Following on from my reflections in my last post, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on one of the biggest thoughts running through my head before I got diagnosed with depression. Beyond my own personal circumstances, the past 12 months have been a particularly dangerous one for disabled people across the globe.
Firstly, for those outside of the UK, the Tory party’s continued use of austerity to ‘reduce’ costs continues to kill disabled people. In November 2017, a study found the Tory party was responsible for 120,000 deaths. What makes this all the more terrifying, is the lack of genuine response to it. Disabled People Against the Cuts (DPAC) have been fighting with all of their might against this, helping people get the support they deserve and need. Beyond that, the UN has been investigating the measures and the affect on the overall human rights of disabled people in this country. But speed, is not really there. The bigger, and far more problematic issue, is how the insidious press has ultimately neutered people in being disgusted by this. After years and years obsessing about ‘benefit scroungers’ and ‘lazy’ or ‘benefit cheats’ having to claim benefits has become such a social taboo, that we are getting cornered in between a rock and a hard place. These kind of issues exacerbate when your disability is not visible, or you aren’t stereotypical to that disability and run the risk of being a ‘fake disabled’ person, or someone who is just trying to cheat the system. So because of this, where there should be national outrage at the fact its own government has killed 120,000 people, we are squabbling about how much certain people get on benefits or how disabled people are just lazy and not looking for work, effectively bringing their issues upon themselves.
After Emma Dalmayne, successfully bought attention to it,the country began the social discussion — should we cure autism? This has been something autistic people the world over have been trying to fight, but thanks to Emma’s wonderful work, it bought some of it towards the mainstream. Admittedly, the core of Emma Dalmayne’s activism has been focused upon responding to the MMS cures (a ‘miracle’ cure which effectively involves using bleach as an enema), so because of this the British government as slowly pushing through legislation that would ban ‘harmful’ cures, which is a nice step but doesn’t get rid of the mentality of needing to ‘cure autistic’ people. This old article from the Telegraph, highlights Autism Speaks’ stance on it. Most notably is the comparison of autism and cancer. Which when the world begins to see you as some akin to cancer, it is no surprise that the state of Colorado attempted to declare a state-wide Autism Epidemic thankfully this bill was defeated, but the fact that people like myself are being likened to a virus, its hard to not get the looming feel that the world just doesn’t like people like you.
The recent discussions in America about introducing straw bans, have been fascinating to observe and terrifying as well. As this solid article points out, people are far to quick to just push disabled people under the bus. The straw ban, like many short-lived ‘solutions’ to the world’s environmental problems, ultimately puts focus on individuals, suggesting that each one of us is equally at fault for global warming, and not the result of a culture of waste production coming from international organisations to produce a constant stream of demand for new. Ultimately, our environmental woes, can only be solved by changing the system we live in, capitalism is about consumption and constant production, environmentalism within that, is only minute changes on a personal level, which will ultimately have little to no impact. That is a discussion for another article, however, as soon as you have a social movement dedicated to ‘individual merit’ or ‘personal control’ it ultimately demonises those who cannot ‘keep up’. Many disabled people have highlighted their need for straws, without the straws they cannot drink, but this has widely been met by people ultimately ignoring disabled people’s concerns and just shouting over them.
The need to throw disabled people under the bus is kind of exacerbated when one looks at sci-fi. Ace Ratcliffe, wrote a fantastic article surrounding disability and sci-fi. What he ultimately shows is the majority of sci-fi pushes disabled people out entirely. Star Trek, is a perfect example, being a ‘utopian vision of the future’ where humans live beyond basic need for resources, and race, creed, gender, sexuality doesn’t impede on your status in society, however no-one is disabled. Disabled people cease existing. This sort of narrative is far too common, mostly because, like with the straw ban, disabled people aren’t heard. So this carries on the stereotypical narratives of disability being a life of suffering, something to transcend, or to remind the able — life isn’t so bad.
The final point I want to show, is a bill being discussed today (6th August 2018) called — AB 1971 Mental Health Services: Involuntary Detention: Gravely Disabled. This bill, being discussed in the state of California, highlights the issues that a large proportion of homeless people have various disabilities, including mental and physical, and so through their ‘wisdom’ they propose that disabled people who prove ‘incapable of fending for themselves’ would be put into involuntary detention. Alarm bells should be ringing all over the world about this. Instead of using state taxes to fund infrastructure so disabled people are less likely to end up homeless by protecting them from dangerous landlords, making sure they have the resources to live, and so on. Or dealing with issues of homelessness by investing in housing so people aren’t on the streets. The state will ultimately just brush them under the carpet. What this bill will ultimately allow the state to do is severely reduce state support for disabled people, removing all personal agency from them, effectively forcing them to live a life fighting from payday to payday or being institutionalised. Why invest in accessible buildings when you can just throw the wheelchair user into a home away from everyone else?
Living disabled-ly, means to know the world is consciously trying to get rid of you, either ideologically or literally. This is the world we live in. We are being killed, not through war but simply through funding reductions. We are being erased by continued attempts to ‘cure’ us. We are being ignored, thus not having an equal contribution to society. We are not part of the Utopian future, we are part of what is holding the world back. We are abandoned and instituionalised for it. Yes, I am depressed, but that doesn’t mean the world isn’t trying to get rid of people like me.
