Our Human Rights Movement

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Ken Jones, April 26, 2014, I respect your defense of your local CIT program but, to me, it's not about CIT. It's about life and death for me and my peers. I won 't ask your pardon for my passion. The movements for human rights, civil rights, and social justice are an intricately interwoven fabric. I am not opposed to CI T. I just don't want our advances to stop there. Peers and peer support are wond erful but, we need to remember our activist roots and the fact that activism and advocacy seem to be absolutely necessary for positive change. ªNever doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.º ― Margaret Mead Once it was socially acceptable for one person to own another. In the 1850's, Ha rriet Tubman began work on the Underground Railroad, bringing enslaved Africans from the South to freedom in the North. She said, "I freed a thousand slaves. I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves." Once it was socially acceptable for a man to beat his wife. (In 735 BC Romulus r uled Rome and created the Laws of Chastisement that held that a husband could be at his wife with a rod or switch as long as its circumference was no greater tha n the girth of the base of a man's right thumb; hence, "The Rule of Thumb".) Thr ough the Middle Ages, women were considered a species apart, without the same fe elings and capacity for suffering as men. Women activists throughout history hav e worked diligently to create equal rights for women and children. Most property rights, labor reforms (8-hour work day, sanitary work conditions), and other so cial advances were made by women activists who gave of their blood, sweat, toil and tears. In 1911, over 100,000 people marched in the funeral procession for th e 146 young immigrant workers, primarily women, who perished in the Triangle Shi rtwaist Factory Fire. By 1960, women earned only 60 cents for every dollar earne d by men, a decline since 1955. Women of color earned only 42 cents. In 1966, th e National Organization for Women (NOW) was founded. A study in Chicago found th at 46.1% of major crimes against women took place in the home and police respons e to domestic disturbance calls exceeded the total response for murder, rape, ag gravated assault and other serious crimes. We see women today fighting for equal ity. Women are oppressed on so many fronts that they fight to gain recognition o f incest issues, labor issues, birth rights, abortion, custody rights, politics and even in sports. My daughters are more frightened of walking alone at night t han I am, despite "equal" police protection. Sojourner Truth (1797-1883): Ain't I A Woman? A very moving piece from abolitionist, women's rights proponent, and former slav e Sojourner Truth that was originally delivered in 1851. Yep, before the Civil W ar, before the right to vote for anybody but white men ... THAT 1851. Delivered 1851 Women's Convention, Akron, Ohio Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kil ter. I think that 'twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, al l talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's a ll this here talking about? That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barn s, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat a s much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, a nd when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman? Then they talk about this thing in the head; what's this they call it? [member o f audience whispers, "intellect"] That's it, honey. What's that got to do with w omen's rights or negroes' rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yours hol ds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full? Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as

men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did yo ur Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him. If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it ri ght side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them. Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to s ay. The first attempt to measure the extent of mental illness and mental retardation in the United States occurred with the U.S. Census of 1840. The census used the single category of "idiocy/insanity." In 1852, using the census of 1840, ªStartli ng Facts from the Census,º was published in the American Journal of Insanity. It a rgued that slavery kept blacks well, because there was a higher incidence of ins anity in Blacks in the North than the South. Only one type of mental illness was thought to exist in American slaves; it was called Drapetomania and was defined as the inexplicable urge of a slave to run away. Blacks who rioted in the 1970¢s were deemed to have ªprotest psychosisº and some were thought to need brain surgery. On May 2, 1927 the U.S. Supreme Court, in Buck v. Bell (Carrie Buck, AKA Carrie Buck Detamore), rules that the forced sterilization of people with disabilities is not a violation of their constitutional rights. Perhaps unbelievably, this ru ling has never been overturned. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes found that the sta te interest in a ªpureº gene pool outweighed the interest of individuals in their bo dily integrity. In his opinion, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes writes: "(It) is b etter for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring f or crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind...Three generations of imbec iles are enough." Justice Holmes equated sterilization to vaccination. By the 19 70s, some 60,000 disabled people are sterilized without consent. This included p eople identified as having ªmental illness.º ªMan the Unknown,º written by Nobel Prize winning Dr. Alexis Carrel in 1935 suggeste d the removal of criminals and the mentally ill by euthanasia, using institution s equipped with suitable gases. Carrel, a physician at Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in New York, wrote that the mentally ill ªshould be humanely and economically disposed of in small euthanistic institutions supplied with proper gases.º The U.S. psychiatrists who already embraced the program of compulsory ste rilization directly influenced the doctors of the Third Reich, who would soon be gin the ªmercy killingsº of mental patients. The Jewish people in the 1930's and 40' s didn't try to train members of the National Socialist Party to provide kinder and gentler services. From 1950 through the 1960's, Walter Freeman conducted thousands of lobotomies. Freeman believed that best results were obtained with women, blacks, Jews, and p eople with simple occupations ± the very best were obtained with black women. "The operation is suitable for a woman of whom you expect nothing but that she do a minimal amount of housework... Women make, better victims, they tend to submit m ore easily to victimization and they have less power in general." No police prot ection was available. Look up Septima Clark on wikipedia. In the 1950's and 60's Citizenship Schools t aught people basic literacy (so they could pass voting "tests"). But, people wer e also taught about their citizenship rights. They weren't about how to reach ou t to the poor police and teach them how to enforce civil rights. The Stonewall Inn Riots, in 1969, in New York's Greenwich Village ignited a radica l gay rights movement. Early homophile groups in the U.S. sought to prove that g ay people could be assimilated into society, and they favored non-confrontationa l education for homosexuals and heterosexuals alike. After the Stonewall riots,

gays and lesbians in New York City faced gender, class, and generational obstacl es to becoming a cohesive community. Within six months, two gay activist organiz ations were formed in New York, concentrating on confrontational tactics, and th ree newspapers were established to promote rights for gays and lesbians. Within a few years, gay rights organizations were founded across the U.S. and the world . Alan Turing (early computer genius) was chemically castrated for being homosex ual and later took his own life. It wasn't until 1973 that gay activists were able to have the diagnosis of homosexuality removed from the DSM. In 1978, in Denver, I was there when ADAPT (American Disabled for Public Transit ) took sledge hammers and made the first curb-cuts for people in wheelchairs. We didn't try and teach the police to help push wheelchairs up and over the curbs to better serve people with disabilities. The Atlantis Community and other Cente rs for Independent Living teach activist advocacy. Even where CIT exists, people are dying. Go here (http://www.ncil.org/about/abou til/) and read: When the process of deinstitutionalization began in the 1960's, people with signif icant disabilities were released from inevitable life sentences in nursing homes and other institutions (state hospitals), which created for the first time in h istory an opportunity, an imperative, for people with disabilities to live free and independent lives. Our first taste of emancipation came amidst massive civil rights movements nationally and abroad. Leaders of the disability community beg an to realize that our human rights and civil liberties would come only as we fo ught for them. With most state-run institutions closed, people with significant disabilities became more visible, and more audible, too. But society's unwelcoming attitude did not change. The private medical industry quickly appropriated the responsibilities of formerly state-run institutions. Many of the issues we fight for have strong opposition and powerful lobbyists in the for-profit sector and non-profits like TAC and NAMI (turn over the furniture when calling the police). Independent Living philosophy emphasizes consumer control, the idea that people with disabilities are the best experts on their own needs, having crucial and va luable perspective to contribute and deserving of equal opportunity to decide ho w to live, work, and take part in their communities, particularly in reference t o services that powerfully affect their day-to-day lives and access to independe nce. According to traditional thought, disabilities are impairments to be cured through medical intervention. In practice, people with significant disabilities are treated at best by the medical industry as diseases to be cured, and more of ten, since most disabilities cannot be cured, as incapable and undeserving of op timal and self-directed care. The significant underestimation of the abilities a nd life quality of people with disabilities has led to a state in which the eval uation of people with disabilities by medical professionals, so highly valued by society, has come to infringe on basic human and civil rights. The Independent Living Model sees the problem differently and understands disabi lity as a construct of society. In this model, the problem lies in the environme nt, not the individual. Though many people have physical, intellectual, or menta l attributes that deviate from the `norm,' disability is manifested in society throu gh purposefully created and maintained physical, programmatic, and attitudinal b arriers. People with disabilities do not see themselves as problems to be solved , and ask only for the same human and civil rights enjoyed by others. Remarkably , this viewpoint is not generally accepted in society today and the Medical Mode l is still so deeply ingrained in us as a society that people with disabilities may spend their entire lives in nursing facilities often described as ªtortuousº or even be refused treatment at a hospital, and at a professional's discretion, denie d life-saving ªfutile careº or locked away to be warehoused in a state hospital. Too few people have any clue that the modern movement was based on human rights ± not "illness and recovery." (Darby Penney) This is why I teach the history of ou

r movement. We are still in a struggle for basic human rights and equality. Just take a look at the Murphy Bill to see how low we are on the totem pole. If it p asses, think about how it might be enforced. My worst nightmare is someone showi ng up at my doorstep with a loaded syringe. Is that notion much further removed from reality than (CIT) cops showing up with loaded guns? I'm apart from the sys tem now. I haven't received services in many years and I like it that way. I'm s eriously considering starting an underground railway to help people escape the s ystem.

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