Has anyone noticed recently, how more disabled people who have learning
differences are moving out of the margins? In order for us to gain our
rightful place in society, first of all we need to challenge the
organisational structures of disability organisations within disability
movements, in order for them to address, different ways of communicating the
written and spoken word and different ways of thinking and viewing society
and then take OUR politics into the mainstream - not the other way round.
i.e. bringing mainstream politics into disability movements.
I have a hyperlexia learning difference and as a consequence of this I get
many of my words and phrases mixed up and fortunately I couldn't waffle if
I tried. When I do say something it is usually short and to the point and
any writing/typing I undertake is extremely tedious and VERY time consuming.
Email has to be one of the most difficult and discriminatory fora in which
to communicate and if people write and express themselves in 'different'
ways to the expected norms, people make [negative] judgements about the whole
of their lives. I also have a restricted growth (impairment) difference, I
have a physical (impairment) difference (I use a wheelchair) and I have a
visual (impairment) difference. Alongside this, I come from a profoundly
institutionalised background in as much as I was literally socialised out of
society in as much as I did not adopt the mainstream cultural concepts and
[by far theoretical] understanding of life or anything.
Institutionalisation/dehumanisation is not something, which only happens
within 'institutions'. It can happen within a disabled persons home
environment, and most certainly happens within institutions like special
schools, day centres, and within the whole host of "special needs" (sic)
provisions. With hindsight, a little bit of healing and a good dollop of
politics, I believe that some things can be salvaged from such profound
discrimination/atrocities.
My experience of this level of disability oppression is by far not unique,
what is unique is that I have the power and politics to speak out against
such profound discrimination within various fora and on my own terms. I say
on my own terms because I do not know what terms I "should" be speaking
from. I work within an oppression/disability model of thinking. e.g.
hierarchy of oppression and advocate the importance of addressing a persons
basic survival needs within a social model context, in order to offer
strategies on how to gain entry into society.
I have travelled from the margins of the margins and I have virtually bi
passed the mainstream, other than when I entered the University education
system. With this experience in mind: to deny disabled people their education
has to be one of the most fundamental human rights abuses of our time. I
think it goes without saying, that denied access (because of political
barriers) to educational opportunities (and politics), keeps many disabled
people profoundly ignorant, unprotected and absolutely powerless. Believe me.
I await the brickbats (ok maybe not).
Liz Fetes
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