bigpawedbear

why does disablism exist?

I ask this question on this blog against disablism day.

Disablism in all its forms, be it in language, action, access to services, or to employment is fuelled by one basic thing. The able bodied members of a society becoming what they fear. Fear creates hatred, and hatred is projected in words deeds and systems. I am blind, and though that is not the sum total of who I am, its pretty obvious when you meet me. I can avoid drawing attention to my blindness in daily life by communicating via email etc, where advances in equipment has meant, I, at great expense, can use a computer to a great extent. Though if one were to meet me, they’d see I am blind. Disabled is what the majority are not, so the majority fear the minority. This fear caused disabled people to be shut away so they did not have to inconvenience the able bodied majority. In the last fifty years, we have seen an upswing in disability rights, though this is couched in a language of reasonability, which in my view, keeps the disabled person subservient to the able bodied person, as the able bodied person has control over the definition of reasonable access which they deem to give the disabled person to their own life. This idea of what is reasonable to provide for disabled people, has lead to discrimination in access, even among disabled people. I, as a blind person, cannot access my own money from a cash point. My computer talks, so why doesn’t the cash point? The simple answer is, that the able bodied people, in their idea of what is reasonable access to give to disabled people, have decided that a talking cash point for blind people is simply not possible, whereas putting that cash point at the height a wheelchair user can use it is reasonable. So why be accommodating to those with one disability, but completely unreasonable to those with another? While I am using the example of wheelchair access verses access for blind people, I do not mean to trivialise the wheel chair user’s need for access or help in their daily lives. I am speaking of what access is around me every day, and how that access differs depending on what disables one. I postulate the different importance given to access needed by me, as a blind person who can walk, and the wheelchair user who can’t, is down to one thing, what is acceptable disability. Acceptable disability. Interesting thought that isn’t it? I started with the idea that an able bodied society treats all disabled people with equal contempt. Actually it doesn’t, some people with disabilities are treated better than others when it comes to access, and that in itself is disablism, disablism within the very system itself.

To illustrate my point, I will take the example of a simple trip to my local town. I can, having been given extencive training in routes, get down town without stepping off one kerb. I cannot however, get down town without help from another person to guide me across a horrendous bus lane system in town that is dangerous to blind people due to lack of crossings etc, though thanks for the step free access, that’s wonderful. Also, the time table, there might as well not be one, and I’m not talking about the nine twenty into town turning up at nine forty either. The time table is in print, on a board, how useful is that to me as a blind person? Also, when the local council moved my bus stop, they failed to tell me, meaning I waited at the place where the old stop was, until a member of the public, who’d seen me waiting there before when the old stop was in place, told me where the new stop was, and guided me to it too. I have a bus pass, provided by the council, the very council who changed where the stop was. I had to register as blind, so they know I’m blind, and they could have at least told me the stop had moved, oh no, that was too much difficulty. So I’ve been left on the roadside, rescued by a member of the public, and taken to a bus stop with no accessible time table, good then that all the busses go into town. I ask why a perfectly good bus stop had to be moved to a rather silly place by a local store, where the store’s lorries unloaded, blocking the bus route. I was told, “wheel chair users could not use the old place, due to the kerbs. So again, those who use wheelchairs have been catered for, whereas me, who am blind, don’t get told the stop has even moved. I get on the bus, step free of course, and the buses don’t talk. I’m not going mad when I talk about talking busses. In London there are buses with audio announcements which tell you which bus you are on, and what stop is coming next. My neck of the woods, which is not London, doesn’t have these busses, and I don’t think they’re coming soon. So I have to ask the driver to tell me when to get off, and because of the dangerous bus station, I need help to negotiate the step free bus station, which is treated by cars as a racetrack, or so it seems. Once I am across the road, I walk down, admittedly narrow paths, so access is poor there for most, to my local bank. Yes, steps, but also a low level cash point, and a step free entrance. I go up the steps, and encounter three queues for various services. How on earth am I meant to navigate this? I drift about, and eventually someone finds me. I have to ask for help in using their brand new, six month old cash points, which don’t talk. The assistant helps me use the point inside the branch, but when I ask why the machine, while wheelchair accessible, isn’t accessible to me as a blind person, when even the mobile phone in my pocket talks, I get , “oh, it was too expensive.” So it’s reasonable for a wheelchair user to get full access to their bus, to their bank, and to their money, but not a blind person. Reasons for this difference in access? Some disabilities are more equal than others. Able bodied People understand wheelchair use more than they do blindness. So catering for it is easier for them. What do people who are blind need? What do people with learning disabilities need? What do people with mental illness need to make their lives inclusive? What do they want? “Well, we won’t ask them, because they are scary, and might be evil, an don’t make eye contact in the way we wish them to, and frighten us shitless!” so say the able bodied society. This is disablism too. I have heard some wheelchair users do not like the fact the mobility component of disability living allowance has been extended to totally blind people, well why not? blind people have exactly the same mobility needs as wheelchair users, which has been accepted by the powers that be after a long fight. Without training, a blind person’s world is restricted to what he or she can feel with their two hands or two feet, that is it. And many dangerous assumptions have been made recently about the powers of guide dogs to make blind people independent, enough to try to restrict eligibility to benefits if a guide dog is used. Disablism happens when the needs of disabled people are not listened to, when assumptions are made, and when there is a disability hierarchy, the deserving, “clean disabled,” and the undeserving, unclean disabled.” I have touched on some issues here, but there are many other disabilities and illnesses which need consideration, wheelchair users don’t have it rosy either, though I postulate the world treats them with more understanding than it does a blind person or a person with learning disabilities. Which is disablism in itself. There needs to be an accurate, fair and objective look at every disability, and access for all. I note the Olympics have singularly failed in this, giving wheelchair users access with their carers for no extra cost than that of one ticket, whereas a blind person has to pay for two tickets. Why is this? because wheelchair users are seen by the majority as having mobility problems, blind people haven’t got mobility problems, because they can walk. Um, stick me in a foreign stadium without assistance, and I might as well be a wheelchair user myself, as I have as little mobility as they do without their chair. So disablism is fostered within the very system of government and this latest administration is seeking to make disablism more rampant with its crusade against benefit claimants. This is frightening because access for all is by no means built into society. David Cameran would have me talk to a stranger on the street and ask him or her to read my post, um, and have that person run off with my identity? No thanks. I feel I have the right to privacy too, though unfortunately the world doesn’t agree.