Stigma hate and pride: A Philadelphia story

It’s known as the “City of brotherly love”, but recent news coming out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania gave Alan Holdsworth, now living in America, pause for thought about whether that supposed warmth extended to disabled people

The appetite for stories about disability hate crime appears to come and go as much in the US as in Britain. But recent news accounts of a story concerning four disabled people in Philadelphia seem, for a while anyway, to have sparked public outrage over here.

The four, who ranged in age from 29 to 41 were discovered chained up in a cellar measuring 15 by 15 feet. According to one witness, the room was too low for a human to stand up in.

These four disabled people were forced to keep company with buckets of their own excrement.

The three people who have been charged with committing the outrage were said to have imprisoned the disabled people – all of whom had learning difficulties – in order to be able to claim their benefit payments.

So what is it which motivates people to behave in this way? Apart from the element of common criminality, what leads people to think that this is what we are worth? And what can we, as disabled people do to change any or all of that?

A disabled person is left to die in a car in 100 degree heat.

Unknown to their community disabled people are kept in a house in chains so that sadistic self-centered people can cash in their allowances and please their paymasters respectively.

A group of youths beat up a disabled person. Kids are bullied at school. A few of us are killed and tortured.

The hate and subsequently the hate crimes come from the messages, the situations we still find ourselves in and the poverty of education.

The stigma of disability is alive and kicking.

We are still perceived as victims, as helpless, not in control of who we are and dependent. We still don’t have the respect we deserve as disabled people and consequently we are still vulnerable to abuse and hate crimes.

The knee jerk reaction to these events and stories that have hit the headlines would be to attempt to protect us, worthy in itself but also dangerous to all disabled people who want to live independently in the community. The consequences for the victims locked in a Philadelphia cellar may well be the loss of their freedom and incarceration in an institution.

For me there has to be a balance and we call this the right to risk, to make mistakes as we live independently in the community. Given the current climate of hate crime this is a sensitive issue. We want to protect but not in the act of protecting take people’s rights and freedoms away. The danger particularly for people with learning difficulties is they will end up in institutions under the guise of protection and lose the freedom that independent living affords. We need to respond and not overreact.

We have to acknowledge that there are evil people in the world who do evil things and not just to disabled people. We also have to come to terms with the fact that if we want to be in the community we share the same risks and take the same chances. Indeed the death of Brian Nevins in Pennsylvania, left to die in 100 degree heat in a car, occurred in the grounds of the institution he lived in. The care worker who was found guilty was given twice the recommended sentence and went to jail.

All in all I believe it is safer on the whole to live in the community with the same rights and responsibilities as everyone else. This is because we can connect with other ordinary people. In an institution no one is an outsider looking out for you. We also know that hate crimes can be committed in the very institutions that claim to protect us.

Whilst tougher sentences and wider recognition of hate crime is certainly necessary it is never going to be sufficient. In the long haul we have to get rid of the stigma of disability, changing in a positive way how we as disabled people are perceived.

So how do we challenge and remove the stigma of disability?

The antithesis of Disability Stigma I believe is Disability Pride.

I am very lucky to have been in the UK around the birth of Disability Arts which was a manifestation of Disability Pride. I am inspired by the Disability Pride events that are happening around the globe because I believe that the answer to stigma and eventually the answer to disability hate crime is Disability Pride owned and controlled by disabled people.

Disability Arts like any other genre usually follows and documents what is going on. It’s an antennae or news broadcast and nothing more. For a disabled artist to make an impact they have to be on the scene reporting what’s going on not just in their lives but in all disabled people’s lives. Then it becomes disability culture.

Disability pride, disability arts, disability culture are the best weapons we have to combat stigma because it creates a positive and activist identity for disabled people. The solution is not going to come from others helping us but from within ourselves. As John Lennon says, “how can you expect someone to love you if you don’t love yourself?” More so it creates the potential for disabled people to truly discover who they really are, to tell their powerful stories and definitely not become part of the mainstream but to build a dam to send the mainstream in another direction.

Be proud.