I've been offline for the past few days. I haven't been doing anything interesting... The cat and I took up Synchronised Sneezing, I've read a few essays about Buffy, but mostly I've just been sitting on the sofa watching CSI (hey, I'm doing a Masters in Cult Film & TV... watching CSI is therefore technically studying).
Not having been staring into my computer screen means I've not been keeping up with the news... I rarely watch it on TV or listen to it on the radio, I get all my news from online sources.
So, I was both shcoked and pleased to switch on my computer this morning to find that I had an Email from Scope. Shocked because they're not my most favourite of charities so I was stunned to find myself on one of their mailing lists. But pleased because the Email was the first time I'd heard the news that Katie Thorpe has been spared uneccessary surgery. A quote from Katie's mother in that article that would be funny if it wasn't so disturbing:
"People who don't know Katie, who don't fully understand our situation have actually been swayed by the minority of the disability rights organisations."
Damn those pesky disabled people fighting for the right to not be needlessly mutilated.
In recent months I've started to notice something quite chilling going on. All minority groups have their hate-filled opressors, and disabled people have more than most. But, recently, the people shouting the loudest about why disabled people shouldn't be allowed human rights are the parents of disabled children!
I read an article, or perhaps it was a 'letters to the editor' type thing by a parent, or parents of autistic children. They were basically claiming that the National Autistic Society is bad and wrong and fails to support "real" autistic people. Why? Because they employ autistic people. According to the article people with autism know nothing about it. They claimed that the only people that truly understand autism are the parents, and people with autism have no right to claim that they do know anything about it. I can't remember where I read this, but, if it rings a bell and you know where I can find this story, please comment.
That a parent can claim that their children shouldn't have the right to speak out for themselves, or that their children shouldn't have the right to avoid unneccesary surgery simply beggars belief.
Fortunately, for once, the disabled people are coming out on top.
2007 started with Ashley X hitting the news. This spurned several wanna-copycat cases, like Katie.
Hopefully 2008 beginning with the news that Katie is safe will bring a better year for young disabled girls everywhere.
Disablism sucks!!! Way are some people who they called themselves "experts" of ALL kinds of disabilities, and thinks the "experts" know it all(really they know nothing at all), by really telling us that that we are not aware and understand that we have this kind of disabilty, telling our experences of growing up with disablities is a buch of crap, if we have this king of disability, we can't be doing___________, we can't tell that how we talking about how with deel with it on the dily basis, and don't know what we are talking about? The autism community is a prime example of it. They are saying that people with autism knows nothing and understand about it and they claimed that the only people that truly understand autism are the parents, and people with autism have no right to claim that they do know anything about it, meaning that they can able to do __________, they can't be autistic, and if you say that they are autistic and sharing their experince of living with autism, they're lying. I beleve that the some parents, the public, and these "experts", have NO rights to try to make our voices sinlet and trying to advacate of our own befilf. Instend, they need to listen and to understand the adults with disablities by learning from them by helping parents who have a child with any kind of disablities, the possablities that they CAN be a preductive menbers of socility and CAN fave a happy, wonderful life.
ReplyDeleteA Master's in Cult TV and Film? Does your school also offer PhD's in masturbation? If so, what's the tuition?
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