Views from the Reading Room

Today is Blogging Against Disablism Day.

I don't think I can write anything coherent for it. I had my first SALT (Speech & Language Therapy) appointment today, and maybe I used up all the words? ... no, actually I've been lurking for weeks if not longer and it's not because of that (my speech problem is intermittent and physical, except for where I get anxious about it) ... it's more Living With Pain (, Dammit), Too Many Distractions and possibly some lack of cope. I'm sure I'll start "talking" online again sometime!

So: BADD links:
Master roundup post at Diary of a Goldfish - more links than you can shake a stick at, and probably more to come;
The Exploitation of Home Health Workers at This Ain't Livin', because May 1st is also Labour Day.

Today is Blogging Against Disablism Day. Follow the link for more posts than you can shake a stick at! It's going to take a long time to catch up ...



Here is a bit of personal history:

( Changing my identity )

*The ConDem government, continuing on the same path as the previous bunch of hypocrites, are determined to redefine disability in ever-narrower ways, so as to claim people are capable of work when they're not, and penalise them for not being able to get work in a recession. You can read more about this at the Broken of Britain blog.

via trouble

Where's the Benefit? have the following info:

A (hopefully!) large group of disabled people will be protesting against the proposed benefits cuts outside the Tory Party conference tomorrow, Sunday 3rd October 2010. For details of where, times, etc, please see Disabled People Protest.

For those who can't go, there's also a virtual protest (with a Facebook page which I can't access): to replace your avatar with the campaign image (see icon for this post). "Cuts hurt when it's you that's bleeding". Fake blood will also be used in the physical protest in Birmingham.

Today, August 1st, is Emancipation Day in Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Bermuda, Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and the Turks and Caicos Islands (list from Wikipedia). It commemorates the implementation, in stages, of the Slavery Abolition Act 1833.

Here's a black historical figure I only heard of recently: William Cuffay, 1788-1870. I heard this radio programme about him last week: Britain's Black Revolutionary (available for 3 more days if you can use the BBC's iPlayer). His father had been a slave. William had a physical disability, and worked as a tailor in London. He was blacklisted after being involved in a strike, and joined the Chartist movement, becoming one of its leaders in London.

As a union organiser, Cuffay addressed his fellow workers as "fellow slaves"; Chartists referred to him as a brother Chartist. The mainstream press, though, were more inclined to stress his colour and his "deformity". The establishment were busy portraying the Chartists as dangerous revolutionaries; note that all their demands except for annual elections are now taken for granted as part of our political system. In 1848, Cuffay was involved in organising a march which was intended to present a Chartist petition to the House of Commons. The march never happened, but on the evidence of police spies, Cuffay was sentenced to transportation to Tasmania.

When the political prisoners in Tasmania were pardoned, Cuffay elected to remain there. (I don't know how voluntary that was: how did you get back?) He returned to his trade as a tailor, and remained involved in radical politics for the rest of his life.

bio on 100 Great Black Britons

It's Helen Keller Day on Second Life, and for those of us who don't hang out there, FWD is hosting a Mythbusting Blogswarm. Until recently I only knew the usual story about how "miracle worker" Anne Sullivan taught Helen to communicate. Her life after that isn't so widely publicised, possibly because she grew up to have opinions of her own and be a political activist. "Inspiring" stories of "overcoming" disability is one thing; real women with Opinions is something else.

From Wikipedia:

Keller went on to become a world-famous speaker and author. She is remembered as an advocate for people with disabilities amid numerous other causes. She was a suffragist, a pacifist, an opponent of Woodrow Wilson, a radical Socialist and a birth control supporter. In 1915 she and George Kessler founded the Helen Keller International (HKI) organization. This organization is devoted to research in vision, health and nutrition. In 1920 she helped to found the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

She also wrote books, and articles, including How I Became a Socialist, which includes her response to an article that assumed she had "imbibed such opinions" from "Mrs. John Macy" (Anne Sullivan):

Mr. Macy may be an enthusiastic Marxist propagandist, though I am sorry to say he has not shown much enthusiasm in propagating his Marxism through my fingers. Mrs. Macy is not a Marxist, nor a socialist. Therefore what the Common Cause says about her is not true. The editor must have invented that, made it out of whole cloth, and if that is the way his mind works, it is no wonder that he is opposed to socialism. He has not sufficient sense of fact to be a socialist or anything else intellectually worthwhile.

I think she would do well in Bloglandia!


More posts about Helen Keller can be found at the blogswarm master post. Some of her political writing is online at the Helen Keller Reference Archive.

I seem to have used rather a lot of scare quotes here.