Archive for hate crime

You can get it if you really want

June 3, 2008 at 9:32 am · Filed under civil rights, disability equality, hate crime, medical model, politics, social model, social model of disability ·Tagged , , ,

Was listening to Jimmy Cliff this morning on R4. His classic song was played after a Diddy Cameron speech. Asked about this Jimmy said something like; “I am not affiliated to political parties because if you look at the word and break it down it starts with poli which means many and is followed by tics which are bloodsucking parasites. So many blood sucking parasites sucking on the morals of the people”.

I enjoyed that. However, the social model is about social change. We have to engage in politics. When i was learning the social model my trainers Alan Holdsworth and Barbara Lisicki asked whether we should be more interested in removing attitudinal, environmental or organisational barriers. It was felt that we need to put the case for disabled people’s rights to parliament. We need to put legislation in place.

But that was more than 15 years ago when we were actively engaged in a call for fully inclusive, comprehensive and enforceable civil rights. It seems to me that the focus has now moved to attitudinal barriers. UKDPC sent out a buleltin recently. Maria Eagle, minister of disabled people, was said not to be willing to recognise hate crime against disabled people. Apparently there is a lack of evidence. We struggle to find the evidence. But we know its out there. Its anecdotal. So, we get back to that old medical model dilemma. The evidence we have is not scientific. It cannot be tested as a truth. Therefore we won’t do anything.

This attitude is wrong and is stopping us from achieving an organisational response to hate crime and getting hate crime against disabled people recognised.

How important is this? Interestingly the last crime survey that came to our borough posited hate crime has the second biggest concern of residents after violent crime. Violent crime we are told is being reduced. Their is no good evidence about hate crime and with the ministers current approach this is likely to coninue for disabled people,

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The Social Model in Action

May 15, 2008 at 3:58 am · Filed under Get Involved, Inclusion, advocacy, civil rights, disability, disability equality, hate crime, self advocacy, social model of disability

Heard a great story today.

Kenny came into the office. He is a self advocate, management committee member and currently a volunteer developing office skills. To get to work he caught the number 6 bus from Queens Park to Willesden.

It was a crowded bus and he was pleased to get a seat close to the driver as his balance isn’t great and he sometimes finds using crowded buses difficult.

The woman next to him asked him to move and he refused saying its a crowded bus and its hard for me to move. The woman persevered on the grounds that ‘mental handicaps’, (her words), shouldn’t be sitting by her.

The driver stopped the bus and intervened. The woman got up and left the bus. Hurrah!!!!.

This sounded like a great story to me as Kenny as found it really hard to be accepted by the community he has lived in for so long. He knows he has a right to be there and that he wants to be there. in spite of being assaulted and insulted, particularly on buses where the great British public holds sway. He is still out there fighting for his right to live in the community, speaking up for himself.

The other great part of the story was a driver being prepared to intervene and to speak up for Kenny. The thing about the social model of disability is the clue is in the word. It’s social. We are all involved. We should all take responsibility. Few of us do. Discrimination goes on. Disabled people and it seems people with learning disabilities in particular get abused. It will only stop when we stand up and be counted. It stopped in this story because two people stood up to be counted. Will you?

Kenny and I sent an email to Transport For London as a means of celebrating a moment in which he was annoyed to be challenged and insulted and then happy to be supported.

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Institutions are no Solutions

March 13, 2008 at 12:45 pm · Filed under DIsabled People's Direct Action Network, Get Involved, Inclusion, hate crime ·Tagged , , , , ,

The Jersey children homes scandal is of course horrific and a source of pain to many but what gets my goat is the sense of shock.

Abuse in institutions is well documented. The disabled people’s direct action network ran a ‘free our people’ campaign. It sought the closure of institutions and demanded the creation of independent living centres. Some danners still support this call. Royal commissions have been set up to investigate abuse of elders in nursing homes. There have been numerous court cases and dramas on tv about abuse in childrens homes.

Disabled people don’t necessarily want to be seen as vulnerable people. But we are sometimes vulnerable in different circumstances – as are we all. The social model of disability would suggest to some that we are particularly vulnerable in institutions. It suggests that the institutions depend on systems that grind down the best of us – staff and users. It causes familiarity and familiarity breeds contempt and contempt leads to abuse.

Only yesterday i was talking to a friend who told stories of personal abuse. He has been attacked many times on the streets just for being a disabled person. I reminded him the first time i met him he was complaining that a member of staff in an institution had kicked him in the head. He remembered this story and confirmed it. Which interested me greatly has i know he has been hiding it for years. When i asked him all those years ago if he had been kicked in the head he denied it. He didn’t want to get in any more trouble. This is how the wall of silence develops. this is how the institutions get away with it. the other tool they use is the idea of reliable witnesses. We are not treated like reliable witnesses. Policies and procedures are another good tool. Some agencies use them to defend their staff. You can normally spot them by how they respond to complaints.

Against this we need to balance the risks of independence. My friend was attacked more on the streets than he ever was in an institutional setting. Hate Crime is new on the police agenda and new to the legislation. What the social model might suggest here is that we know the risks of life outside. We need to talk to the policy makers and develop strategies for minimising the harm that it might cause. But more than this each and everyone of us needs to take personal responsibility. If we see it happening we need to intervene at a level that is best for us. Not all of us can stand up to what is happening but we can create diversions, we may be able to shout for help, we may be able to use our mobiles.

Abuse is bad. We have to stop it.

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