Tales of disability discrimination

Life is unfair for those with a disability. It can feel like we are badgered on all sides. Our bodies rebel against us, won't do what we say, won't be normal. The government attacks funding and benefits we need to cover the costs of our illnesses, the very money we rely on to survive. Then there are those who judge us for being disabled, for being less able or for having an illness, for being less than perfect.

Later on this week I plan to talk about human rights, specifically the human rights which apply to the disabled and long term sick. I thought to start my week of talking about human rights I would focus on one specific point.

The Right to not be discriminated against

In the current political climate you would think that it was fine to openly discriminate against those who are sick and disabled, the government does it and if they do something that makes it legal and acceptable, or so most people would think. Hearing other stories from other spoonies and disabled people there are two sides. Sometimes disability discrimination is dealt with well, swiftly and efficiently and treated as the serious matter it is. Then there are the times that it is just ignored, that a blind eye is turned to it. I want to give you an example from both extremes from my own life.

An example of the good

Last summer my parents where visiting me and along with my husband we where all looking for somewhere to eat out together. I should explain first that the town I live in has a very strict no drinking zone enforced on the streets within the town centre. This is partly to do with the large student population for half of the year and the large tourist population for the rest of it. Between May and October the police patrol most heavily for people who are drinking on the streets and if you are caught it is either an £800 on the spot fine or an immediate official police caution. As we where walking to find a place to eat I could hear a crowd of men behind us screaming and shouting loudly. It was tourist season, tourists are often loud and drunk and you either get used to it or you don't live here. These men pushed past us nearly knocking me out of my wheelchair. It was annoying but I spent most of my years as student in my wheelchair and I am used to it being knocked by drunk people so again another thing that didn't really bother me that much. I did however see one of the men had a half empty pint of beer in his hand and a police car had not long gone past us round the one way system. This is the conversation that followed:

Me: Hey mate! Put your pint under your coat in your hand or the police will fine you, just hide it!
Him: F*** off, dumb disabled b****, if your so f***ing clever then get up and walk, f*** you four wheels.

I had tried to give him a friendly warning and not only got an earful back but an earful of discrimination. The guy went past us on his way to the train station which is also a pub. He went into the pub at the train station and we continued on to the corner. My parents where disgusted and I was shaking but refusing to cry. My husband told me to ring the local police number which I did and the police very quickly appeared. I was astounded by how quick and how controlled the response was. I had informed the police that the man was also drinking on the street and that he had gone towards the train station. I gave them a description of the man and two officers disappeared while a community support officer stayed with me. One of the two officers came back and began to take a statement from me. As I was giving my statement I noticed a police van pull up outside the train station and several officers get out and they proceded to search the pub at the train station and the platform. I was later informed that an officer on the platform realised that the man they where looking for was on the train as it was pulling out. The train pulled out and was swiftly called back by station staff (being a single line with train passing points all the trains have walkietalkies and all staff have company mobiles) and the police boarded the train from all exits and the man was swiftly, relatively quietly, and efficiently apprehended under the discrimination act. Not only did he spend the last day of his holiday in a police cell rather than on a train home he also got to appear in front of magistrates the next day and recieved a nice and hefty fine.

An example of the bad

I live in social housing, in a ground floor flat. This flat is sound proofed as much as possible and even has sound proofing ceiling paper in all of the rooms. When we first moved in our upstairs neighbours where perfectly nice. The would be sociable and friendly and when we had barbeques outside they would join us. One night as we where discusing benefits they informed us how they where cheating the benefit system and how we could to and explained exactly how they where doing it. I was shocked as was my husband and we both told them that we would rather be honest. This is where things began to change. First it was a night I had friends over and we where sat in our yard and our neighbour decided to insult one of my friends. Next incident our washing line 'myseriously blew over' at the same moment our neighbours where having an arguement outside. My husband and I then went away on holiday for a couple of days as my parents had paid for us to go with them. We had a pet sitter in who rang us in distress one night because our neighbours had threatened to kill her because of 'flies in the house' that where our fault. Now where I live is in a small village outside a town, even the town is rural so the village is even more so. We also live in a small hollow in the land which makes us slightly lower down and a stream runs at the end of the road. This is all perfect for attracting midges and the midges where apparently entirely our fault. We thought nothing of it and calmed the pet sitter down and came home when we where due to and it all seemed fine. Then the neighbour began to complain that we used the doors in our house too much, she even suggested that we remove all of the doors. It was ridiculous and unreasonable. All the doors to the rooms we use in our house are moved twice a day, once in the morning to open them, once in the evening to close them. Twice a day was us using doors too much.

You may be wondering how this is a story about discrimination, I am getting to it. The threats began before christmas. 22nd december to be precise. The neighbour came and knocked at the door and my husband answered. She complained again until I appeared out of the living room door way to see what was going on, at which point I was called a 'disabled b****' and told that there would be consequences. I told her that she was noisy too and that if they wanted us to be quieter she would have to also be quieter as it wasn't fair for only one flat to put in effort while the other still had parties so loud you could hear the lyrics to the music playing (and I wouldn't have minded but it was 3am and I don't like take that but at least it wasn't a song I completely hated by them, I could sing along as it was the song that is from Stardust the film). She then threatened me again and made to come through the front door past my husband who stopped her by closing the door on her. Since then there have been several incidents of threats including one where she stood outside our front door kicking it screaming that she was going to kill 'that disabled b****' causing dents on our door, she even had a car running with someone waiting in it for her. The police have been informed of every incident and the housing association ASB officer also has been informed.

You would think this being discrimination, anti social behaviour and threatening behaviour that something would have been done right? Wrong, nothing has been done. There is supposedly never enough evidence to do anything at all. The most we get is her in a cell for the night. The night she was outside with a knife she ran and the police didn't catch her, it took a week for them to arrest her despite the fact she spent the week after that night sat outside the house spreading lies about me and my husband loudly so we could hear while we where too afraid to leave the house to stop her. I am still afraid to go out now and have what I call my alarm grenade on me at all times (simply pull the pin out and drop the alarm then run if you can). We have door and window alarms now and we have a cctv camera sat waiting to be fitted but we don't have the skills to do it ourselves. I am deathly afraid of this woman and no one has helped me. She has descriminated against me, lied about me, threatened me and nothing has been done.

Every day discrimination

 So those are the examples of the two extremes but there is a whole lot in the middle too. Frequently I am treated like my brain doesn't work just because I am in a wheelchair. From people who talk loudly and slowly at me to people who hand the money back to my husband and address my husband even if it is me who handed them the money and me who is replying. There are those people who stare at you repeatedly when they see you are in a wheelchair or on a walking stick. There are those people who refuse to believe you are disabled, an example in my case is when I use my stick to get out of my wheelchair to get into a taxi or go somewhere I can't in my wheelchair because I can walk short distances - people have actually screamed cheat and fraud and scrounger at me before in the street when seeing me do this because they assume that your legs have to be completely unusable for you to be in a chair rather than you can't walk a long way so you need one. There are hundreds of thousands of small little wrongs done to those who are disabled every day which are discriminatory and we wont be able to stop people from doing these things big or small unless we call them on it every single time. Now the guy from the first story probably doesn't like disabled people any more than he did when he was nasty to me but at least he learnt a lesson, that discrimination is not acceptable, ever.

The UN are the ones who say we have the right to live without discrimination as disabled and sick people but the only people who can enforce this really is us, the people who feel that discrimination day in and day out. Our lives are one big fight when you're disabled or sick so just make sure you win!