First I want to start by saying how worried I was that yesterdays protest would somehow damage the reputation of the new disabled peoples movements and create headlines and stories off message and distracting to the main cause. I am really glad that this hasn't been the case, as I have seen some really great stories and coverage of the day yesterday (it was only twitter that seemed to get a bit negative).
I was really impressed that everyone decided to move off in a peaceful way and that there were no arrests or any disturbances. I LOLed at the police vans not being able to take wheelchairs and I am really amazed and in awe of those who took part. As with any protest, the participants take a great risk to their health and the personal sacrifice for a greater cause is appreciated.
However, and I say this tentatively because I don't want to hurt feelings or create tension, I am concerned. I speak from a disability studies angle, and I hope you appreciate that with this degree I am being taught to be critically aware of issues surrounding disability and to 'look beyond' the surface.
Yesterdays protest in my opinion was all about the wheelchairs blocking the road. Although many other disabled people were involved in this protest and stood alongside non disabled ukuncut activists there was little focus on them. It is a little bit of a bugbear of mine (which I apologise for) that people (IE society) sees disability as people in wheelchairs. Yesterdays protest, in my opinion only perpetuated that belief. There appeared to be no equality with other disabled people, and in my opinion they were the ones who took the greater risk. If the police were to start clearing the protest they would have started with the standing protestors under the assumption that these people were not disabled and part of ukuncut.
Thats what I really liked about the hardest hit march that I went on in october, and the internet based campaigning on twitter. There is equality of participation. In October the slowest walkers went at the front of the march and it was at a slow pace for everyone to feel involved. Everyone felt a part of it and had equal role to play.
On twitter, and on the internet, no one knows whose in a wheelchair and whose got what impairment, or even if they are impaired. The internet doesn't discriminate on the grounds of disability. Again everyone was able to take part equally and contribute equally to the action.
Now, as I have said before I have great admiration for yesterdays protest. It was daring and it was an amazing thing to have pulled off. I am just thinking that in future things like this could be less focused on using wheelchairs as barricades and focusing more on a way for all disabled people to participate equally?
I agree completely. We need to work out how to get the press to stop the wheelchair focus, as wheelchairs seemed like the only way to get their attention yesterday.
ReplyDeleteThat's a fair enough concern, I guess from the film I saw I thought it was apparent that there were a variety of disabilities, not just the people in chairs but they may not have come across on the news reports. I've been exasperated by the mainstream's reporting on disability issues by their film clips. When, for instance, discussing mental illness they've used shots of people with white sticks, guide dogs or wheelchairs even when it's been irrelevant to the actual disability discussed. They also do the same thing that they do with the 'fat people' shots, where you get an anonymous midriff. The Guardian filming has been a lot better by taking the time to talk to people with 'invisible' disabilities, learning disabilities etc. (Though hey, 3 disabled people being interviewed in the last couple of weeks has also been a big jump in reporting). I'm glad I didn't get to see any twitter nastiness, bar the Councillor thinking that he was just dissing UKUncut. I guess that as this was the first protest out of all the protesting over the last year or so, that got mainstream media coverage, it was effective. The fact that all the hard work people had done so far hasn't had any coverage (bar the Guardian & Private Eye) had put people in the position of thinking 'what the hell do we have to do to be heard'. It was a good, peaceful protest, which we're allowed to do - unfortunately, I imagine people may have also thought 'what do we have to lose?'. With the barrage of scrounger, workshy, faker nonsense that's been constantly put out by the press and the harassment disabled people are experiencing, I think we'd be hard pressed to put ourselves in a worse of a light! It is anxiety provoking entering the public arena especially for a stigmatized group of people. There was sympathy and outrage over the abuse at Winterbourne, but again that was reported in an anonymous way without the voices of people with learning disabilities that would lead them having to live in such a place. Hopefully, a wheel, rather than a foot, was jammed in the media's door yesterday and that slowly but surely they'll get used to and want to speak to people with various disabilities.
ReplyDeletehttp://allbigideas.blogspot.com/2012/01/links-links-links.html
Deletelots and lots of good postive coverage of spartacus, from as extremes as the daily mail and the socialistworker....