Parents arguing that "my angel" couldn't have done THAT in class, is an
old story, (I'm a child of an elementary school teacher; I've heard
this story over the dinner table, enough times...) and this category
of dispute with parents over pinning down behavioral facts, and what to
do about them -- will no doubt continue until the end of time.
That is, both inside, or outside of a context including disability.
One senses that Low's speech (and his supposedly total willingness to be
led by someone inviting him not only to a title, but it seems, also led
to organizing his whole presentation around that title) bears an awfully
strong resemblance to one of those right wing arguments developed &
polished at right-wing think-tanks, for retail media distribution, where
they hunt for the best-fitting (and often only) example of something,
that most works with their preconceived political philosophy --- and
then they focus this one type of case, as a launching pad for building
political generalities on it; i.e., trying to get to a conclusion of --
"that political movement is similarly: ignoring facts / dubious / wrong
about EVERYTHING".
In the US, the classic selected example the right wingers love to cite,
to confound the politics of some anti-racism efforts -- is the urban
taxi drivers who avoid certain neighborhoods and certain customers.
People like Dinesh D'Souza (sp?) and the Olin Foundation which backs
him, will cite that particular example -- every time, because so many of
the drivers themselves, are people of color, and poor. But of course,
that's a complicated and relatively unique example, and therefore
whatever you can learn (or unlearn / confuse) from or with it ---
hardly applies to the larger world in which most of the wealth & power
IS held by rich whites.
Row and any parties behind him (even if it's just who he's politically
sucking up to) , seem to have started with asking "How can we make a
plausible argument against disabled rights and the SM?" (That would
explain the whole neo-con schtick he's doing at the retail political
level in this speech.) And then scoured the country for specifics, and
picked this one classroom situation to focus on.
If the intent was not to bash the social model or disabled rights, then
the title of the lecture might have at least as logically, if not more
logically -- been titled "Has the nuclear family gone too far?" But of
course the nuclear family has a halo of highest status around it....
and quite the opposite, people with disabilities are socially bash-able
-- so like most bullies, he picks the target that he thinks is less able
to fight back -- and Voila! the whole thrust is that a theory of human
rights, and a movement of human rights is the thing that has "gone too
far".
Picking that target is further illogical, because -- by definition, the
disabled rights movement is primarily what we PWD's are moving to get.
Not what AB allies say or do. Parents, (unless they happen to have a
disability, or the same cognitive disability as the children in the
example) -- are almost by definition, "allies", not PWD actors in the
story. Does anyone say that feminism has gone too far, based on what a
few sympathetic men have said, allegedly "going to far"?
Of course not.
So Row really wants to pick a bone with certain parents, and being
afraid to tangle with that sacred institution, ends up skewering "the
disabled rights movement" and a theory, instead.
Did the students with behavioral disabilities, themselves, advocate any
particular ed. policy (or DS theory)? If not, then is it not a stretch
to say that "the disabled rights movement" (or a few theorists) are the
party that "has gone too far"?
Sounds to me like a typical au courant conservative retail-political
schtick, in which they're eager to claim the noble status of dissenter /
challenger to a strong force. If the DR movement in the UK (or
anywhere) is so strong, that it's now the establishment aginst which he
noly rebels -- where are it's other great victories? OF course, there
aren't any.
So this isn't really in the larger body politic -- an alternative-POV
speech, it's really an overheated "nip it in the bud" speech.
But if the disabled rights movement, or the social model that some
scholars have distilled from it, is too simple and denies any other
factors -- well, don't blame any political movement for that. Blame the
academics who defined their model that way. I don't know any
PWD-movement person who views barriers / discrimination as the one and
only problem in the world we face... if the ''model" is that
simple-minded; non-academic PWD's certainly do not deserve the blame for
that. (Yes, (yawn) a few individuals can be both DS academics and
DR-activists, but in that case, let's get real, money talks, and
generally the source-of-career-$ dominates the identity and the
behavior.)
And of course, a point that bears repeating in this situation --
academic models do NOT spark and drive human rights movements. People
experiencing discrimination and opression, form movements, and then
later a few scholars tag along and try to keep up, reporting on it, or
they even try to explain it. If academia was the seed from which
disabled rights sprang, then The Medical Model would have been replaced
by something called The Professoriat Model, and we'd be in need of
liberation from both. Disabled liberation was NOT invented at Leeds,
in a paper. Any scholar who implies that, is trying to steal history.
Someone should also inform Prof. Row that communism has fallen years
ago, except in less than one percent of the world. Time to forget the
intellectualy dishonest red baiting, and references to "Red Guards".
IF there's a kernel of validity in that speech anywhere, then he does
his allies' political position a disservice, by being the one to try to
politically retail it.
And I for one would require any "facts" he cites (like, the laws against
various things have now been erased? doubtful) to be thoroughly
checked and verified, by another party, before I would believe any of
them, and even begin to then consider any arguments he builds on those
"facts".
But -- big picture -- Low's speech does not strike me as a speech that
just spontaneously & quickly was thrown together, by the happenstance of
the party doing the inviting, suggesting a contrarian title. As he
explains it's origins. It's too well polished, and slick, including the
logical leaps and political slights of hand.... for that. Experience
tells me that speeches like this, are crafted (oten by foundations) when
someone's fronting for some powerful party, or seeking a new job /
grant, etc. Todd Gitlin discussed this in several pages of "The
Twilight of Commion Dreams" (not that I'd reccomend that book,
generally).,
And what were the extra remarks not in the prepared text, that have been
deleted?
How can we evaluate what the man said, if we only have part of what he
said?
Let's see the rest!
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