The Start of The Stick Man that Sits on a Circle

Recently, I read an article that purported to know the origins of The Wheelchair Symbol. Published in the Huffington Post--a credible site that mixes blogging, opinion, and current events in a fashion that creates an atmosphere of social liberation for all-- I expected something factually juicy, at very the least. I wanted to read that the stick figure sitting on the three-quarters circle had received much judgement at first, because people would rather a boy with his hand in cap . I wanted to discover that upon first suggestion, people were adamantly opposed to even recognizing people with disabilities.
But the story is much simpler. With almost no adversity, as if it was taken straight from a children’s story book, the wheelchair symbol was birthed from a favour done by the Director of Swedish Handicap Institute in the 60s.

According to HuffPost, the original artist submitted a picture of a bright-white stick-figured wheelie on a negatively black background. Differing from its now universally accepted version, this symbol featured a wheelie that was exceptionally close up--so much so that it had no visible head or limb below the knee--much like a too-close photograph that one might accidentally take of their own nose while trying to capture their smiling face. It sat like a mistaken photograph, and the acceptors of the first-draft symbol fixed it up in such a way that they believed ‘humanized’ the figure.
Humanized? How about, “brought it into focus”? I think its spectacularly liberating that they’ve decided to add a head and shins to a stick figure. How kind of them. If I pin my hair back and turn sideways I’m sure that the stickman symbol and I are almost complete replicas. Kudos to the able-bodies who finally decided on the stamp of human approval by giving us a stick figure. Way to represent.

Newer visions of how people with physical disabilities should be symbolized include:
-A bent arm, propelling a wheelchair, meant to show an active disabled person, instead of a lounging one. And,
-A stick arm which appears to be shooting out like a wing from the stickman’s torso, representing self-propelling at a very fast pace.
Essentially, these more modern symbols are an attempt to show disabled people’s equality, but in my opinion, the standards by which they do it are an impossible contradiction. Think about it. Someone with limited mobility, is symbolically measured by their physical mobility. What a paradox.
So, you still want to be seen as a person--a full-fledged stick figure--and yet people are still measuring you by whether or not your stick arm can push your unsupported stick-wheel? Go figure.
The saddest thing about all of this is that promoters of the newer able-centric symbol find it wonderfully progressive, saying things like, “eventually we won’t need a symbol at all” with the assumption that all spaces will be available to all ability levels.
In my opinion, viewing disability as one big holistic accessibility party creates an air of ignorance that overlooks the needs of those with specific disabilities. And rating disability by the super-crip standards of magically self-propelled disabled people is one step further into ignorance, no matter how much good intent is present.

Drinking Kills Brain Cells...And Your Count is Already Low.

I’ll never forget it: A little over a year ago, my new shrink stared me in the face. There was a solid two feet between us, so her fresh, fake-smiling face wasn’t all too overwhelming. That first session, I did what I thought all good patients should do, and poured my heart out. I told her about my fears, and my hopes and all that in-between, what-do-I-about stuff. My eyes fluttered around the room, all the while hoping that my simultaneous verbal diarrhea would strike a chord with her.By the third session she told me that I don’t have to process all my feelings and treat them as fully formed thoughts, “You’re an over-thinker.” she said, as if she had discovered something new. Was that an official diagnosis? Her triumphant smile pointed to yes. The fifth session is where the punch-line happened,
“You need to cut back significantly on your drinking.” she said bluntly.
I blushed. She was broaching a real topic.
Then, within a span of 10 seconds, my cheeks drained:
“Someone as high functioning as you, considering your brain injury, should cherish the brain cells they have.”
All at once, different explanations of why this was offensive flooded my brain. High functioning? What does that mean? I asked her, probing for an answer that would unfold itself so I didn’t have to.
“You’re sharp” she said, furthering my fears about her prejudice against those with Cerebral Palsy. “You’re aware of your situation and hyper-aware of your presentation to those around you.” I don’t know if you’ve ever received a compliment inside of a stereotypical insult, but it creates a clusterfuck of feelings.
I remember wondering if it was worth it to explain where her assumption went wrong, deciding I owed it to myself to do so. “Sometimes Cerebral Palsy has no intellectual impairments,” I tried.
Her supervisor, an older woman, who had been sitting in the corner monitoring our session with her hands folded in deep contemplation spoke,
“I’ve worked with two others with what you have.” she says nodding, in what I guessed was approval. What I have? It has no name. Which makes me wonder if she was only viewing my symptoms, which can be similar to many other disabilities. How much did this person truly know?
In that moment, I felt I was sitting behind a panel of ignorant strangers. Words swelled in my throat, but I realized no amount of explanation could take down preconceived notions of those with Cerebral Palsy, and their intelligence. In this case, the two therapists’ ignorance would take a lot of un-learning, which couldn't be done within the frame of my therapy hour.
Later, when I was alone with my therapist, I tried to voice my concerns with her. I said something about the danger of generalizations regarding any disability, to which I was greeted with a condescendingly sweet reassurance that they “meant well” and “were just looking out for my well being”.
It made me think. It made me sad. It made me realize that people are absolutely content to simmer in their stereotypical wrong thinking, without even a thought of budging or accepting new, constant truths.
It upsets me to think that every person who has Cerebral Palsy, is at some point, bound to encounter this weird form of novelty brought on by those who profess to be knowledgeable.

Needless to say, I never went back to that shrink. I figured I did not need to see myself through the same cracked lens which society already tends to see many disabled people.

And who knows, maybe someone with an untainted opinion will convince me to drink less one day.

And You Thought Grade One Was Tough

If you’d asked me where I’d be now 15 years ago, I wouldn’t have guessed here. I live in an even snowier city than I was raised in, where half the people speak French and a new face pulls me out of bed every day. Not the life I imagined, especially that last part. I’m not sure exactly what I expected to happen, but in my kid-mind, I thought in extremes--either I’d be fully independent (able to shower myself, dress, and by proxy walk) or I’d be dead. Either way, life was sure to have its way with me.
The second guess at my future goes as far back as my memory does. I can remember being in my junior kindergarten class with my light purple lunch pail and a piece of blank paper on the L-shaped table in front of me. Knots wrapped around knots in my stomach as the teacher called out instructions in her beautiful sing-song voice. She was telling us to fold the paper in all sorts of different ways, her hands making dainty creases with the paper until it became an airplane. Though I don’t remember the story behind why we were making an airplane, I know that it was tied to being good children of God (My JK year was spent at a private Christian school connected directly to our church).
“And after you’re finished folding, you can wash your hands for lunch,” She said in her kind-but-firm voice. I stared down at my page, with all it’s shaky creases in all the wrong places. I tried to start over. flattening the lines of my mistakes with an all too gentle hand.
Why couldn’t I do this?
I looked around the room. On my side of the L, most of the kids had already had their planes checked and refined by Ms. Coates, and were heading to the sink. I made a new fold, pushing down extra hard in hopes that the paper would do what the teacher was asking of us. But again my hands shook in a way that wasn’t welcome.
Tears started to form as the slowest kid in the class headed for the sink.
I was the new slowest. Or just a newly realized slowest.
“Don’t worry,” Ms. Coates said, “sometimes you just need a little more time.” She smiled sweetly, and then took the page, pulling a new one out of nowhere. “Here,” She put her hand on top of my small one and made all the right creases, all the while acting like she hadn’t said all of these instructions 5 minutes ago.
Ms. Coates felt like my saviour. And I was grateful. But I also felt a strange, muted sense of loss. I still don’t know how to fold a paper airplane.
School continued on with more of the same, with only my age and grade changing. At 10, when people would ask what I wanted to be when I grew up, I said that I wanted to be a bus driver and work for Sears. Most of the adults cackled and would inform me that school bus drivers didn’t make much money. In truth, I knew I couldn’t hold money easily and that I wouldn’t likely learn to drive a car or a bus. I thought this was a silly question though, so I gave it a silly answer, and people seemed to like it. I really couldn’t picture me doing anything when I grew up. The adult me that grew up to drive a bus and works in retail is able bodied and has perfect, unfrizzy hair. But no one ever asks about her.
By the time high-school came, I decided I could try writing for real. It was the opposite of my nemesis math, so it seemed fitting. When I informed my dad of my new plan, he said, “But writers don’t make much money.”When I asked what I should do instead, he said I should try many things and then decide. He left the conversation before I got to ask what I should try.
I’m old for a young person now, and still don’t have a clue what I’m doing. I’ve applied for school again and look for jobs daily that I think can manage. But every time I read that “some errands are required” with receptionist positions or “must be able to multitask,” I can’t help but think of that ruined piece of paper, with all its ugly creases. And wish I’d become a computer programmer.

When Two Wheelies Hang-Out

A couple years ago,my then-boyfriend and I were scooting around Loblaws on a vicious mission to be successful, full-grown, healthy-eating twenty-somethings. In the thin mac-and-cheese aisle, a woman in her early 50s did a double-take of our side-by-side wheelchairs, caught my eye with her staring and said, “Oh, how cute!”
I’m ridiculously used to this infantile, ignorant reaction when people

see two people in wheelchairs in close proximity. I’ve had best friends in wheelchairs since my second year in university, and I’ve since graduated, so I've pretty much heard it all. Other versions of this awkward proclamation include:

“Awe, isn’t that nice” Is what nice? You think it’s nice that both of us have trouble reaching the top-of-the shelf 2% milk?
And,
“No racing, you two.” Fuck. How did he know my plan? Now I have to leave the pads I was gonna shoplift while racing out of here. Talk about buzzkill.
And of course, my personal, though much over-used favorite:
“Woah, it’s a party in here.” Party? Where? Oh right. Wherever there’s two people in wheelchairs it’s a party. Because we’re that cool, obviously.

Some people in wheelchairs let these uncomfortable reactions rain on their wheelie parade. And they’ve got damn good reason.But me, if I didn’t laugh at it, I’d bawl my eyes out. In the middle of the store. Fall out of my chair into the fetal position. The whole nine-yards.
So I laugh, and say something equally ridiculous like, “I know I’m cute, thank-you” with a big, cheesy smile. It’s the closest I come to “fuck-you.”
Because really, it is intensely patronizing and non-sensical. If you’re lacking perspective on this, just picture a person approaching a bi-racial couple and saying “Don’t you go making too many beautiful mixed-raced babies, you two.” They’d get punched in the face. Or purse-slapped, maybe spit on. Or all three.
Maybe next time I’m out with my friend, and a spectacularly ignorant comment comes my way, I’ll smile my cheesiest and back into them. Yes?

The Wheelchair Sign

I almost always feel a great relief every time a white stick-figure wheelchair person sits on the door of a public establishment. Especially when entering an average-joe restaurant or a club. It’s confirmation, it's acceptance, the anti-apartheid of the disabled. It says, with all its straight white lines and blue brushstrokes, “We not only thought about you, we accept you, we welcome your business, and for you to do your business.”

Every time I see that beloved sign, I feel not only relieved but proud. “Times of change” I think, happy that I live in the 21st century. Unfortunately, the symbol doesn’t always produce what it advertises. Take today for example:
I was at this quaint little shack of a restaurant, enjoying some Chinese food and ambient mood-lighting with a friend when nature called. I usually hate this part of the day. In my mind, I started mapping out all the near-by accessible washrooms and planning my graceful exit. As I prepared to leave with my friend, I gave the restaurant a one-over, just in case. And to my pleasant surprise, a big blue sign appeared like a trophy, just off of the kitchen. Once inside the bathroom, however, I saw that the sign wasn’t telling the full truth. In this particular instance, the restaurant, though being equipped with ample space and a horizontal metal bar, preferred to use the bathroom as a storage room. Determined not to give up on the truthiness of my favourite symbol, I squished my chair in between a shelving unit (which took up about a quarter of the room’s area), a high -chair, a big, fancy toilet paper holder which was standing on the ground right beside the toilet, and, of course, the toilet itself. Thankfully, given my level of mobility, I was still able to use the bathroom. But I am entirely mindful that many others--say those with bigger chairs or paralysis--would not be so fortunate.

I have also encountered the strangest declarations of accessibility at bars. For any of you club-goers in wheelchairs, you might know that The Honest Lawyer’s accessible bathroom is truly bizarre. In that Ladies’ Room, there is a fourth stall at the end of three, which displays a wheelchair sign. It opens from the side and reveals itself to be impossibly narrow, despite being longer than the others. And when I say impossibly narrow, I’m not exaggerating. My manual chair--which I prefer to use in club situations, is one of the thinnest chairs available to people of my height-- doesn’t fit inside the stall, at any angle. This leaves me with two options I am all too familiar with: 1) Don’t pee--don’t you even think about breaking the seal, and 2) Thank your lucky stars that you have a friend with you whom you trust enough to see your secret triangle without dying of embarrassment. Though I am often blessed with the second option, it hardly means the stall is accessible. This specific wheelchair sign should really be modified to include an able-bodied person helping the wheelie, or just take their sign down altogether.

The second baffling claim of washroom accessibility that sticks out in my mind is in The Grand in The Market. The waiters there will kindly lead you to their accessible side entrance to get inside, and notify you of their accessible bathroom when asked. Both of these things are just dandy, as it shows that at least some employers have received the disability training that was supposed to be enforced by the Ontarians with Disabilities Act. Once pointed in the direction of the sitting stick-man though, things are not so smooth. The stall is spacious, but the toilet is placed very near to the bathroom door, leaving very limited room for a wheelchair, let alone the person inside of it. Much to my dignity’s dismay, I had to pee with the door open that day, a privilege usually only awarded to small children and pregnant women who constantly have nurses looking in on them. Roomy enough for three toilets, but not for one wheelchair in between the toilet and the door is less than accessible, and probably doesn’t meet standard accessibility regulations.
So next time you’re taking a nice little tinkle in the wheelchair stall (you know who you are), check out the logistics. Could Artie from Glee really fit his chair and himself in here?

My Session with "The Sessions"

In case you haven’t heard, Hollywood took a gigantic leap for Mankind late this past year and created a film centred around a man with a severe disability. The Sessions follows a man completely paralyzed after a bout with Polio, on his quest for sex and intimacy. If you ask me, it’s pretty awesome (albeit long overdue) that those down south finally pulled up their socks and made a movie not only focusing on a person with a disability, but also their sexual endeavor. And, to my pleasant surprise, the brief chronicle, based on Mark O’Brien’s autobiographical article On Seeing a Sex Surrogate, did not disappoint. Instead, it is a raw, witty, depiction of one man’s life, no stigmatism or stereotypes attached. Hopefully, the little blurb I have written here will at least motivate you to watch it and come up with your own thoughts.
For those of you who have boycotted movies in favour of it’s more active cousin, reading books, or just generally live under a rock, The Sessions plot is as follows:
Mark O’Brien (played by real-life, able-bodied John Hawkes), is a man paralyzed completely from the neck down from Polio, who spends majority of his life in an iron lung which helps him breath. Mark decides to consult with his priest about having sex out of wedlock. Knowing Mark on a personal level, the priest (played wonderfully by William H. Macy) decides that given Mark’s specific situation (what, with him being a virgin at 38 and all), can have a “free pass” in the bedroom. Fast forward a few weeks and Mark is in bed with his sex surrogate, (Helen Hunt) whose job is to act as a therapist in helping her clients overcome their physical and mental sexual limitations. Drama ensues, the details of which I will leave up to all those I know will run to download this movie promptly after reading this entry.
Before finding your best bootlegged copy, Google “movies on disabled people and sex”. You’’ll find The Sessions’ summary is one of the first links listed, a fair ways above the links to general sexuality info and some freaky-deaky wheelie fetish info further down. Aside from reiterating that people definitely make creepy sexual turn-ons out of anything, it can also be assumed that The Sessions is a first-of-its-kind movie within the Hollywood scope.
Part of what makes it so original is the way that it displays the most natural parts of the main character’s life, as “normal.” Shots of the Mark in his iron lung, or being bed-bathed and dressed by his attendant move naturally across the screen, with no extra-long shots or pausing for dramatic effect.This film is graciously careful to avoid any subtext of tragedy, courage, or any of those other voice-over themes feel-good movies like to inflate themselves with. There is no dramatic music when we see the man typing his article with the back of a pencil eraser controlled by his mouth. It just is. This is how Mark O’Brien did his thing, and hopefully, how he would’ve wanted to have been portrayed.
Now I can’t be sure that Mr. O'Brien would’ve approved entirely of the depiction of himself in the movie, since the poet and journalist died in 1999 from Post-Polio disease, but I have reason to believe he would not be repulsed by it. Directed and written Ben Lewin, the film takes from multiple legitimate sources to tell Mark O’Brien’s tale, something Mr. O’Brien himself would’ve likely approved of. Shots from Jessica Yu’s award-wining 1996 documentary of Mark O'Brien’s life Breathing Lessons are directly reenacted in Lewin’s film. One shot is wonderfully similar to the documentary, which includes Mark chatting with Faculty and friends post graduation ceremony, while a news reporter chatters about the courage students like mark have, and the overcoming of disability that it entails. If these shots—the real-life one of Mark mingling outside Berkley behind the reporter, and the reenacted one with John Hawkes—were juxtaposed, it would be hard to tell the difference.
Along the same lines, the only voice-over used in The Sessions is John Hawkes’, reading snippets of O’Brien’s poetry, as if to give veiwers an inside monologue and perspective that we would otherwise likely fill with the disabled dogma of courage, inspiration, and other googldygook. Instead, the narration of Mark’s poetry humanizes the movie, allowing veiwers to see O’brien’s life as it was, nothing more, and nothing less.
If you haven’t yet noticed a pattern, I really enjoyed the raw point of view that The Sessions has to offer. If exposure is the best educator, then everyone should watch this film. If for nothing else, then to educate yourselves.

Capitalizing on Hockey: The Ottawa Power Wheelchair Hockey League

Below is a little blurb I wrote for the Ottawa Power Wheelchair Hockey League. The team is currently prepping for the North American Power Wheelchair Hockey Cup, set for August 3rd, and could use all the support they could get. Please go to www.opwhl.webs.com. if you are interested in helping out or donating, or just to find out more about what they do. Thanks!
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Deep in the heart of Ottawa’s capital lays Canada’s best-kept secret sport: power wheelchair hockey. Participants in the sport, also sometimes called Electric Wheelchair Hockey, are of many different ability levels, but all share an interest in playing hockey. The game itself is played indoors, and resembles floor-hockey, differing only because the players use power wheelchairs. To accommodate for varying types of ability, player’s hockey sticks are either held by the player, or strapped to their chair, with a “tee bar” attached adjacently to the base of the stick, that makes carrying the ball possible.

The Ottawa Capitals, as our city’s power wheelchair hockey team is appropriately named, now have roughly 25 players, 10 of whom play competitively. They are the newest addition to The Canadian Electric Wheelchair Hockey Association (CEWHA), which consists of 7 leagues: 2 leagues in Toronto, 1 in London, Manitoba, Calgary, and Vancouver. Each league has 4 teams on average, with the Ottawa Capitals in their infancy and looking to grow.

The Ottawa Power Wheelchair Hockey League (OPWHL) began just over 2 and a half years ago. A group of Ottawa friends met recreationally to play power wheelchair hockey on the weekends, when they realized they wanted to expand their interest. Shortly after, in 2009, founders Hollis Peirce and Kyle Vezzaro registered the group of players as a non-profit organization under Revenue Canada, and the team became an official division of the Canadian Electric Wheelchair Hockey Association.

According to the Canadian Electric Wheelchair Hockey website, the Canadian tournament is held every 2 years, in Toronto, London Manitoba, Calgary or Vancouver. During alternate years, there is a North American tournament, making competitive players part of either tournament annually. In August of 2010, the North American Power Hockey Cup was hosted by the Toronto Power Wheelchair Hockey League at Ryerson University. It was the first tournament attended by the Ottawa Capitals. This year the North American Power Hockey cup will be held here in the nation’s capital, at the Ottawa University campus.

The goal of the CEWHA, the umbrella association of the OPWHL, is to “provide a quality hockey program for all persons with disabilities who have limited upper body strength and/or mobility, who could significantly benefit from the use of an electric wheelchair in competitive sport and daily living.” (www.cewha.ca). Canada is not the only country with this mandate in mind for power wheelchair hockey players. The sport is also popular internationally, with power wheelchair hockey leagues all over Europe, and some of the top ranking teams in The Netherlands, Belgium, Finland, Germany and Italy.

For more information about the Ottawa Power Wheelchair Hockey League, or to donate, please visit, www.opwhl.webs.com.

An Unconscious Backlash: The "Blanketing" of Disability

An Unconscious Backlash: The “Blanketing” of Disability

There is a subject I have avoided for a long time in my life, partly as a method of self-denial. It is the idea of disability discourse. Disability discourse is the way we, as a culture of Canadians, discuss and relate to disability. More than how we talk about disabled people, discourse is about our attitudes toward disability, and how those attitude both infringe upon and reinforce basic human freedoms.
Most recently, I have been looking into different writings on disability, trying to scrounge up anything that might give me some insight into how disabilities are internalized and portrayed by the public. I want literature as a starting point for helping me understand what I think I already know, and what confuses me about disabilities. I want some scholarly input on my personal experience: a concrete definition of what disabilities add to the dynamic society, so that I can evaluate where disability attitudes and discourse needs work in our society. In an effort to find this information, I loaned two books from the library, one which claims to discuss disability issues in our North American Culture and the other, which works through some of the struggles that siblings of a disabled person might face.
Instead of finding the clarity I had hoped for, I stumbled on further confusion. The books I had loaned had chapters and chapters of relevant topics--from disability and culture to the different roles thought to be played by disabled people--but upon closer reading I found something that made these sources somewhat unuseful to me: they were on developmental disabilities. Now, maybe you’re thinking that I just had a brain lapse, and magically missed the word “developmental” in front of the word “disability” before signing out both books. But I swear on my mother’s middle name I didn’t; it simply isn’t mentioned in any of the titles of either the books or their chaptered sections.
This sort of omission, while it may seem small to everyone else, makes my stomach turn. Don’t get me wrong, developmentally challenged individuals deserve all the same rights as everyone, I would never ever dispute that, and that is not my issue. My issue is that difference, when it comes in the form of disability, is often lumped together as one, which is in my opinion, perfect breeding grounds for misconception and further marginalization. The result is a “blanketing effect,” in which people with a variety of differing “impairments”, are bunched together under a cover of “disability.”

The Problem of Blanketing Disability

With groups that are marginalized fro reasons outside of disability, such as race, gender, or sexual orientation, blanketing can be a good thing. Look at the Gay Pride Parades-- there are gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgendered and two-spirited people celebrating their commonality of diverging from mainstream norms when it comes to sexual orientation. It is hard to see such unity as anything but positive, when the goal is to gain acceptance of what are still sometimes deemed “alternative” ways of living. Gender politics and women’s fight for equality also frequently works best when women from all over take a stance against ill treatment, and headway towards a less patriarchal culture is made, at least for a second. There’s no doubt about it, there’s power in numbers when people on the outskirts of society fight for the same cause. But what happens when fighting for that general cause means ignoring or minimizing individual differences? What happens when the individuality and the vividness of a few people’s disability is lost in the mass of the fight, therefore belittling the speciality of their case? This “blanketing” effect is a problem that I believe has held movement towards disabled rights back for many years. Of course, it is not the only issue, but I think it is a major one. When disability is “blanketed,” everyone under the title of disabled becomes what society portrays as the most acceptable and least uncomfortable form of disability--in a sense, disabled people are expected to fit a poster-child version of what society deems ‘disabled’ and grounds for internal and external discrimination are conceived. If disabled people do not fit into the norm of disability--if they need too much, for example-- then they are frowned upon or considered “sick” by society and maybe even alienated by other disabled people.
When society does not see disabilities in their individual light, for all that one person’s disability means and all that it doesn’t, mistakes happen, and arbitrary assumptions fly. It is a minefield for misconception, generalization, and unproductivity. We, as a society, need to stop seeing difference as division and start seeing it as a fact that needs to be understood in moving forward for the betterment of people with disabilities, and a society that is more aware.

Back-logged: Canada's View on Disability

CANADA IS KNOWN for its amazing acceptance of everyone, from every walk of life. We are, by defualt, a very understanding and accommodating nation, and that notion is-- if nothing else-- part of our national image. And that’s swell, but I’d argue there’s trouble in paradise, specifically when it comes to the Canadian public’s views on disability. I’m not one two point fingers, but I think the confused impression the public has of people with disabilities is due to the contradicting mindsets of Canadian policy makers and those in the news media industry. In my fancy-shmancy my-parents-forced-me-to-get-a-degree lingo, I would say that:Canada’s legislation promotes acceptance and integration in the form of accessibility, but the ideologies inferred by media, specifically news broadcasts, send conflicting messages which favour ignorance. The mixed messages purported from the two influential sources create a back-log effect for the Canadian public’s views and understanding of disability.The cyclical relationship between the news, media and the general public is why we can’t progress, and become the all-accepting mosaic of a country we so long to be. In Laymen’s terms, the reason people speak to me like I’m hearing impaired (instead of in a wheelchair) is because they have received multiple contrasting signals from the government legislation and everyday news media, telling them what to do when it comes to disability. They’re probably really confused.

Gumdrops and Lollipops: Disability Policy in Canada

Canadian mandates on accessibility and equality sound so forward-thinking, they almost ring utopic. Around this time last year, the Legislative Assembly of Ontario released a new standard for accessibility around Ottawa stating that its goal was, “improving accessibility through identifying, removing and preventing barriers in key areas of customer service, employment, communications and information, and the built environment.”(see: www.ontla.on.ca/lao-organization/.../accessibility-2010-2011_en.pdf). The legislation touches on a number of things that effect many people with disabilities on a regular basis, such as improving building accessibility, adding accessible washrooms, and training those in customer service on what I call “disability etiquette”. It all sounds great, and in many ways it is. On the flip side of the coin however, is the glaring fact that people have to be “trained, retrained, or refreshed” on how to “communicate with people with disabilities” This strikes me as both horribly sad and hysterical, as it makes people with disabilities sound like a new species or something. Not to mention it makes all those in the service industry look like fools, for not having the sense to know how to interact with another human being. As ridiculous as it is though, I commend the legislative assembly for admitting that people do need to be trained on how to treat those with disabilities, since more often than not in my experience, prejudice gets in the way of common sense.

The Media, The Problem

While policy-makers are on the right track with implementing laws that enforce equality for people with disabilities, the news media is sending quite a different message. This is problematic, given that both policies and news media are major influences of public consciousness. I recently read that, “a “recent survey released by NADbank shows that [the] total weekly newspaper penetration levels [is] between 75% to 80% of the [Canadian] adult population.”This means that a huge chunk of citizens read the news on a regular basis. I’d venture to say that if you’re reading this, you likely fit somewhere in that 75-80%. Bottom line is, the news, in its many forms and outlets is wide-spread throughout Canada, and therefore influences, to varying extents, the people who consume it.

In the spirit of media influence, I think it was Spiderman’s Uncle Ben who said, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Since news providers have roughly 80% of Canada’s grown-up population watching them, their content--everything from portrays of wars, to depictions of human interest stories involving low income citizens--matters. Unfortunately, news reporters work on a tight, day-to-day/ breaking news timeline which doesn’t allow for much elaboration or explanation of the topics and situations which they so readily convey. This means that we, the public, are left to fill in the blanks in telegram-type titles and 5-7 word bi-lines, which, leaves a lot of room for interpretive error. The curt, brief style of news media essentializes people and stories at best, and discriminates groups and issues at worst.
Though the aftertaste of being stripped to the bare minimum in news stories is likely felt by nearly everyone at some point, I would argue the news’ portrayal of people with disabilities is especially careless. This week, I read an article dealing with the government’s pulling of $300 000 from a program which provided care and recreation for adults with physical and mental disabilities (see: http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2012/02/08/ottawa-cut-program-disabled-adults.html).
The article is most troublesome in its choice of wording when describing the people with disabilities, both on the broadcast, and in the written piece. In the broadcast, the anchorman calls the subjects “severely disabled adults,” failing to specify that all member of the discussed program are physically AND mentally disabled. We, as audiences, are left to infer the occurrence or a developmental delay, on top of a physical disability, simply from the word “severe”. This language is not only problematic in that it is vague, it is also inaccurate. I have a disability that is termed “severe” by professionals, although my cognitive abilities remain untouched. According to what the news would have us believe however, “severe” encompasses only people who face physical and mental disabilities. Rather than using common sense and placing the words, “mentally and physically” in front of “disabled” before the description of the upcoming newsstory, viewers are left with a vague and incorrect impression of disability, likely assuming that “severe” indicates both a developmental and physical disability.
Aside from this issue of incorrectly labeling the people with disabilities it is identifying, neither the article nor the accompanying broadcast mentions whether the program takes on members with strictly physical or strictly mental disabilities. Does each individual who has access to the program have physical and mental limitations, or do some only have one or the other? We are, once again, left to assume these important details, under the blanket the media so easily labels as “The disabled”.

I find it quite annoying that we have policy makers peeing their pants with excitement when it comes to implementing barrier free environments for people with disabilities, while simultaneously some politically incorrect, lazy news transcriber can’t take the time to at least attempt depicting people with disabilities properly. Instead public is left to make their own impressions and, in my opinion, its likely that lack of knowledge, will lead to most people filling in the blanks with some sort of stereotype. This process flies in the face of disability awareness, and hence we have the vicious circle, the is policy, media, public.

Sit Down, Artie.

ON DAYS WHEN I am extremely bored and the usual fixes like reading post secret, stalking facebook, or watching horrible clips of covers to songs I don't even know aren't doing it, I sit down and watch Glee. Go ahead, judge away, it's probably better than some of the crapshoot music videos you pretend not to watch anyway. Also, what I am about to say really has nothing to do with whether or not Glee is a good show. It's not. Pretty undoubtedly, the plot is non existent, the actors are way too into their cheesy characters and the accapella-subbing for real instruments got old half way through the first season. It sucks, hands down.
Despite the show's poor quality, it has a fairly loyal viewership, and an even more loyal cast. Apparently Leah Michelle (Rachel Berry) got two tattoos in honor of the show and what it stands for. Which, brings me to my real topic: What the fuck does Glee represent?
When the show first came out, the majority was excited because it combined musical numbers (everyone's secret favourite thing) with diversity and acceptance, while challenging ideas of political correctness and categorization. The main characters included: Two white people, two Jews, two Asians one black person, one wheelie, and one homosexual. That's right, I said main. All of these characters were supposed to dance and jive until we forgot their differences, or at least until we no longer cared. It was a quirky fun show with just enough of the tragic element to add depth.
As the season unfolded, each character developed and, in their own ways, embraced their so-called differences. They even did a whole episode on difference, where The Female Jew (Rachel Berry) comes to love her big nose, on the grounds that it is resembling of Barbra Streisand's, and, well, she's famous. In other episodes, we see Tina and Mike referring to themselves as 'Asian' and 'Other Asian' to make light of their race. The character Kurt is openly gay and, after quite a struggle, becomes accepted by those whom he encounters on a daily basis.This is all warm-fuzzies, flowers, rainbows and honeybees, until it's Artie's turn to be empowered by his circumstance.
Artie is a rather two dimensional character: nerdy, with annoyingly straight teeth and glasses squarer than my nun aunt. If it wasn't for his paraplegia, caused (yes, you guessed it!) by an accident at age 7, he would not even be worth air time. But, for the sake of diversity, Artie is paralyzed, serving the wheelie quota for the shows' modern, liberal look at 'all walks of life'. This seems totally okay for a while, as Artie floats through each epi doing a series of hand-motions and cat-walks where appropriate, but trouble soon rolls in, as Artie starts to truly realize, at the age of 17, that his disability is part of him.
The problem here is not that Artie must come to terms with being in a wheelchair, but more with the fact that such acceptance isn't happening. This is particularly obvious in the latest episode, where he claims, he "doesn't want to hear that it gets better. He wants to hurt them...he wants them to feel his pain, because lately, that's all he has to give." That's not even the kicker. As if it's not enough that Artie is having a seemingly unprovoked emotional breakdown, the show deals with it by having him break out of his chair and do a whole dance and vocal duet to an MJ track. As is keeping in line with the shows sweep-it-under-the rug approach to Artie's disability, his breakdown/daydream is never brought up or mentioned again, and viewers are left to think that it is 'normal' to wish Artie could walk, because his dance moves are sooo much better when he can add footwork.
In my opinion, this sends a mix message of acceptance of limits and denial of circumstance. Wile Kurt is off applying to Performing Arts school and being the best version of his gay-self he can be, and Tina and Mike are proud of the "honor" associated with their Asain roots, Artie can't decide whether he is frustrated with or advocating for disability. Subliminally, these conflicting messages might lead watchers to think all wheelies are uncomfortable with their disabilities, that they daydream of getting up just to pull off the moonwalk, which is something that I would readily dispute.
If Glee isn't going off the air anytime soon, I at least hope that Artie will do the rest of his musical numbers as a true wheelie. The writers would never ask their black character to paint her face white for a scene, or tell Kurt to explore the possibility of dating Britney. So why doesn't Artie just stay sitting?