Disability hate crime

I was sent my monthly e mail from Mencap [a charity supporting people with learning difficulties] which highlighted the fact that this week is Learning Disability Week.

As part of the week Mencap is launching its 'Stand By Me' campaign to stop disability hate crime.

Yes in this modern world we still have people who will pick on, harass and even murder people based on their perceived ability. That fact is nothing short of shocking really and what it has to come down to is ignorance.

For starters children don't get taught about disability much in schools. Then cildren and adults often don't have a lot of contact with people with learning difficulties [or disabled people generally for that matter].

This lack of education and contact turns into prejudice, which is when unfavourable opinions or thoughts are formed without knowledge, thought or reason...

Until children and adults are really educated about disability this will be a never ending problem.

To find out more about Learning Disability Week:
www.mencap.org.uk/news/article/it-s-learning-disability-week

Am I bigger yet?

Archie is now 4. I've told him he is a little bit bigger now he is 4 but I get the impression he had expected to shoot up on his birthday. Indeed on the day he asked "can you see me growing bigger"...

He is now increasingly aware that although he might be older than some other children, including his younger [but not little] brother, he isn't bigger than they are.

I find it's a balancing act - not wanting to make him have a hang up about his height whilst at the same time not wanting to pretend that he will end up as big as everyone else when he won't be.

The bottom line is that he could do just fine in life if it wasn't for the prejudice that exist in others....

Disabled or not disabled that is the question?

For me there is no question about it - I consider myself to be a Disabled person. The capital D is deliberate, the idea is that it makes a political point ie I feel I'm more disabled by physical aspects of society, eg stairs and high counters, and people's personal prejudice/ignorance, than I am by my 'condition' per se.

I've been having a lot of contact with disabled people recently or rather people who you would think would identify themselves as disabled but they don't. They use phrases like "normal with additional needs", or "differently able" or just deny any allegiance with disabled people whatsoever, "I'm not one of them" sort of attitude.

Up until I was about 18 I was the same. In spite of being much much shorter and less mobile/agile than my peers I had a bury my head in the sand attitude towards aligning myself with "those really disabled people over there", ugh.

Then in my gap year I got a job working for a very small disability charity working with some real disabled people and it blew me away really. Here were some people who were positive, independent, dare I say it HAPPY about being disabled. To align myself with them wasn't saying I was rubbish, unable, inferior, it was about saying I was proud to be disabled. It was about what you COULD do rather than what you couldn't and about recognising that it was the barriers in society that often had far more impact on how difficult our lives were than our "medical conditions" [otherwise known as the social model of disability...].

I think once I reached that turning point in my life I became much much happier about who I was; I wonder whether this personal contact with people who are proud to be disabled is a crucial element needed for [some] people to identify themselves as disabled, or is it just coincidence that a lot of the people who deny their 'disability' say they don't really have any contact with disabled people?