Disability Futures

Two video projects led by people with disabilities, one in the U.S. and one in Canada, are challenging the mainstream message that it’s better to be dead than disabled. We all know that personal stories are often the most effective forms of communication, and that’s exactly what these projects offer in face-to-face communication.

The U.S. video project is called “Live On!” and is led by Dominick Evans through the Center for Disability Rights. Our readers were first introduced to Live On! through its video produced in response to the Me Before You film and disability rights protests. While the initial video included many faces, subsequent pieces will be short 3-4 minute takes by an individual with a disability.

If you would like to learn more about the project or consider submitting a video, here’s a message from Dominick with what you should know:

The #LiveOn project is a way to send the message that disabled lives are worth living, and for disabled people to be proud of their disability. The #LiveOn project is loosely based upon the It Gets Better campaign, which sent the message to LGBTQIA individuals that life is worth living, and it is okay and important to be proud of who you are. We would like to give a similar message to people with disabilities.

Our target audience is anyone with an acquired disability or progressive disability, individuals with mental health disabilities and/or suicidal ideation, young people who may be angry about their disabilities thanks to bullying or abuse, and anyone with a disability who may be struggling, depressed, dealing with internalized ableism, or who might be thinking about giving up on life. Disabled people do not often receive suicide prevention when they show signs of wanting to give up or have suicidal thoughts. With very little disability representation that is visible and positive, living life with a disability can often seem daunting and lonely.

So, you may be wondering how you can help. We are asking anyone with a disability to make a video for the #LiveOn project. The videos are directed at our target audience, and will feature disabled individuals explaining how times can be rough, but things can and will improve. Life with a disability is not only worth living, but it can be quite fulfilling. Feel free to talk about a difficult time in your life, and how you were able to move past that, and don’t forget to discuss how much disability pride you have, and how being disabled is an important part of your identity.

Voters with disabilities outnumber minority groups and could prove a powerful voting bloc -- if they're ever given easy access to polling places on Election Day.

According to a new report from the Rutgers University School of Management and Labor Relations, about 35.4 million disabled people will be eligible to vote in the November 2016 election, a larger group than African American or Hispanic voters.

It represents an increase of nearly 11 percent since 2008, a higher rate of growth than among voters without disabilities.

The trick is turning those eligible voters into likely voters, Rutgers professor Douglas Kruse said. According to the report, only 46 percent of eligible disabled voters are projected to actually cast a vote.

“Over the last century, people with disabilities have not been part of mainstream life, in general," said Kruse, a co-author of the report. "The relative neglect of people with disabilities just stems from that lingering social exclusion. They haven’t fully incorporated them into social life and political life.”

The term "dog days of summer" has new meaning at Philadelphia International and other U.S. airports.

BlindNewWorld is going global.

The social change campaign, sponsored by Perkins School for the Blind, made its debut on the world stage this week at a major international conference in Orlando, Florida.

Before an audience of educators, advocates and experts from the worldwide blindness community,Perkins Board Chair Corinne Basler Grousbeck said it’s time to work together to break down barriers to inclusion for people who are blind in every nation.

“We have to link arms with peer organizations and individuals to create a voice loud enough to be heard,” she said. “Together we can create a kinder and more inclusive society.”

Grousbeck spoke at the joint general assembly of two of the world’s largest and most influential blindness organizations – the World Blind Union (WBU) and International Council for Education of People with Visual Impairment (ICEVI). The two groups represent people who are blind in 190 countries around the world.

If you have an hour, the Invisibilia episode is well worth a listen, but I’ll continue to recap some of the finer points. By and large, the answer Baxter got from families was: no. It was not a burden to live with their boarders. And this was not because the boarders did not exhibit symptoms of mental illness. One man locked himself in a bathroom. Another hallucinated that he was being attacked by lions. A third developed an infatuation with his host woman, Toni, who had to negotiate her boarder’s desire to hug and kiss her relentlessly. (Toni’s husband was less than thrilled.) Instead of finding it a burden, however, the families said they found the situation “normal.” This was just part of life in Geel. It was a tradition older than the existence of the United States. Sure, the families figured out accommodations for their boarder’s unique behaviors—the host of the lion hallucinator, for instance, pretended to chase away lions—but they did not try to “fix” their boarders. They accepted them as they were.

Somehow, somewhere, the urge to want to change my kid subsided. Maybe it subsided when my husband and I took one-year-old Fee to a national gathering for people with 4p- and their families. Maybe it subsided when I saw all these differently abled people—people in wheelchairs and people who ran, people who ate orally and people fed by gtubes, people who spoke and people who didn’t—and I finally felt in my bones that all of these ways of being were good. And by good, I don’t just mean, “Hey, it’s all good.” I mean in that deep, affirming way that things are proclaimed good in Genesis. There is dark, and it is good, and there is light, and it is good, and there is a grown woman who gets around by scooting on her butt, and she is good, and here is my daughter, one year old, twelve pounds big, who has just started learning to hold up her head (thanks or possibly no thanks to our tummy time), and she is good. She is so, so good.

Silent Voices is truly silent. The group's three members are doing what looks like a dance in the front of a classroom at a state prison near the banks of the Mississippi River, just south of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, performing their version of the song "I Believe" by R. Kelly. Instead of singing, the performers are interpreting R. Kelly's lyrics into American Sign Language, or ASL, the sign language most commonly used in the United States. ASL is an animated language. Gestures, facial expressions and even foot-stomping the floor to a beat allow ASL speakers to add context, detail and music to their conversations. The three men in Silent Voices are stunning in this way. The performance is part ASL, part gospel choreography and it's contagiously uplifting -- in stark contrast with the backdrop of armed guards and barbed wire. The classroom erupts into applause.

Standing at the back of the classroom, Susan Griffin is beaming with pride. Griffin, a lead attorney for the state prison system, says this song is a real crowd pleaser at the gospel revivals held at Angola, the notoriously brutal prison farm to the north. "For me, it brings everything together," she says.

The members of Silent Voices and a dozen or so classmates are all part of the Louisiana Department of Corrections' ASL interpreting program, which Griffin touts as one of a kind, at least in the US. Qualified prisoners can earn a certificate in ASL interpreting, which could potentially lead to job opportunities if they are released. Louisiana also uses these "offender interpreters" to interpret for the deaf population in its vast prison system.

From her desk overlooking downtown Flint, Kathi Horton has watched millions of dollars flood into her beleaguered city. One fund run by the Community Foundation of Flint, where Horton is president, has had 15,000 donations so far this year.

“The donations come in from across the country, from every type of faith community and children asking for donations for Flint for their birthdays,” Horton said. “It’s an astonishing show of generosity.”

A few blocks south on Saginaw Street, Michael McDaniel is in charge of a program called “FAST Start,” with the aim of replacing all lead service lines in the city in one year. Despite its name, only 33 homes have had the work done since the program’s February launch. The former brigadier general of the Michigan National Guard describes a bogged-down infrastructure repair program hamstrung by lack of money and manpower.

It is the recipient of an unprecedented-for-Michigan commitment of philanthropic largesse, with well over $150 million in government and charitable aid in the city now and at least three times that still on its way. Dozens of public service initiatives have launched or expanded to help city residents, from early childhood education programs to pop-up farmers markets.

But beyond the bottled water, progress in Flint is difficult to measure. Few of the pipes that leached lead into the drinking water have been replaced. And the success of efforts to counteract the brain-damaging effects of lead poisoning in Flint’s children won’t be known for years, if ever.

The Disability Visibility Project is proud to partner with novelist Nicola Griffith in our second #CripLit Twitter chat for disabled writers. Nicola Griffith is the creator of the #CripLit series and the DVP is the co-host/supporting partner. For our second chat, we are both excited to have guest host Denarii Monroe, freelance writer, aspiring screenwriter, and activist.

All disabled writers are welcome to participate in the chat including reporters, essayists, poets, cartoonists, bloggers, freelancers, unpublished or published. We want to hear from all of you! Check the #CripLit hashtag on Twitter for announcements of future chats that will focus on different genres or topics.

How to Participate

Follow @nicolaz @DisVisibility @writersdelite on Twitter

Use the hashtag #CripLit when you tweet. If you only want to respond to the questions, check @DisVisibility’s timeline during the chat. The questions will be tweeted several minutes apart.  

Check out this explanation of how to participate in a chat by Ruti Regan:

If you don’t use Twitter and want to follow along in real-time, check out the live-stream:http://twubs.com/CripLit  

#CripLit Tweets for 8/29 chat

Welcome to #CripLit! Created by @nicolaz, we will discuss ableism & the publishing industry. Our guest host for this chat is @writersdelite

Students with disabilities are entitled to special education services and supports even if they attend school online, the U.S. Department of Education says.

As public virtual schools — those that have no physical campus and rely on computers and other telecommunications — proliferate, federal officials say they’re increasingly fielding questions about how the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act applies.

In guidance issued this week, the Education Department said these new educational offerings share many of the same responsibilities as their traditional counterparts when serving elementary through high school students with disabilities. That includes obligations to make certain that kids needing special education services are identified, evaluated, provided an individualized education program and served in the least restrictive environment.

“That poor gimp, confined to a wheelchair because of his/her useless legs.”

Legs, legs, legs! Unless you’re a Rockette or an Olympic long-jumper, why is this pair of body parts so gosh darn important? Why do non-gimps insist that these below-the-waist appendages are the only credible, non-pitiable way to get around in the world?

I know what you’re thinking, dear reader. I’m overly sensitive because I use a wheelchair. I’m bitter because I’ll never get to stand three hours in line to ride 90 seconds on a rollercoaster. I’m angry because I’ll never get to feel the excruciating tearing away of my ACL while playing intramural basketball.

Okay, perhaps you’re a little bit right. But only a little bit, because my main point is this: what in the Sam Hill is wrong with arms? Why do non-gimps never see a gimp pass by and think:

“That poor gimp, can’t wash her hair because of useless arms.”

Yes, dear reader, some of us wheelchair-using gimps also have arms that don’t measure up to non-gimp standards. In my case, the juvenile rheumatoid arthritis that jolted my immune system into overdrive destroyed not only the joints in my legs, but also the joints in my arms. It’s been 40 years since I last touched the top of my own head.