECAUSE YOU DID,” Eric von Schmetterling representing ADAPT, March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay and Bi Equal Rights, Washington, D.C., April 25, 1993. Photo © Fred W. McDarrah. ADAPT (formerly Americans Disabled for Accessible Public Transit and Americans Disabled Attendant Programs Today), established in the 1970s in Denver, is a grassroots organization within the disability rights movement that emphasizes direct action to bring greater visibility to the fight for the rights of Americans with disabilities. On July 26, 1990, twenty-six years ago today, as a result of the work of organizations like ADAPT, President George H.W. Bush signed into law the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). While disability rights advocates emphasize that much work remains, the ADA widely was considered a remarkable first step toward the ultimate goal of equal access for Americans with physical and mental impairments. #lgbthistory #lgbtherstory #lgbttheirstory #lgbtpride #queerhistorymatters #haveprideinhistory (at Washington, District of Columbia)

I will always reblog this. ADAPT FTW.

autisticadvocacy:

http://autisticadvocacy.org/2018/08/action-alert-disability-rights-v-kavanaugh-call-your-senators-today/

Since before there was a self-advocacy movement, our community has fought for the right to be in control in our own lives. Now, a nominee to the Supreme Court threatens the progress we have made. Judge Brett Kavanaugh doesn’t believe that people with intellectual and developmental disabilities have the right to make our own decisions—and that’s exactly why we don’t want him making decisions about our country’s laws. Call your Senators TODAY and tell them to vote NO on Kavanaugh’s nomination.

In 2007, Kavanaugh ruled against 3 women with intellectual disabilities who had been forced to have abortions or other elective surgeries by the city of DC. In this ruling, he said that people with intellectual disabilities do not have the right to have any say at all in what kind of health care we get. If Kavanaugh becomes a Supreme Court Justice, we can expect to see more decisions like this one: decisions that reject disability rights, deny our right to control our own bodies, and let other people make our most personal decisions for us. Remember, a Supreme Court appointment is FOR LIFE—if Kavanaugh is appointed, his decisions will affect us for decades to come.

We don’t have a moment to lose: Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings begin NEXT WEEK. Call your Senators and tell them to vote NO on Kavanaugh! You can use our script while calling:

My name is [your full name]. I’m a constituent of Senator [Name], and I live in [your town]. I’m calling to ask the Senator to vote NOT to confirm Judge Kavanaugh. Judge Kavanaugh would undermine the Affordable Care Act, and he is a danger to the rights of people with disabilities. In 2007, he ruled that people with intellectual disabilities don’t have a right to a say in our health care. He sided with the DC government, which had forced people to have abortions they didn’t want. People with disabilities like [me/ my family member/ my friends] have a right to health care, and we have a right to make our own choices about what happens to our bodies. Please keep this dangerous man off the Supreme Court.

If you have trouble making phone calls or use AAC, our factsheet gives you strategies you can use to call your Senators. If you want more information about Judge Kavanaugh, including a plain language explainer, check out this resource page.

Once you’ve finished calling, here are some other steps you can take:

  • Visit your Senators’ state offices, and let their staff know how Kavanaugh’s confirmation would affect you and the people you love. This kind of face-to-face meeting really makes a difference. You can find lists of your Senators’ state offices on their websites.
  • Email or fax your Senators. You can use the same script you did while calling.

Judge Kavanaugh wants to make decisions for the whole country, but he doesn’t respect our right to make decisions in our own lives. Our Senators need to decide now where they stand. Call your Senators today, and tell them: from our homes to our health care, from our self-determination to the Supreme Court—there can be Nothing About Us, Without Us!

myceliorum:

You can get a lot of disturbing information about someone’s values…

When they start from the assumption that there’s just too many of a certain kind of people, and then go from there.

Like I just read a post that touched on the idea of aging baby boomers as a burden on younger generations. Which already says a about unspoken bigotry against old and disabled people: Setting taking care of someone as a burden shows a lot about both values and understanding of how things do work versus how they ought to. But then…

It veered into a discussion off the problem being the parents of boomers fucking too much and producing all these babies. The idea being, there’s just too many of them. I am not trying to put on the spot who said that nor did I even check who said it, I don’t know that they personally wager thinking these things but many people who say them are, is common to think this way, I’m not exempting myself, I’m not calling anyone out, I’m just discussing the ideas, so please nobody take this as an invitation to attack anyone. We all hold ugly ideas we’ve never looked at. I’m looking at them. If you think you’re above this, look harder at yourself.

(Also full disclosure: I’m late gen x, one parent earliest possible boomer, one parent silent generation. More disclosure: I’m massively unimpressed by most things I hear about generations and what they mean.)

So as soon as you’ve decided there’s just too damn many old people, poor people, people from the “wrong” countries, disabled people, brown people, any kind of people… You’ve just told the world you on some level don’t value that kind of people. I have never seen a discussion that starts from that idea end anywhere good. There’s something wrong, terribly wrong, with the assumptions you’re starting with.

This is different from the occasional discussion of numbers that is necessary. I’m originally from California (Okie descent) and there’s more human beings in California than the amount of water in California can support. But even discussing that, you have to be extremely careful not to slide into assumptions about which Californians matter.

But discussions of “overpopulation” in more general terms almost always mean there’s too many brown and/or poor and/or “third world” people, not actually something more generic like it sounds. They hide the same ugliness as the hordes of aging boomers idea.

A completely different take on the number of boomers:

Many disability rights activists have been hoping that as boomers age and more become disabled, this will lead to more support for disability rights causes. Among others, it could lead to some stage of dismantling the stranglehold nursing homes and other deadly and soul-destroying institutions have over the way assistance id’s provided to disabled and elderly people. Whether this happens is still up in the air but it’s a notably more positive take on the idea of “hordes of aging boomers”. And one that, like most disability rights ideas, most people have neither heard of noir considered. Since most boomers as burdens ideas come from the same ugly place nursing homes come from.

chavisory:

heyatleastitsnotcancer:

I’m tired of people acting like if an employer discrimates against you as a disabled person or violates the ADA you can just take it to HR or get a lawyer and sue them. I took my complaints to HR and was told to shut up or leave. If I pursue it further I either lose my job or risk making my job even more miserable due to retribution from management. Neither of which are survivable for me as a disabled person. Yes there are laws in place but the system makes it impossible to enforce them in any way and punishes the people who try. I am totally powerless in my position and my employer has made it clear that I am disposable.

So just a note to others that while this is all true, there may be other viable options, depending on your situation.  You can also file a complaint with the EEOC, and/or look up your state or even city commission on human rights, or check the website of your state attorney general for their office of human rights.

It can’t hurt to talk to your local Legal Aid about your options.

And if you’re in a job where you have a union, you should definitely let your union rep know what’s going on.  It could very well be that your employer is not just breaking the law, but breaking contract.