Med Lagen som Verktyg

"Friday, April 25th, 1997, a ceremony in downtown Berkeley commemorated the 25th anniversary of the first curb ramp for the disabled. "It's the slab of concrete heard round the world," according to Gerald Baptiste, Associate Director of Berkeley's Center for Independent Living, noting that the curb ramp is believed to be the predecessor of millions of similar ramps that have been built throughout the world to enable wheelchair users to utilize sidewalks, businesses, parks and other public facilities."

by: Steven E. Brown, Fall 1998

by Steven E. Brown
Institute on Disability Culture

PDF (157 KB)

They thought we'd keep on smiling for years to come
They thought we'd just be helpless and mild
Without our own opinion they could just cash in on
Their image of the crippled child.

But Timmy and Tammy are rebelling
Their Easter seals have come unglued
They won't be apathetic; they refuse to look pathetic
They're changing their point of view.
They're poster kids no more,
Poster kids no more!

Language can be a bane of human rights movements. What do we call ourselves? What do others call us? Do labels intersect with models of freedom? Can descriptions of who we are liberate us from yolks of oppression? Do we automatically imprison ourselves as soon as we turn to classifications?

For many years I have been writing, talking, and thinking about language. Like my colleagues across the world in the disability rights movement I have described myself as an individual with a disability, using the preferred term "disability" for a myriad of conditions in combination with "people first" language where the condition of "disability" is an adjective describing one aspect of a person.

About a year ago, Christopher Reeve became paralyzed in an horse-riding accident. A respirator-using quadriplegic Reeve has suddenly become the most well-known, best-loved person with a disability in the world (as opposed to someone like Muhammad Ali, who is probably the most well-known, but not the best-loved - an important distinction). President Clinton invited Reeve to speak at the Democratic National Convention in late August.

This invitation led to a most interesting electronic mail conversation. It began with a challenge from historian Paul Longmore:

Saturday morning. The sun is shining. I sit contentedly in my living room chair fulfilling a volunteer commitment. Baking pleasantly in the warmth, and the light, I am energized. I finish the volunteer work; I complete some light reading; I retrieve my pile of disability culture notecards waiting to be organized and filed. I feel productive. I am contemplative. Before I can stop myself my brain is racing into an approach and definition of disability culture I think might be livable.

How many cultural definitions or characteristics might one find in the above paragraph? Sun-worshipper? Volunteer? Workaholic? Reader? Philosopher?

What would make any of the above words cultures? What would make me a member of such a culture?

by Steven E. Brown
Institute on Disability Culture
2260 Sunrise Point Rd.
Las Cruces, New Mexico, USA 88011

This article is based on a speech written when I served as Training Director for the Research and Training Center on Public Policy in Independent Living at the World Institute on Disability funded by National Institute on Disability Rehabilitation and Research grant #H133B00006-90. The address was delivered to the Region VI Independent Living Conference in Little Rock, Arkansas on November 11, 1991.

"...the folk heroes of disability and chronic disease have not been the millions who came to terms with their problems but those few who were so successful that they passed: the polio victim who broke track records, the one-legged pitcher who played major league baseball, the great composer who was deaf, the famous singer who had a colostomy. They were all so successful that no one knew of their disability, and therein lay their glory." (Zola, MISSING PIECES, 204)

“Independent Living is the emancipatory philosophy and practice which empowers disabled people and enables them to exert influence, choice and control in every aspect of their life.”

Lots of people have made definitions of independent living. They all focus on a few key concepts: choice, control, freedom, equality.

One aim of independent living is to equalise the opportunities available to disabled people. Philip Mason expresses it as an ideal:

av Candy Harrington, 1999

In English

In English

För dig som på grund av fysisk eller psykisk funktionsnedsättning behöver vård, stöd eller behandling hemma under en period som överstiger tre månader finns två lösningar: antingen kan du få i natura tjänster eller en egen budget för vård och ordna vård/assistans själv.

The discussion opens on the topic of constitutional laws and anti-discrimination legislation for persons with disabilities.

Report of the CIB Expert Seminar on
Building Non-Handicapping Environments, Harare 1992

Contents

Accessible Greyhound Buses!

PLEASE POST ON DISABILITY-RELATED E-MAIL NETWORKS!!

Your letters are needed by JUNE 1, 1999 expressing your support for DOT's final proposal for Greyhound and other companies using over-the-road buses.

Portugal became the fourth country in the world to officially promote web accessibility for people with disabilities, after the United States, Australia and Canada.

On July 29, 1999 the Portuguese Government, through its Council of Ministers, approved a resolution making mandatory the adoption of accessibility features for people with disabilities in the Web design of the information made available by the General Directorates and similar agencies, departments or services, as well as that rendered available by any public corporation (State Corporations, State Universities, etc.). Concretely, the design must ensure that:

Compiled by Not Dead Yet in consultation with Carol J. Gill, Ph.D., April 1999

If only Kevorkian and others would read the research literature before deciding it is reasonable to want to die when you have an extensive disability!

Report of the CIB Expert Seminar on
Building Non-Handicapping Environments, Budapest 1991

Gisoo Ghaem, Building and Housing Research Center, Teheran, Iran

Charlotta Friborg
Medarbetare på ledarredaktionen DN
Dagens Nyheter Tisdagen 1 juni 1999 Ledare

I Sverige har vi gärna velat se oss som föregångare på handikappolitikens område. Men fortfarande köper kollektivtrafikföretag in bussar som rullstolsburna inte kan ta sig ombord på. Drygt hälften av landets grundskolor är svårtillgängliga för rörelsehindrade. Fortfarande förbises tillgängligheten vid nybyggnader. Många funktionshindrade tvingas kämpa för rätten till personlig assistent.

Published in Swain, J., Finkelstein, V., French, S., and Oliver, M. (1993). Disabling barriers - enabling environments. London, Sage Publications, in association with the Open University, ISBN 0-8039-8824-9. Prepared from presentation to London SHAPE Seminar on Arts and Disability on 20 November 1991.

Contents

Report of the CIB Expert Seminar on Building
Non-Handicapping Environments, Budapest 1991

Robert Fern, The Canadian Parks Service, Canada

Seminar Contents

Direktutbetalningskampanjen i Storbritannien

Inlägg vid ENIL:s seminarium i Stockholm 9-11 juni, 1996

In English

A conference on Independent Living
sponsored by the European Network on Independent Living (ENIL)
London, June 1998

PDF, 107 KB

Contents

Introduction
Conference background
Conference participants
Conference content
Assessment
Information on development, progress and achievements
Action plan

Detailed reports of proceedings:

Day One

Document 497Y0113(01)

Copyright © European Council

RESOLUTION OF THE COUNCIL AND OF THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE GOVERNMENTS OF THE MEMBER STATES MEETING WITHIN THE COUNCIL of 20 December 1996 on equality of opportunity for people with disabilities (97/C 12/01)

THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION AND THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE GOVERNMENTS OF THE MEMBER STATES MEETING WITHIN THE COUNCIL,

Whereas the Commission has issued a communication entitled 'Equality of opportunity for people with disabilities - A new European Community disability strategy';