What do members think of this view?
Best wishes for the Millennium
Elaine
"See The Person" - "See The Purse Come"
by Linda Marsh
The government's current campaign is doing disabled people no favours.
The campaign is undoing all the hard work of the Disabled People's Movement
over the last twenty to thirty years.
Members of the Movement have been promoting the real reason for disabled
people's existence - barriers in society. If these barriers were not there
we would be people who happen to have an impairment, not disabled people.
One of these barriers - and often the biggest - is people's attitudes to
disabled people.
For hundreds of years disabled people have been associated with pity,
charity and "need". Often, people see the disabled person, and immediately
think of charity and giving money - the purse comes out of the pocket -
metaphorically, if not literally!
Two years ago I was waiting outside a lecture theatre, minding my own
business and drinking hot chocolate out of a Styrofoam cup, when a student
walking past dropped some money in it. This is an example of "see the
person, see the purse come".
I was humiliated, and furious that someone would see me and think of giving
money. And this in a University department which runs disability studies
courses based on the social model of disability!
The most noticeable word on the government's adverts is "tragic" - how is
this going to move people away from that old image of us?
Not only that but it uses the word "disability" incorrectly. Disability is
in society, it is the discrimination and barriers disabled people face.
This campaign seems to be implying that people shouldn't see our
impairments. Why not? It's part of me, and goes towards making me what I am.
I'm not ashamed of my impairment - why should other people be? But anyway,
impairment should not be an issue at all here!
If the government is going to spend money on a campaign, it hshould be a
campaign to highlight barriers which society uses to exclude disabled
people, and promoting the removal of these barriers:
See the hostility - where's the acceptance?
see the steps - where's the ramp?
See the BSL - where's the reply?
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