Tag: inclusion

Parade Announcement

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Hey everyone! Unfortunately due to a lack of interest and other outside factors, we have made the decision to postpone this year’s virtual Disability Pride Parade. We hope to have something to share with you soon but in the mean time, keep an eye out for other exciting events hosted by others celebrating National Accessibility Awareness Week! We will be sharing many of them on our Facebook page.

It’s That Time Again!!! Disability Pride Parade, Virtual Edition!

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Disability Pride Parade!!! (Virtual Edition) When: May 31st to June 6th, 2021 Where: DisabilityPride.net Facebook Page Who: Any individual, group, organization, artist, entrepreneur, entertainer, friend, family, or person who holds a positive attitude on disability, disability rights, and disability issues What: Show off and celebrate disability pride in all it's forms! How: in lieu of a float, submit a representational image, or a 15-SECOND video to virtual2021parade@disabilitypride.net no later than Wednesday, May 26th, 2021, at 11:59pm

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We are happy to announce that we’re prepping for another Disability Pride Parade – Virtual Edition!

As with last year, we are doing this wholly online. We are asking for everyone who has a positive connection to the disabled community to send us an image, artwork, or short (less than 15 seconds) video expressing their disability pride.

We are so proud of our community and want to see that pride reflected everywhere. Show us your mobility devices, show us your art, show us your adaptive tech or gear, show us your PRIDE!!!

Disability Pride Parade!!!
(Virtual Edition)

When: May 31st to June 6th, 2021

Where: DisabilityPride.net Facebook Page

Who: Any individual, group, organization, artist, entrepreneur, entertainer, friend, family, or person who holds a positive attitude on disability, disability rights, and disability issues

What: Show off and celebrate disability pride in all it’s forms!

How: in lieu of a float, submit a representational image, or a 15-SECOND video to virtual2021parade@disabilitypride.net
no later than Wednesday, May 26th, 2021, at 11:59pm

Feeling Through is Not the Representation I Want to See

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By Mary Wilson

The Oscars for 2021 are pending and there is a huge slate of movies that have been nominated, with a record-breaking number of films centered on or staring people with disabilities.

Guess how many it took to break that record?

Three.

There are three films that are about the experiences of disabled people. One, Sound of Metal, is a feature film about a drummer who is losing his hearing and does not have any hearing-impaired or D/deaf actors in leading roles (there are minor roles and extras who are hearing-impaired). Crip Camp is a documentary that extensively features disabled people about a summer camp for disabled people that helped lead to the disability rights movement in the US. Feeling Through is a short film that features a deafblind supporting actor about an abled young man helping a deafblind man get home.

I don’t want to shit all over the strides made with actually seeing representation of real disabled people in film that are made with these three films. It’s an achievement that needs to be commented on but I will stop short of celebrating something that should have happened a very long time ago.

I have seen, loved and shared Crip Camp with everyone I thought would enjoy it. It addressed so very many things in a very human way. It was everything I could have hoped for in a documentary about people.

I have not seen Sound of Metal but I want to. I will probably engage in serious suspension of disbelief to get past the “Riz Ahmed isn’t HoH or Deaf” thing and I will probably have THOUGHTS and FEELINGS about it but… I’m a punk and metal fan so I’m willing to deal with those when they come.

That leaves the third film, Feeling Through. I made the decision to watch it after reading criticism of it from deafblind attorney and activist Haben Girma. I wanted to know if I should be annoyed at it or if I should be mad at it. I try really hard not to hate films without seeing them (except films by very specific directors-that-shall-not-be-named. Those I outright refuse to watch, no matter their artistic or cultural merits) even when I’m fairly certain there will be things I find, at best, to be misrepresentations and, at worst, to be absolute bullshit. Feeling Through is beautifully shot and the actors are very good. There’s a decent amount of chemistry between Tareek (Steven Prescod), an abled but housing-insecure young man and Artie (Robert Tarango), a deafblind middle-aged man.

That’s the end of my positive takeaways. Turns out, I should be mad at Feeling Through and you probably should be mad too. Lisa Ferris has an amazing analysis of the wide variety of problems with this movie from the perspective of someone who is herself deafblind. I encourage you to read her article on it. I am mostly just going to be echoing her sentiments with my own interpretation.

First and foremost, I strongly believe that Feeling Through is inspiration porn. If you are unfamiliar with the term, “inspiration porn” was coined by writer and activist Stella Young (https://www.ted.com/talks/stella_young_i_m_not_your_inspiration_thank_you_very_much/transcript?language=en). It’s a way to describe images and stories of marginalized people, almost always disabled people, doing normal daily activities, participating in “regular” life. These images and stories are implicitly used to “inspire” abled people because if a disabled person can do something, why shouldn’t or can’t you? I could go into why this is problematic but I will leave that for a later time. If you don’t see why such images are problematic, please, just trust me for now.

Artie himself is almost a caricature of inspiration porn but the way he is written lacks the awareness of the potential problematic nature of this characterization. He is just going about his daily life, trying to get home from a date (yay for giving some hints at sexuality in disabled people I guess). I call this a caricature because even for inspiration porn, Artie’s “struggle” to participate in the world is unbelievably naïve and lacking any fundamental understanding of how self-reliant and independent disabled people are/have to be.

Artie is portrayed as relying completely upon the support of strangers to help him navigate his attempt to get home from his date. The only tools he seems to have available to help himself are a series of pre-printed questions or requests and a notebook where he can write more specific information or questions. Although that may have been the norm for deafblind people 20 years ago, the proliferation of and inexpensive access to cell phones and digital braille display devices are an inescapable demonstration of the deliberate efforts of the filmmaker to keep Artie as “helpless” as possible to help the plot.

Because Artie is demonstrated to be virtually helpless without the intervention of strangers, his presence in the film makes it feel like he is a prop, not a person. He is objectified as someone who is there to help and, in being helped, he facilitates Tareek’s growth and change. He is not even the source of the inspirarion part of the story. Tareek is given that role and Artie is the object that allows Tareek to inspire us.

My final problem is that the main character is a housing-insecure young black man. I personally want more diversity of all types in film however, in this particular case casting a black actor is the opposite of what that means to me.

Spoilers ahead.

One of the first things Tareek does when Artie requests his assistance buying a drink in a bodega is rob Artie. He uses Artie’s money to buy himself a chocolate bar and pockets $10 of the change. Yes, Artie just thoughtlessly handed over his wallet to Tareek so he could pay for Artie’s drink, showing a disturbing level of naiveté but that’s problematic for other reasons. Tareek robs Artie. That’s what happens. A young, housing-insecure black man robs a disabled dude. The role could just have easily been played by any other young actor but the director chose a black actor. He chose to have a young black man rob someone. For the record, the writer/director appears to be an abled white guy. This is the first time in my life I’ve asked out loud why this role had to be played by a black actor because I could see no other reason for it than the writer/director having unexamined racist stereotypes playing in his head while casting.

Artie, because of the manufactured naivete in this narrative, does not notice the missing money. He is so oblivious and helpless that he apparently can’t even keep track of his own cash and the theft does not impact his reliance on and trust in Tareek for the rest of the evening.

But don’t worry. After helping Artie all night, Tareek realizes that he is not entitled to Artie’s money but instead of admitting to Artie that he stole from him, Tareek leaves the $10 in a homeless man’s empty coffee cup.

Spoilers over.

So, to sum up my feelings about Feeling Through in a more concise way; This is a piece of inspiration porn that objectifies and infantilizes a grown deafblind man for the purpose of villainizing and then granting absolution to a housing-insecure young black man. There is not one bit of this story that I find unproblematic. This is not the representation I want to see of anyone in film, especially not groups who have been consistently ignored or vilified by mainstream filmmaking.

Remembering the Disabled Victims of Filicide

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graphic of 3 abstract lit candles with the text reading disability day of mourning, remembering people with disabilities murdered by their families

Courtesy of https://disability-memorial.org/

Every year on March 1st we acknowledge the Disability Community Day of Mourning. This year, more than any other, will mark a very different look to the way we mourn as a community. In the face of a pandemic that has had a disproportionate effect on disabled people and their communities, it is more important for us to honor the lives of disabled people murdered by those closest to them. Disabled people in our communities are generally ignored and it has become even more difficult to raise awareness of the problem of filicide of disabled people with the constant onslaught of tragedy caused by Covid-19.

Disabled people are receiving significantly less support than non-disabled people when it comes to healthcare specifically related to Covid-19. With ICUs being forced to prioritize life-saving measures based on criteria that is beyond the understanding of laypeople, including taking into account perceived “quality of life” as a determining factor in some cases. Disabled people are far too often seen as having less “quality of life” than non-disabled people which leads doctors to place them further down the priority list when it comes to finite resources in life-saving measures. This specific criterion frequently demonstrates that even (or especially???) doctors do not have a fundamental understanding of what it actually is to be disabled.

In Canada we are also facing the enshrinement in law of the assumption that disabled people have less “quality of life” in the amendments being proposed to Canada’s Criminal Code and Medical Aid in Dying laws through Bill C-7 which is currently being debated in Parliament. Bill C-7 includes expanding MAiD to people who experience “grievous and irremediable medical condition” but do not have an immediately foreseeable risk of death due to their condition. The United Nations has come down on this proposed amendment, citing that as a signatory nation on the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Canada would be in violation of that convention if the amendment to our Criminal Code is passed.

When it comes to the murder of disabled people by family and support people, we see the “quality of life” argument brought up in almost every single case. How often have we heard someone who murdered a disabled person defend themselves (usually to very sympathetic audience) by proclaiming that the victim was suffering? That their life was miserable, sad, pain-filled, and restrictive. That the murderer would want someone to do the same (kill them?) for them if they had been disabled.

The idea that some lives, especially disabled lives, are “less than” other lives is a terrifying and dangerous one. Subjective criteria like “quality of life” and “grievous and irremediable” open the door for increased discrimination, decreased social support, and as demonstrated by the ongoing pandemic, decreased access to resources that will sustain or improve a life for people who don’t conform to the “standard model” of what personhood is perceived to be.

The ongoing pandemic and Canada’s Bill C-7 are just large-scale demonstrations of what can happen when peoples’ lives are assigned “value” by some arbitrary set of criteria. We see smaller demonstrations of the same every time a disabled person is murdered by someone they are supposed to trust. It will be difficult to mourn the disabled lives lost to MAiD and the pandemic because there will be so many and it will be in a hospital or under a doctor’s care. We will continue to mourn disabled people who die violent deaths at the hands of trusted individuals and hope that the parallels are drawn between the three types of event.

Today, we remember and mourn:

Terri-Lynn Thompson – murdered by her husband October 14, 2019 in Belleville Ontario

Florence Girard – neglected by her paid attendant until she starved to death on October 13, 2018 in Vancouver British Columbia

Douglas Fischer – murdered by his daughter’s ex partner, part of a multiple murder, March 29, 2018 in Bluevale, Ontario

Levi Illingayuk – killed by his son in a fight, February 3, 2018 in Clyde River, Nunavut

Ninon Hardie – murdered by her son, December 6, 2017 in Toronto, Ontario

Richard Dubuc – killed by his brother, October 5, 2017 in Montreal, Quebec

Ryanna Grywacheski – murdered by her boyfriend, September 16, 2017 in Marystown, Newfoundland

Kaylie Lis-Lalande – neglected by her mother until she died from complications from starvation and dehydration, September 4, 2017 in Oakville, Ontario

Jocelyne Lizotte – killed by her husband February 20, 2017 in Montreal, Quebec

Lydia Whitford – died from unknown causes suspected to be the result of homicide or neglect at the hands of her foster mother, July 14, 2016 in Stonewall, Manitoba

Ronald McCabe – murdered by his son, March 7, 2016 in Kitchener, Ontario

Irene Carter – murdered by her daughter, January 13, 2016 in Lethbridge, Alberta

Jessica Hagan – murdered by her mother, September 8, 2015 in Cranston, Alberta

Anne Schmidt – murdered by her son, July 5, 2015 in Vineland, Ontario

Emily Janzen – murdered (along with her mother and aunt) by her father, May 7, 2015 in Rosedale, British Columbia

2020 Reflections

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So, that was a year we’ll never forget, wasn’t it?

2020 was an unexpected rollercoaster and while I am not sorry to see the end of it and I’m eager to move forward and greet 2021 with hope for less chaos, I want to recognize some truly amazing things that 2020 brought us at DisabilityPride.net.

Firstly, Gerianne and I started 2020 off with a new adventure, participating in TeamWork Cooperative’s Self Employment Workshop where I learned just how much Gerianne hates market research and Gerianne and I both learned that there are many ways to go about building a successful business and we have to determine our own definition of successful. We enjoyed getting to know many other entrepreneurs and made a few friends while we were attending the workshops. Unsurprisingly, the workshop was cancelled in mid-March when everything was thrown into lockdown. While Gerianne did not “graduate” from the program we did gain valuable experience there and are incredibly grateful to TeamWork for giving us the opportunity to participate.

As we entered lockdown and people were required to isolate for a variety of reasons, our staffing pool became fairly shallow. Gerianne and I were together almost all day, almost every day for a fair chunk of March and April due to various isolation and quarantine requirements. This would have probably driven most working relationships into the ground but we managed to flourish as a team. The main part of the reason for this was our ability to get along and communicate very well. We both had bad days, we both had good days. They didn’t always coincide but we were able to work together through them and produce some amazing content and a wide variety of projects.

Gerianne was determined to not sit idle while the world was essentially shut down. She completed and excelled at several courses on online marketing and search engine optimization. We both participated in and completed ARCH Disability Law’s Community Champions stream on the United Nation’s Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Optional Protocols and how those can be used by disability rights activists in Canada. It was an eye-opening experience that gave us insight into the various avenues for and challenges with defending inclusion and disabled people’s human rights within Canada and around the world.

DisabilityPride.net just finished our first newsletter (check it out if you haven’t seen it!) and we have started to explore video production. We have big ideas and big plans, many of which started forming during this complicated adventure in various stages of lockdown.

Gerianne also began the adventure of diversifying her income opportunities and has been incredibly successful selling vintage and second-hand furniture and décor. We have also collected a number of stories from Gerianne’s customers that we hope to turn into either posts on the blog or a collection of vignettes for the newsletter’s next edition.

Though this year was professionally a success, I would be remiss to not acknowledge the difficulties in the non-professional sphere. I spent a significant length of time away from my children as they were visiting family out-of-province when lockdown began. Gerianne and I spent almost every night I was here with my kids reading us bedtime stories. I am forever grateful to my family, who kept my kids safe, happy and healthy during a time their father and I couldn’t be there with them physically.

Gerianne has been diligent about maintaining the health and safety of herself and her attendants, which means adhering to all guidelines from the Department of Health. As a result, she has been home more often in the last 9 months than she probably has in the last 4 years. She has missed participating in her community, including church, immensely. She has also deeply missed seeing her family and friends.

We have had an unprecedented year. 2020 will be a forever bittersweet time but I am proud to have accomplished so much during a global crisis. If there had to be anyone by my side during such an event, I’m infinitely grateful I had Gerianne (and my family) with me for this adventure.