Disability Futures

Please know that the behavior of people with autism makes sense in the context of their experience of the world around them. Because typical people do not share our context they are not often able to assign correct . They do their best by assigning meaning to our behavior based on what the behavior would mean were they themselves engaged in it the behavior. Often they arrive at wrong conclusions. Sometimes they even assign negative character traits to us based on their wrong conclusions.

Example: As an autistic I can readily see environmental phenomena of sun particles interacting with moisture in the air and rising up from the ground. I thought of these things I could see as sun sparkles and world tails. As a young child in the 1950s I organized my world according to this information. This allowed me to know when it would be lunchtime, naptime, dinnertime, bedtime and gage when other things might occur during the day. I could organize my day and come to understand the typical way in which I could expect the day to unfold.

Sometimes, as life would have it, something that was supposed to happen later in the day occurred earlier. For example, I can recall a morning when ice cream cones were passed around before lunch. To my organizational scheme this was out of order. I really wanted the treat, but couldn’t eat it out of order. My solution was to eat lunch first and then eat the ice cream cone. My use of language wasn’t an asset at the time, so I insisted on lunch in a way others perceived as quite unpleasant.

The Million Gimp March is a national, disability advocacy event scheduled to take place in Washington, D.C., on October 14, 2016. Disability advocates and allies from all over the country will be marching from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial, the same route taken by civil rights advocates in 1963 when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his powerful “I Have A Dream” speech.

The Million Gimp March is a disability rights Call to Action as we confront, peel off, and emerge from the layers of oppression that have for decades denied equal employment opportunities and true inclusion to Americans with Disabilities.

Our advocacy quest is one of social justice and collective empowerment, carrying the message that we, as a people of multi-faceted abilities, will no longer tolerate the ableist policies, social attitudes, and the oppressive denial of our rights.

Our purpose is to come together in a peaceful march, bringing to light not only the obstacles, struggles and barriers to employment in the lives of those with disabilities, but also the power of our advocacy and the immensity of human potential, talent and ability, representative of who we really are and what we are able to give.

Our mission is to raise awareness about the alarming rate of unemployment keeping the disability community below poverty levels and to challenge policymakers to revise and create disability legislation that would strengthen our community’s ability to lead lives with dignity, respect, and independence.

A video with really good captions; a rap-like ambience.

Over the past few weeks, I have been approached by individuals who wanted to understand the Black disabled experience, particularly the plight of Black disabled women and why our struggles matter.  (The inquiries picked up when I published my“Lemonade” post last week.)  I noticed a pattern from those who asked of my knowledge and personal reflections:  many are ignorant of the experiences of Black Americans in general, Black women particularly, and when broken down further, Black disabled women specifically.  

I decided that as someone who views herself as an “educator” within my advocacy scope, it would be fitting to create a compilation of books, essays/articles, speeches, music, and other bodies of work that accurately explains the diverse forms of Blackness that exists for Black women, and how the lives of Black disabled women meshed within that discourse.  

Art and activism are the starting point for a funny and intimate portrait of five surprising individuals with diverse disabilities. Packed with humour and raw energy, this film follows the gang of five from B.C. to Nova Scotia as they create and present their own images of their disabilities.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) today issued a new resource document that addresses the rights of employees with disabilities who seek leave as a reasonable accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA). The document is entitled Employer-Provided Leave and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Disability charges filed with the EEOC reached a new high in fiscal year 2015, increasing over 6 percent from the previous year. The ADA requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations that allow people with disabilities to perform the essential functions of their jobs, unless it would pose an undue hardship for the employer.

One troubling trend the EEOC has identified in ADA charges is the prevalence of employer policies that deny or unlawfully restrict the use of leave as a reasonable accommodation. These policies often serve as systemic barriers to the employment of workers with disabilities. They may cause many workers to be terminated who otherwise could have returned to work after obtaining needed leave without undue hardship to the employer. EEOC regulations already provide that reasonable accommodations may include leave, potentially including unpaid leave that exceeds a company's normal leave allowances. 

This tool makes it easier to find useful information about disability, data, programs, local supports, and so on.

Panel discussion with township supervisors to discuss the importance of public transit from 9-10:30 a.m. on Monday, May 16th, 2016 at Orchard Hill Church.

Disability Advocates of Kent County, Faith in Motion,Concerned Citizens for Improved Transportation, and theKent County Essential Needs Task Force have joined together to host a five-part coffee series with elected leaders from various levels of government to discuss public transit. At the March coffee event, over 80 community participants came together and urged our state representatives and senators to create an equitable funding system for public transportation. We are so excited to be continuing this discussion with Kent County township supervisors at our next event on Monday, May 16, 2016.

The need for public transit in Kent County is growing. Today, one in three commuters in our region do not have access to a car. Either they can’t afford it, or they have a disability that prevents them from driving, they are at an age where they cannot legally drive or it is no longer safe for them to do so. Ensuring that the nearly 200,000 Kent County residents without cars have access to employment, services, and recreation is vital to continuing our region’s success story.

It’s important to be aware of social movements and activism happening around the world. The Disability Visibility Project may comprise primarily of people in the United States, but disability rights is in no way a Western or American invention.

On Twitter I became acquainted with Merry Cross, a disabled activist in the UK. Here is my interview with her on the political situation facing disabled people.

Tell me a little about yourself and your involvement with DPAC (Disabled People Against Cuts)

My name is Merry Cross and I have been a disability activist since the late ‘70s, having been subject to disability discrimination from an early age, as I was born with a significant mobility impairment. I founded one of the first activist groups in the UK, with Micheline Mason, called the Liberation Network of People with Disabilities* and then also founded a local group in East London that provided support and eventually, accessible transport, for disabled people. (*At the time we thought it was important to use language that reminded the public that we were first and foremost human beings – hence ‘people with disabilities’ but later agreed with the social model reasoning and used ‘disabled people’).