Danine N. Spencer » danineAdmin

It’s Not About the “Dignity of Work”

danineAdmin — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 21:47:22 +0000

In the midst of the whole “Ann Romney has never worked a day in her life” kerfuffle, a cute little ditty of a video was dug up by the Up with Chris show on MSNBC. Filmed at a January campaign stop, it shows Mitt Romney insisting that people on welfare need to experience “the dignity of work” in order to receive public assistance.

Video: Mitt Romney says welfare recipients need the “dignity of work”.

As I watch this video, I am angry beyond words. I believe Romney was talking about TANF (Temporary Aid to Needy Families) recipients, not people who are on SSI or Medicaid like me, but it doesn’t really matter. There is an unbelievably pervasive prejudice against people who receive any form of public assistance, whether it is TANF, unemployment benefits, food stamps, SSI, Medicaid or any other “entitlement”. People on welfare are looked down on. They need to learn the “dignity of work”. They are lazy.

Image: Political cartoon depicting two elephants. Mom is reading bedtime story to her daughter: “Once upon a time there was a wicked Welfare Queen who had the power to destroy entire economies with one AFDC check…” (Image via Autographed Letter Signed)

Yes, “lazy”. The construction worker who has been out of work for nine months and is collecting unemployment benefits so he can pay the mortgage on his family’s home is lazy. The single mom who can barely make ends meet working two low-wage jobs and depends on food-stamps to help feed her kids is lazy. The millions of kids who, for whatever reason, qualify for Medicaid are lazy. And of course, people like me, who have catastrophic illnesses or injuries and aren’t able to work, are lazy.

I’m not sure why, but there is a general anger towards anyone who receives public assistance. Sometimes I think it is jealousy. The Ugly Green Monster makes the haves (those who are able to work and support themselves) envy the have-nots (those who can’t), insisting the latter group is somehow getting a bigger or better piece of the piece than anyone else. The Ugly Green Monster couldn’t be more wrong. Think about it: would you prefer to have the satisfaction of doing meaningful work, earning a comfortable salary, paying your own rent/mortgage/groceries/clothing/tuition/extras and putting money away for retirement, OR would you rather be forced to live on approximately $700/month in SSI benefits?

Even though it is impossible to live high off the fat of everyone else’s labor on an income of approximately $8400 per year, there is widespread resentment towards modern-day welfare queens (and kings) like me. This anger can’t be chalked up to misplaced envy alone. We should have a culture of goodwill in this country, where everyone understands the importance of caring for the general welfare because none of us know when we’re going to need the public safety net. Instead, way too many people are infuriated by the notion that part of their paycheck goes to support people like me (or hungry families on food stamps or pregnant moms on Medicaid, etc). They don’t see themselves contributing financially to the common good but rather “sacrificing” some of their income for other peoples’ benefit.

Rather than a culture of goodwill, we have a culture of animosity towards anyone who receives public assistance. This hatred leads us to believe that people on “welfare” are “lazy” and don’t deserve help. But that’s just not true. The social safety net is there for all of us. We are all just a pink slip, medical catastrophe or financial disaster away from needing it.

Who will the “lazy” one be then?

High Unemployment Rate for People with Disabilities Hits Way Too Close to Home

danineAdmin — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 14:00:00 +0000

February’s unemployment statistics were released on Friday. While we can all cheer about the 227,000 new jobs that were added last month, way too many people, especially folks with disabilities, are still unemployed. According to the Department of Labor, the unemployment rate is 15.8% for people with disabilities (PWD) between the ages 16 and 64. Even more problematic is that only 19.9% of PWDs even bother to participate in the work force.

Let me sum this up for ya: In February, approximately 20% of people with disabilities were actively working or looking for work. Twenty percent! And for those people, the unemployment rate was nearly twice as high (15.8%) as the national average of 8.3%. I am not an expert on disability employment but these numbers don’t surprise me.

I am one of the 80% of PWDs who have simply dropped out of the labor market.

There aren’t a lot of options for people like me, people with disabilities and chronic conditions who aren’t able to work a traditional 40 hour/week job. I could work 10-15 hours/week. Maybe. In a good week. But I can do some work. I’m educated. I have skills. Highly desirable computer skills, in fact. I should be able to work to support myself and contribute to the economy at large.

There should be a way for me to work in some fashion. There really should be.

Goddess knows I’ve tried for the last seven years, pretty much since I was released from the hospital after my injury, to figure out how to earn a living. During the first two years, even as I was still in recovery and going to physical therapy as many as three times a week, I envisioned working part-time. I knew it was an impossibility. I did. But I also knew I was supposed to work and I beat myself up every single day I couldn’t.

After a couple of years, I gave up on the idea of a part-time job but I still felt incredibly guilty for not working, especially when my SSI checks arrived every months. I felt like I was a leech on society, feeding on the blood of the U.S. taxpayer.

I still have no idea how to re-enter the workforce and it’s terrifying. I’ve been on SSI for almost seven years.That’s seven years that I have not been contributing to Social Security or a private retirement fund. I am petrified about my long-term financial Security.

There are some ideas for working at home, which I have tried, but it seems impossible that I’ll ever make enough to support myself. I know the Obama administration is pushing hard to increase employment for people with disabilities and I hope they succeed.

I hope I succeed in being able to support myself financially. Soon. I just don’t know how yet.

Yes, Facebook Users, Florida’s New Welfare Drug-Testing Law IS Discriminatory

danineAdmin — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 14:00:42 +0000

Florida’s draconian new law requiring welfare applicants to undergo drug testing at their own expense went into effect on July 1st. On the surface, this bill sounds good, right? No one wants tax dollars to be spent on drugs. Florida’s welfare program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), is intended to help families pay for food, housing, clothing, medical and other basic living expenses.

It should go without saying that TANF funds should not be used to buy drugs but for whatever reason, Florida’s Republican governor Rick Scott felt the need to really drive this home at last month’s bill-signing:

“It’s the right thing for taxpayers,” Scott said after signing the measure. “It’s the right thing for citizens of this state that need public assistance. We don’t want to waste tax dollars. And also, we want to give people an incentive to not use drugs.”

Not to be outdone, Facebook users agree with Scott. This little ditty, which has apparently gone viral, appeared on my FB feed last week:

Florida is the first State that will require drug testing when applying for welfare (effective July 1st)! Some people are crying this is unconstitutional. How is this unconstitutional? It’s OK to drug test the people who work for their money but not those who don’t? Re-post if you want all states to have this rule….. This is the best idea I’ve heard in a long time!!

Le sigh. Where do I start?

First, I’m not a constitutional lawyer so I have no idea as to it’s constitutionality. However, I am extremely curious why this doesn’t violate our constitutional right to privacy? Any barristers out there who can answer that?

But here’s the main point: There is a difference, dear Facebookers, between an employer requiring a drug test as a condition of employment and the state of Florida demanding welfare applicants submit to a drug test prior to TANF enrollment. Employers simply want to ensure they have healthy, reliable workers. The state of Florida is assuming two things:

Anyone who is poor enough to need TANF assistance could possibly have a substance abuse problem.
Anyone who is poor enough to need TANF assistance cannot be trusted to spend their money wisely whether or not substance abuse is an issue. Therefore, drug users must be rooted out.
Just because someone is poor does not mean they will spend their welfare checks on drugs.

This is discrimination against poor people. This is class warfare, pitting the working class, like those who are posting and re-posting this awful Facebook meme, against the poorest of the poor who, for whatever reason, need a helping hand from the government for a while.

I hope this law is challenged and overturned. Soon.

The Art of Just Being

danineAdmin — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 19:03:03 +0000

So I’ve been feeling a little down lately. My health has been lousy for what feels like forever and I’ve barely written two words in months. I feel like a terrible activist. What have I contributed to the world? I’m not working a “traditional” job (what is that, anyways?) and I’m not writing.

Ugh. Feeling pretty useless.

I think it’s time to remind myself that sometimes just being has to be enough.

It’s a hard lesson I’ve had to learn over and over during these last six years since my spinal cord injury. Sometimes, when you’re sick, in pain and tired, and especially when these gawdawful periods of misery stick around for a while and won’t go away no matter what you do, it’s enough to just…. be.

Just “being” is a learned skill.

When you’re sick and in pain, it means learning to have patience with your body and not get frustrated. It means being grateful for the things your body can do. It means accepting your body’s limitations, trying to understand where the pain/illness/fatigue is located and doing whatever it takes to give your body what it needs (nourishment, rest, exercise, medicine, etc).

There are many days when just being means taking things one minute, then one hour and then one day at a time. Otherwise, the pain/fatigue/sickness would just be too unbearable.

Just being means there will be days, weeks, months, and yes, occasionally, years where the most you can do is lay on the couch and read a book or watch Law & Order reruns.

That’s okay. Sometimes just being is enough. You know why? Because tomorrow is another day.

On Rolling Stone’s Sexist, Ableist Profile of Michele Bachmann

danineAdmin — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 20:06:00 +0000

I dislike Michele Bachman very much. I find her personally annoying and think her political beliefs are despicable. But I am thrilled she is running for president.

Unlike Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann has real political experience, first serving in the Minnesota State Sate and now the U.S. House of Representatives. She is playing presidential politics according to longstanding rules, courting voters in Iowa and New Hampshire and actually showing up to the first major debate for GOP presidential contenders. Thanks to Victoria Woodhull, Margaret Smith Chase, Shirley Chisholm, Geraldine Ferraro, Hillary Rodham Clinton and yes, Sarah Palin, we have finally arrived to see the day when an ambitious woman is no longer automatically disqualified from running due to her gender.

Or have we? In his blistering, hatchet-job of a profile for Rolling Stone, Matt Taibbi skewers Congresswoman Bachmann as a Botoxed, lying, homophobic religious zealot. In fact, Taibbi lists Bachmann’s greatest quality as “her gigantic set of burnished titanium Terminator-testicles swinging under her skirt”. And there you have it. She’s just too damn ambitious. So how do you get rid of a little lady who has gotten too big for her bloomers? Call her looney tunes. Or, in this case, “batshit crazy”.

Calling a woman hysterical, looney tunes or “batshit crazy” has long been a fool-proof method for keeping women submissive to men. After all, it’s very hard to challenge a man’s authority when you’re drugged and locked up in a mental institution.

Too many women have been dismissed as “batshit crazy”. Michele Bachmann has a legitimate right to run for the Republican nomination for president. The press has a responsibility to ask serious questions about her political record, inconsistencies in her public statements, religious beliefs and so much more. But Matt Taibbi did not ask those questions. He did not let the facts, which were pretty startling, speak for themselves. Instead, he did a hell of a lot of sexist, ableist mudslinging.

The Incomplete List of Feminist Memoirs

danineAdmin — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 20:00:04 +0000

So I’m prepping to get started on my memoir in January and reading as many memoirs as possible to get a feel for different styles and such. The weird thing is, there doesn’t seem to be a list of “feminist” memoirs anywhere. Sure, there’s great reading lists like the Feminist Summer Reading List and the Best Feminist Young Adult Books, but there’s nada, zippo, zilch for feminist memoirs.

I want to change that. Let’s get a list started, shall we? Here are a few titles I’ve come up with. Please feel free to add your own in the comments!

Marjane Satrapi – The Complete Persepolis
Maya Angelou – I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Allison Bechdel – Fun Home
Maxine Hong Kingston – The Woman Warrior: Memoir of a Girlhood Among Ghosts
Barbara Ehrenreich – Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America
Susan Brownmiller: In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution and Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape (via @gabrielleld on Twitter)
Wilma Mankiller – Mankiller: A Chief and Her People
Erica Jong – Seducing the Demon: Writing for My Life
bell hooks – Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood
Zora Neale Hurston – Dust Tracks on a Road
Audre Lorde – Zami: A New Spelling of My Name
Azar Nafisi – Reading Lolita in Tehran
Temple Grandin – Thinking in Pictures**
Helen Keller – The Story of My Life**
Terry Galloway – Mean Little deaf Queer**
Harriet McBryde Johnson – Too Late to Die Young**

**feminists with disabilities

What do you think of this list? What books should be added? Leave a note in the comments!

Action, Not Words: Bridging Divide Between Feminism and Disability Rights

danineAdmin — Thu, 20 May 2010 15:59:08 +0000

So, I’m back. The website was down for a while as I transitioned to a web server and got everything all spiffy-looking. Do you like it? The pink cosmo in the header is actually from my very own garden. (Yes, I am shamelessly begging for compliments.)

While I was offline, I’ve been thinking about where I want this blog to go and what kind of activism I want to be doing. I am a feminist and will always write about and fight for women’s rights. I am also a woman with multiple disabilities and I have started to shift my energies into fighting for disability rights. However, as time has gone by, it seems downright silly to me that disability rights are not a core element of the feminist movement. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as many as 1 in 5 women in the United States are living with disabilities. Surely an issue that affects 20% of U.S. women is a feminist cause, right?

Well, not really. Disability rights and feminism have historically been separate movements and it’s time to change that.

While other feminists with disabilities have tried to end discrimination and harassment of people with disabilities by focusing primarily on ableist language and privilege, I believe we need to think bigger.

I subscribe to the social model of disability:

The social model of disability, on the other hand, sees disability as a socially created problem and not at all an attribute of an individual. On the social model, disability demands a political response, since the problem is created by an unaccommodating physical environment brought about by attitudes and other features of the social environment.

What this means is that although I may have a hearing impairment (among other things), it is not what disables me. My hearing loss in itself is not what keeps me from fully participating in society. Instead, I am disabled and left on the sidelines of society because there are:

too many jobs that depend on being able to hear and listen, such as simply being able to return phone calls on a regular basis (I don’t always hear well on the phone, especially if I have to take down information)
too many restaurants, stores, theaters, auditoriums, churches, and other public spaces with background noise and bad acoustics that make it difficult to socialize, network and simply be with people
too many unintelligible PA systems in stores, airports, subways, airplanes, and public and private buildings of every sort that provide relevant and important information (I freak out a little on planes every time the flight attendants come on over the PA and I can’t understand a word they’re saying. Are they saying something I need to know, something safety-related, or are they just announcing they’ll be coming along with the drinks cart?)
too many teachers and professors who don’t talk loud enough, fail to provide written notes/outlines/PowerPoints so I can follow along or simply just talk to the black/white board

Those are just a few of the ways I am disabled by my hearing loss according to the social model of disability. As feminists, I think we need to be doing more to support our sisters with disabilities. Temporarily able-bodied (TAB) feminists need to join the fight to help women with disabilities secure our rights in the following areas:

Health care (including reproductive rights)
Education
Economic rights
Sexual assault and domestic violence
LGBT issues
Immigration
Social Security
Women in the military and women veterans
Employment

This is not an all-inclusive list and I am 100% positive I have forgotten some very important issues. I apologize for that in advance. Also, it goes without saying that all of these issues must be viewed through a multi-racial, multi-ethnic lens. Being disabled is not just about white, middle-class women. It is just about ‘American’ women, either. While I will probably focus more on North American women, disability is an international issue and we need to be mindful of that.

In the coming days, weeks and months, I plan to talk more about all of these things. I hope you’ll join in the conversation.

Under Construction

danineAdmin — Mon, 17 May 2010 15:52:49 +0000

Dear friends,

Please excuse the mess. I just moved this blog to a new server and am trying to spruce it up by giving it a face-lift. It may look a little goofy for the next few days as I tinker with different WordPress themes and adjust all the bells and whistles. Please hang in there with me and I promise everything will be back to normal soon!

Thanks,
Danine

Best of BADD (Blogging Against Disablism)

danineAdmin — Wed, 05 May 2010 19:27:09 +0000

Last Saturday, May 1, was Blogging Against Disablism Day. (Disablism is also known as ableism in the U.S., where I live.) This international event was hosted by Diary of a Goldfish, with hundreds of bloggers participating. Here are a few of my favorite posts:

Red Vinyl Shoes: Full Disclosure

I regularly have to take off work to go to doctor’s appointments. Most employers aren’t too keen on that; luckily my current employer is very willing to accommodate my schedule. Working on writing at home, it’s easy to fit a nap in without affecting productivity. When going on job interviews I keep these things to myself. It’s hard enough getting hired as a fat black woman, much less adding my disability to the pot of stew they’d rather not eat.

Disability: Active Academics: Looking For Parallel Themes

Although as far as the polices, documents and acts are concerned, equality in women’s education has been successfully programmed over the years, no such development has taken place in the case of disabled persons,whose education continues to be haunted by the modern-day segregationists’instrument of special schools.”

Even Grounds: Rosa Parks Is Not Done Teaching Us

We are discriminating against people with disabilities…. You could say that it is incorrect, because of the Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act that requires to make information accessible to people with disabilities. It only applies to the Federal Government, and to those states which adopted an accessibility legislation. In the private sector, which creates most of the web sites we use on a daily basis, there is no such regulation. Nobody is required to make a private web site accessible to people with disabilities by law.”

Normal is Overrated: Of Privilege and Auditory Processing

The Normal Auditory Processing Privilege Checklist

I can watch first-run movies in any theater and still understand a majority of the dialogue without having to attend a specially scheduled screening with subtitles.

I can watch movies on streaming services and comprehend the dialogue with the same ease that I could with a DVD rental.

TV shows are equally accessible to me whether I record from TV or watch them online. I could drop my cable TV subscription without losing access to those shows. continued….”

Wheelchair Dancer: Movement is Radical

Movement — no, moving as a disabled person — is the most radical thing I/you can possibly do. Let me say this again. Moving your body is possibly the most radical thing you, I, and we can do. I have often danced around this topic, saying things like “Mobility is at the core of the movement.” Now, I want to pop a wheelie, spin around, turn a cartwheel and say loud and clear: “Movement is the movement.

Women’s History Network Blog: Blogging Against Disablism

How much more problematic then was the disabled female body? And perhaps this is the question that historians have yet to answer. There is a growing body of work on mental illness and on the impact of institutionalisation on both care of people with certain types of disabilities and how this impacted on their civil and human rights- yet, there is a lot less work on what it meant to be disabled- and particularly what it meant to be female and disabled.

There are many more BADD posts listed at Diary of a Goldfish so please, go check them out!

6WordsSunday: Disability Rights is a Feminist Issue

danineAdmin — Mon, 03 May 2010 00:31:22 +0000

Disability Rights is a Feminist Issue

More here and here.