misohead:

youneedacat:

neednothavehappenedtobetrue:

ateacupinastorm:

With the beaming smiles of newlyweds, Paul Forziano and Hava Samuels hold hands, exchange adoring glances and complete each other’s sentences. Their first wedding dance, he recalls, was to the song ‘

Gay marriage is not the only marriage equality issue we should be concerned about. I’m sure this sort of thing is happening to disabled people all over the world. Imagine not being allowed to live with your partner or to have a sexual life cos of how you were born. 

what the fuck is the justification for this bullshit?

It’s that we aren’t supposed to be sexual because that would mean paperwork. Or some shit.

This is so messed up. :(

youneedacat:

“In Anglophone cultures, when somebody says ‘I have a disability’, unless it’s really obvious, the default reaction is that they are lying. Got fibromyalgia? Then you must be making it up because you’re too lazy to work (note: this is sarcasm).

This is why every disability benefit system I know about puts a strong emphasis on finding ‘fraud’. If a single person were to fraudulently get disability benefits, that would be THE MOST TERRIBLE THING EVER, and we should spend lots of money to prevent fraud, even if it costs way more than letting a few people fraudulently get some meager benefits (more sarcasm).

But what about catching fraud among privileged people, such as abled, white, rich men? Such as the abled, white, rich men who run the financial centers in the City of London and on Wall Street?

Not a single financial regulator I know about puts nearly as much effort into catching fraud as disability benefits agencies, in spite of the fact that catching fraud is part of the core mission of many financial regulators. The core mission of a disabilities benefits agency, ideally, is to help people with disabilities.”

kimjongthrilla:

• privilege is not a cure for mental illness
• white privilege does not cure mental illness
• male privilege does not cure mental illness
• cis privilege does not cure mental illness
• straight privilege does not cure mental illness
• class privilege does not cure mental illness
• if part of your activism is shitting on “privileged” people with mental illnesses you need to reevaluate what the fuck it is you’re trying to do

jackandbabytooth:

knowledgeequalsblackpower:

oldenough2burmom:

isthisableism:

Washington Post: Grand jury rejects criminal charges in death of Robert Saylor, man with Down syndrome

Robert Saylor, a 26-year-old man with Down syndrome, sat in a movie theatre after having watched a movie, acting as if he was going to sit through the movie again without buying another ticket.

That prompted three police officers to kill him.

Friday, a grand jury determined that no crime was committed, even though his death was ruled a homicide.

He was suffocated as three officers struggled to handcuff him and drag him out of the theater. A movie ticket probably costs $11.

The court system is corrupt.

I seriously do not want to live in this world anymore. 

evelyn-gloria:

h1ghtechl0wlife:

A New York man learned to laugh as a way to cope with his neighbor’s taunts about his disability, but now his comic relief has him in legal trouble.

Robert Schiavelli, 42, has neurological impairments and often experiences seizures. His mother says that their next-door neighbor has long tormented Schiavelli about his disability, frequently calling him “a retard.” Over the years, Schiavelli learned to laugh off the ridicule.

But now Schiavelli is facing two summonses for “disturbing the peace” after his neighbor called in police alleging that the man’s laughter was too loud. Each ticket could mean a $250 fine or 15 days behind bars.

“I didn’t know it was a crime to laugh out a window,” the New York Post reports Schiavelli said at an arraignment this week in the case. “What else are you supposed to do when someone calls you a retard?” To read more click here.

are you fucking kidding me

… This world is more and more fucked up as each day passes.

josephinabiden:

a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a:

A 9 year old gets torn apart for carrying a puppy purse, told she’s not really acting in the movie she got nominated for an Oscar for, and then, when she’s called a cunt by a satirical newspaper, told she deserves it for being rude.

Meanwhile, we can’t be too hard on Jennifer Lawrence for all the ableist and racist shit she’s said/acted in because she’s only 22. 

DING DING DING.

cassandracav:

vastderp:

Ruby Wax on mental illness, [x].

motherfucking SLAM.

and just in case you aren’t sad enough, here are a couple of brain scans showing differences between the brains of two children of equivalent ages.

The experience of being abused and deprived of stimulation permanently and physicially alters the developing brain of a child in significant measurable ways that we do not have the science yet to repair after the damage is discovered.

It sounds very odd, but, in fact, when you are an infant and your brain is developing, the love that the people around you give, the touch, the eye contact, the tone of voice, the things, the physical manifestations of our love literally provide stimulation to the developing brain, and the neurons in the brain have more sprouts.  They make certain areas connect more effectively.  They make certain areas grow.  They literally make the brain become functional.

 Love literally grows the brain.

[x]

The kid whose head is wired by neglect or abuse is going to have a difficult life in a world his brain was not built to interact with. Maybe he’ll get in trouble with the law, have emotional problems and act out or become abusive to his loved ones, or maybe he’ll just spin his wheels and feel empty and wonder why (as many people will no doubt have asked him outright over his years) he can’t just try harder to get over it.

Massive amounts of therapy will help later, but that’s assuming he isn’t too ashamed to get it or turned away thanks to our bullshit for-profit healthcare system.

Mind over matter is bullshit if the matter is your mind. 

http://unitedwayrivercities.org/brainBuilder.html

http://annecarolinedrake.com/2011/10/14/shout-out-anderson-cooper-is-shining-a-spotlight-on-abuse-and-the-power-of-love/

http://www.9news.com/news/local/article/300386/681/Abused-or-neglected-kids-more-likely-to-have-impaired-body-and-brain

Sheesh. Nailed it.

fuckyeahretailrobin:

[Image Description: Background is several triangles in a circle like a pie alternating from true red, scarlet and black. A robin is sitting on his perch looking to the right.

Top Text: “MENTAL ILLNESS”

Bottom Text: “NOT REAL PROBLEM”]

So I have moderately severe recurring Major Depressive Disorder, and today I had a really bad “attack” (what I call them).  I couldn’t function, I was ready to weep at the drop of a hat, I would stand still and forget what I was doing, barely holding it together.  We had four people closing so I talked to my coworkers in my section at the big K, and they told me go home.  I go to talk to my manager, practically in tears from the guilt and the crushing feeling…and she just stares at me in silence.

“Are you taking something?  Are you sure you can’t just stay?”

No, I’m not taking anything, and no, I can’t stay.  Silent judgement, and when she finally lets me go every fibre of her stance and tone tells me that she thinks I’m full of shit.

TL;DR: Mental illness is still illness, managers need to not be douchecanoes about it.

HOLY SHIT, that cannot be fucking legal. That manager had no fucking right to be a dickweed about that. If you’re part of a union, get a hold of your chapter. If not, try and find someone who can help you get this taken care of. I’d start going as high on the corporate food chain as possible to get it done.

thepeoplesrecord:

January 8, 2013

An outraged North County family has contacted the media about the recent attack on their mentally disabled son. The 21-year-old Antonio Martinez was walking to his parents’ bakery around 8 p.m. when he was stopped, pepper-sprayed and beaten by a San Diego sheriff’s deputy.

Melissa Mejia, who works in a nearby shop, was the witness of the assault. She got out of the shop when she heard the commotion, and saw Martinez covering his eyes and lying on the floor while the cop was yelling at him and hitting him with a baton. Mejia ran to the bakery to alarm Martinez’ family and came back, trying to stop the cop.

“He has Down syndrome. Stop you know, it’s wrong,” she yelled at him. “He wouldn’t stop, he kept going.”

The reporters from 10News have interviewed the Martinez family who showed the bruises on their son’s face and body. The assault left him visibly shaken.

Apparently the police were looking for the suspect of a domestic violence dispute in the area. Martinez raised suspicion when he put the hood of his sweatshirt over his head while walking by the deputy. When he didn’t stop after being told to, he got pepper sprayed and knocked to the ground.

Sheriff’s Department Captain Joe Rodi visited the Martinez family to apologize and admit their mistake.

Source

An apology is not enough. This kind of brutality is unacceptable & always targets communities of color. The sheriff deputy who did this must be reprimanded.

Thousands of adults with Down syndrome, autism and other developmental disabilities work in Ohio at jobs that pay less money than a teen-age baby sitter earns.

Some clean hotel rooms for 40 cents an hour. Others sew table linens for 79 cents an hour. Some assemble automotive parts for $2.15 an hour or answer telephones for $3.75 an hour.

The majority don’t earn half of the state minimum wage of $7.40.

A little-known provision in the 73-year-old federal wage law allows employers to pay less than minimum wage if adults have disabilities that limit their productivity.

The Fair Labor Standards Act once dictated how little was too little to pay a worker. But today, there is no floor, clearing the way for some to earn as little as a penny an hour.

[…]

At least 14,600 developmentally disabled Ohioans earn less than the minimum wage for the work they are doing. The number is likely much higher, but wage information is not public in 18 of Ohio’s 88 counties.

Statewide, there are about 21,000 disabled Ohioans who receive services through their counties and are employed. About 70 percent work in sheltered workshops, quasi-industrial settings that resemble factories.

The counties that run sheltered workshops bid on jobs with government agencies and private companies for contract work, such as assembling Christmas packages for prison inmates, bagging stuffed animals and inspecting baby-food jar lids.

Worker pay is based on productivity. A disabled worker who can perform a task at 30 percent the rate of a nondisabled worker would earn about a third of minimum wage - $2.22 an hour.

More than 80 percent of the low-wage work force earns an hourly wage of $3.70 or less.

disabledtalk:

(TW: Ableism, Medical Abuse, Neglect, ED (Weight), Ableist Language)

Three years ago, a 6-year-old Seattle girl called Ashley, who had severe disabilities, was, at her parents’ request, given a medical treatment called “growth attenuation” to prevent her growing. She had her uterus removed, had surgery on her breasts so they would not develop and was given hormone treatment. She is now known by the nickname her parents gave her — Pillow Angel.

The case of Ashley hit the media in January after publication of an article in a medical journal about her treatment. It reappeared in the news recently because of the admission by Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center that the procedures its doctors had performed to stop Ashley from growing and reaching sexual maturity violated state law. In Canada (as in Australia), a child can be sterilized only with the consent of a court.

At the time of the initial publicity about growth attenuation, Ashley’s parents wrote on their blog: “In our opinion only parents of special needs children are in a position to fully relate to this topic. Unless you are living the experience, you are speculating and you have no clue what it is like to be the bedridden child or their caregivers.”

I did live the experience. I lived it not as a parent or caregiver but as a bed-ridden growth-attenuated child. My life story is the reverse of Ashley’s.

Read More

confusedtannenbaum:

There’s something I want to say about the Connecticut shooting that hasn’t been sitting well with me and it’s how a lot of people talking about this shooter are quantifying his motivations as being due to mental illness

I know a lot of people who follow me don’t really seem to buy social theories about white privilege and ableism (to be frank, I don’t know why you’d be here if you don’t, but that’s another discussion altogether) but here’s why doing that is kind of hurtful

Very few, if any of these sorts of tragedies are caused by mental illness when the killers are professionally evaluated and that’s because more often than not, these are not regrettably avoidable instances where proper psychiatric care would prevent them - they’re the power fantasies of privileged white males who grow up in a culture of fetishized violence

This is important to note for two reasons

1. If the killer wasn’t white, the media would have absolutely no problem calling it terrorism or levying allegations of gang connections
2. People with mental illnesses are not ticking timebombs and there are huge differences between mental illness and mental disturbances and people who suffer from mental illnesses severe enough to push them to do something like this show extremely troubling warning signs long before they have the chance to do something, if they’re not already incarcerated for lesser crimes

I know you guys think you’re contributing to a positive and accepting discourse by saying one of the ways we can learn from this horrific event is to provide better care for people with mental illnesses but what you are doing is implicitly adding an “or else…” to the end of that sentence and that’s very hurtful to a lot of people, some of whom I bet you care about

mihaelkeehling:

Like, if people REALLY want to talk about the social issues that surround mental health, that’s great.

Let’s discuss how much we suck at dealing with mental illness, both in political and social circles. 

Let’s discuss how if you’re hospitalized for suicidal tendencies you’re usually pink-slipped after three days and sent on your way, lucky to get a follow-up. (That’s if you don’t get sent to jail, of course)

Let’s talk about how fucking expensive treatment is and how out of touch therapists and psychologists can be, both factors in why people don’t “just go see a doctor.”

Let’s discuss medication and how pharmaceutical companies thrive on fucking us over, and let’s do it without shaming people who need medication, thanks.

Let’s talk about the conditions of many mental health facilities and let’s discuss their history, including the brutal experiments that were done to patients that were often committed against their will.

Let’s discuss how mentally ill people are more likely to be attacked, raped, and killed by civilians and police offers. Let’s go a step further and mention how this increases when women, lgbt+ people, and people of color are factored into the equation.

Let’s finally bring mental health out of the darkness and discuss the centuries’ worth of ugly, harmful, and completely untrue beliefs we have regarding people with mental illness. Let’s go there instead of repeating the same assumptions that mentally ill people are more dangerous and less human than everyone else.

Go ahead. Go talk about it. I’m waiting.

placeholderbutt:

girljanitor:

allisticntprivilege:

girljanitor:

placeholderbutt:

allisticntprivilege:

allisticntprivilege:

We have until December 14 to get 25,000 signatures on it. You need to live in the USA, and you should seriously sign, signal boost, tumblr bomb, anything you can. Lives are on the line- lives of people like me.

Reminder.

Okay, I am judging you for the fact that this still needs 23,000 out of 25,000 signatures, Tumblr. What the fuck.

Um, do people not understand that this so so people with autism can get life-saving organ transplants, instead of given a death sentence on the grounds that our lives are inherently worthless?

Do you think this doesn’t happen to young adults?

23-Year-Old Autistic Man Denied Heart Transplant at UPenn Hospital

Do you think this doesn’t happen to children with various developmental disorders?

3-Year-Old Amelia Rivera Denied Kidney Transplant

Do you think this doesn’t happen to adults with Down’s Syndrome?

32-Year-Old Sandra Jensen Denied Heart Transplant

UNTIL THE 1990’s, “mental retardation”, meaning any sort of cognitive impairment, was considered “contraindication” for receiving a livesaving organ transplant(link opens as PDF)

“Contraindicated.” That quite literally means that they considered saving a cognitively impaired person’s life HARMFUL.

These two facebook pages are also relevant.

Case 1: Autistic, did eventually get a hospital willing to do the transplant from a family member after the original hospital wouldn’t even accept a relatives kidney.

Case 2: Autistic, may need a heart transplant, already getting lots of obstacles to care.

reblogging for additional info.

This still needs about 23,000 signatures.