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There’s all good news from this relatively small, but mighty, group. Their hard work on Robie street (Truro) has been passed to the town engineer and they are meeting next Thursday morning, at 10am, to go over what the group would like to see done.
Mobility Ryders is doing awesome work for disability advocacy in Truro. Lets give them a huge shout out! Yaaaay!!!!!
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In a previous post (April 6) I blogged about the pleasure I had of being one of three panelists at Dal Legal Aid’s A.G.M. Now I’d like to tell you about what I consider a brilliant service and technology.
For those who’ve never met me, I have a moderate speech impediment. I personally don’t think it’s any big deal but in a fair size room with white noise buzzing about, yeh, some people will likely have some difficulty understanding me, at least initially.
At this event I had my main attendant, Kelly, accompany me, as I knew the event would entail 4 or 5 hours including bus travel and therefore I would need washroom and other assistance.
Now, you have to understand Kelly. Kelly is incredible and totally awesome! She also happens to be at the very top of my cheer leading squad. She and I have been through such an incredible amount of good, terrible and everything in between (including my unexpected marriage breakup) during the 4+ years since I hired her. Yet Kelly would rather burro herself to the bottom of the earth than be anywhere remotely near a spotlight. So when one of the event’s student organizers, Jimmy, asked if she wanted to sit next to me at the panelists table, well, poor Kelly just about had 5 simultaneous heart attacks right then and there. She knows well how much I appreciate her. That’s never in question. So she and I quickly agreed that she was just fine right where she was – in the isle seat of the back row.
Knowing that Kelly was cool, I headed up front where we panelists and organizers were meeting each other and working out the logistics of our presentation. Earlier I had noticed Jimmy setting up some kind of laptop-phone combo and as I love tech toys immensely I was intrigued, but there wasn’t time for me to be my nosey self and soon the panel discussion was in progress.
As the other panelists spoke, I happened to glance behind us and I realized that our comments were being posted on screen. My only thought then was: “Huh. That’s cool. But it likely won’t pick up my voice.” Some time went by before I began to clue into the fact that each time I spoke, Jimmy would crouch down, come scurrying up, grab a cordless phone off our table, and go scurrying off to the back of the room. Again, I really didn’t think much about this at first and it wasn’t until we had finished the evening’s discussion that I learned of what was happening. When Jimmy told me about what was actually transpiring, I was completely impressed and blown away.
AB Captioning & CART is an instant transcribing service, headed by Sandra German, in British Columbia Canada. While we were speaking, a person in Ontario Canada, was transcribing our spoken words to text, which was then put up on the screen behind us. Each time I spoke, Jimmy was transporting the phone back to Kelly, who would repeat word for word everything I was saying. I was also extremely impressed with Jimmy’s quick thinking initiative to provide adaptive accommodations for me.
The fact that Kelly was at the back of the room made it much more comfortable for both her and I, and Jimmy was such a good sport about running the phone to her. It was perfect.
Back standing, left to right: Donna Franey, Sarah Boucaud, Nora MacIntosh and Jimmy Bray.
Front, left to right: Claire McNeil, Gerianne (Annie) Hull and Megan MacBride.
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By: David Morstad
American historian and author, William Loren Katz, who has written extensively on the histories of both African Americans and Native Americans, has observed, “If you believe people have no history worth mentioning, it is easy to believe they have no humanity worth defending.”
While he was speaking of the importance of knowing the histories of non-Europeans in this country, his words have proven to be disastrously true for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities as well.
As communities of faith begin to open their doors to those whom they often understand to be somewhat unlike themselves, it might be helpful to know a bit of history. Because, if it looks as though there is something of a disconnect between those with and without disabilities, a certain struggle to find common ground, it may be something more than simply a perceived skill deficit. It may indeed be due at least in part to the weight of the story that people with developmental disabilities are bringing with them.
Eugenics and Institutionalization
This is a people who, in the 20th Century alone, faced the tide of the Eugenics movement which, bolstered by no less than a supreme court decision, turned their very bodies over to the state for compulsory sterilization; then, fewer than 20 years later, were the first victims of the Holocaust through Germany’s Aktion T-4 program that resulted in the extermination of over 200,000 people with disabilities. The official Nazi designation for them was “Lebensunwertes Leben”; in English, “life unworthy of life”.
Christmas in Purgatory
From “Christmas in Purgatory” by Burton Blatt
In the 1960s, institutions for people with developmental disabilities hit their maximum population in the US and conditions were, in many cases, deplorable. Burton Blatt’s 1965 book Christmas in Purgatory, provided a shocking revelation of the conditions in several state-run facilities. While the years since then have seen a steady decline in institutions, their legacy of separation persists to this day. In spite of our awareness of history and our commitment to justice and equality, we always seem ready to believe that people with disabilities are something other than us. Playing by different rules. Regarded with different values.
The 21st Century Disconnect
Stop the shock. These are not ancient stories with limited relevance to our 21st Century thinking. The well-established pattern continues. Torture in the guise of behavior management continues at the Judge Rotenberg Center in Massachusetts, waiting only for a government agency to decide that a device, unthinkable in any other environment in the US, should not be used to inflict intentional pain and suffering on people with disabilities at this facility. The FDA has been deliberating the question for more than four years; meanwhile, the torture goes on.
Meanwhile, quiet citizen petitions (largely unsuccessful) continue the nagging mythology that people with disabilities will somehow make the rest of us unsafe in our neighborhoods when, in fact, they are much more likely to be victims than perpetrators. Quieter still, prenatal testing is steadily providing the information many will use to stop the birth of people with certain genetic characteristics all together.
If faith communities are to place themselves in a position of advocacy – to literally defend the humanity of their fellow believers – we may do well to gain a greater understanding and sensitivity to the burden of their “history worth mentioning.”
Enjoy more of David Morstad’s articles at: https://largertable.com/”
