Third-class citizen ... again

I went to an information event today about Personalisation [a way for disabled people to be more independent in their day-to-day lives - or at least those disabled people who meet the criteria]. The event ran from 12-5 but I left after about an hour, thoroughly depressed, frustrated and furiously angry.

About a dozen organisations or charities had tables at the event, all with leaflets, booklets, and such – and not one of them had anything in large print or alternative format.

Let me say that again: at an event run to inform disabled people of disability help options, NOT ONE organisation or charity out of a dozen had ANYTHING that could be immediately accessed by a visually impaired person in the same way that a sighted person could pick up a leaflet and read it then and there.

NOT ONE of these disabled organisations or charities had apparently thought that a person could have “their” disability AND be visually impaired, so they’d better do a little something just in case.

It seems that the only organisations or charities that acknowledge the existence of visual impairment are visually-impaired organisations or charities themselves. For the rest, we’re not even on the fringes of their radar.

Granted, alternative format comes in many shapes and forms, and at varying expense: but not one even had a “who we are and what we do” leaflet in large print.

Okay, so they may not come across a lot of visually-impaired people in their usual line of work, but they should at least accept that it could happen, and make even a tiny nod in our direction. They could at least acknowledge that we exist – even if it’s just the organisation’s name and phone number in large print.

How would they like it if they attended a disabled information event, and found that all the information was in Braille and inaccessible to them? How “included” would they feel then? But that’s what they’re doing to us.

This is by no means the first time this has happened, and I very much doubt that it will be the last. But it makes me so damn angry that I’m not even regarded as second-class – I’m the underclass to the underclass.

On the way home, I stopped off at the local education centre that had a large sign “pick up a course guide here”. True to form, they had nothing in alternative format either.

Sometimes I despair, I really do. There's oceans of information that would help me greatly - if I could access it. But I'm denied the chance to find out how to improve my quality of life because I'm visually impaired and so not a real person.

What's the point in trying to do anything? Just what is the bloody point?

and you wonder why I get so pissed off at times ...

email to Jobcentre Plus via Government Equalities Office


Dear People

I received a telephone call from Jobcentre Plus today: I tried to email them, but, my are they shy about giving email addresses for complaints about themselves! It might have been the "local office" that phoned me, but they don't give email addresses either, and I'm too wound up to want to phone anyone, even if I get the right office and even if someone picks up the call eventually.

I did email the first "Jobcentre Plus" that came up in Google, but it turned out to be a different company; the directgov site gives zero information about how to complain about any part of itself.

So here's what I wanted to say to them:

******
I’ve just had a phone call from Jobcentre Plus –

She: We sent you a form on October 4th and haven’t had it back yet.

Me: If it came in small print, I would have sent it back with a covering letter saying that I’m visually impaired and need large print: I always do.
[I checked my correspondence log after this call: it did arrive and I did send it back, using the SAE provided – I don’t know who’s got it, but they don’t seem to have passed it on.]

She: We need your pension details; the provider, and the amount.

Me: The provider is the London Borough of Tower Hamlets; the amount I don’t know cos they use small print too.

She: I'll send you out another form

Me: If it’s in small print I won’t be able to read it; that’s why I sent the first one back.

She: We can’t do large print. Isn’t there someone who can help you fill it in?

Me: No. I live alone and have no friends or family
[not true, but I certainly have none within calling distance. Besides I object to other people knowing private details of my personal life]

She: All you have to do is fill in the details.

Me: But how can I fill in the details when I can’t see the form?

She: You can put them on a piece of paper but you have to sign the form on the back.

I gave up at that point. How am I going to know what details are wanted if I can’t read the sodding form?

“We can’t do large print” in the 21st century? “Can’t be bothered”, more like.

I don’t know how many people work for Jobcentre Plus (I did try a Google, no luck), but as it covers all of the country, I’d imagine there to be several thousand employees.

None of those several thousand people seem to have heard of the Disability Discrimination Act, which has only been law for about ten years.

Even though visual impairment is the fastest-growing disability, none of those several thousand people has apparently ever thought that they just might be able to do something to meet the needs of those disabled people – and conform to the law.

Especially as the DDA says that organisations “must make reasonable adjustments” to enable the disabled to interact on a more equal footing (or less unequal, at least) – and putting a letter or form into large print is hardly unreasonable.

Whoever’s reading this: how would you feel if you had to let your relatives, friends, or the bloke next door know personal details about yourself? Just so that a national government agency can protect its staff from the arduous effort of having to think?

I don’t buy “we can’t do large print”. I’m sure you’d find that you could – if anyone ever bothered to try.

If it’s any consolation, you’re not alone: it took five years and an official complaint to get the Rent section of my council to get past “we can’t do large print”. Odd how quickly they found that they could do it once the complaint hit their desks.

To tell the visually impaired that they must have their personal and private correspondence read to them, as if they were children, that they must let others, even family (sometimes, especially family!) know the intimate details of their personal life, is humiliating, degrading, soul-destroying ... and most of all, completely unnecessary as well as completely illegal.

Any letter, form, booklet or other communication that you send me in small print is going to be sent right back to you. One day maybe your people might just get the message.

I’m fed up with having to grovel for even reluctant semi-decent treatment. I’m sick of having to beg cap-in-hand for even a semblance of normal human understanding and a willingness to bend even a micron to meet the needs of the visually-impaired.

If Jobcentre Plus really is completely incapable of transforming documents, forms, etc, into large print, then please say so in writing, clearly and unequivocally. My legal friend will know what to do. If such an admission is not forthcoming, I shall assume that Jobcentre Plus can do large print, but simply chooses not to – and my legal friend will know what to do with that, too.

If I sound fed up and stroppy, guess what? I am. I’ve been fighting this battle since 1992, when my vision first failed: I’m so tired of having to beg ever-so-‘umbly to be treated just as if I were a real person.


While I'm writing to you ... I am medically retired from work because of an inoperable injury to my lower spine: I am officially unfit for work. So why does Jobcentre Plus keep harassing me? (Granted, you stopped sending me "let's get you back to work" booklets [in small print] after I wrote asking you to take me off your disabled-hate-mail mailing list, and explaining why) - but I am officially incapable of work, so what does Jobcentre Plus have to do with me now? Or I with it?

[my name] [Ms]

*****
You can see why I didn’t want to say this over the phone! Apart from anything else, it wouldn't have been fair on whoever just happened to pick up the call - not their fault.

****
from Jobcentre Plus website:
When you contact Jobcentre Plus, you can expect to:
be treated with respect
be given the right information
be dealt with on time
access services easily [irony, I presume]


[my name] [Ms]

PS: you might get your webmaster to relabel the home page of your site. Saving it to favourites as "Home Page" is hardly informative: whose home page? and there's "do you want to overwrite" all the other "Home Page"s from all the other professional [sic] websites that do this?

A crip on my shoulder

I get really cheesed when I get official letters that tell me that this letter-form-information booklet-whatever is also available in large-print format.

Why should I get annoyed at knowing that there are accessible forms of this document that are mine for the asking?

Why should I get so irritated at government and council departments and other organisations finally realising that visually-impaired people have special needs, and taking steps to meet those needs?

Well, it’s very simple … how do you think they invariably tell me that I can have large print?

You guessed it … IN SMALL PRINT!

In the same size print as the rest of the letter, they tell me that I can have large print.

If I could read the small print to know that I had the option of having large print, I wouldn’t need to ask for large print; I’d be able to read the whole damn letter-form-whatever in the original format.

They might as well tell me – in Sanskrit or Egyptian hieroglyphics – that I can have the letter in English if I want.

If I can’t access the information to know that it’s also available in alternative format, how the hell am I supposed to know that I can ask for that alternative format?

I notice that, when they say that the letter-form-whatever is available in other languages, they always put a line in that language, presumably telling people in their own language that they can have the whole thing in that language if they need it.

But not the visually impaired! We’re only allowed to be given this information in a way that we can’t sodding well access.

Don’t people think? Don’t they realise that, if we can’t read small print, we can’t read the “you-can-have-this-in-large-print”?

Why don’t they put this line IN large print, and give us a sporting chance of actually being able to read it?

Rasberries to Hollywood

Whenever you see a disabled person in a film, you just know two things:

1 – That the disability is going to feature in the story as a plot device, something to move the story along.

Even when a film shows more positive images of disability (for example, Four Weddings and a Funeral) the disability is still used as a plot device; would the wedding scene have been so dramatic if the deaf brother hadn’t had to use sign language?

There might be a token disabled person in a group, just as there are token gays, and as there used to be (?) token women and token blacks: they’re there to show that the film-makers haven’t forgotten the non-white, non-male, non-“normal” members of society.

Disabled people are never shown in films as real people with real feelings, real thoughts, real day-to-day problems, real experiences – who just happen to have a disability.

The disability is always there for a reason – it’s the disability that matters, not the person who has it. You’re not supposed to see the person, just the disability.


2 – That the disabled person will be played by a non-disabled actor.

Disabled people are still not allowed to be real people, as defined by Hollywood.

There’s a John Lennon song: “Women is the nigger of the world” [apologies for the use of that word, but it is the title of the song]. Maybe women have progressed, but the disabled haven’t been allowed to.

In the very early days of theatre, women were not allowed on stage; female parts were played by men because women weren’t real human beings.

In the early days of Hollywood, white men blacked up to play the “comic darkie” because real black people weren’t really human beings, either.

And disabled people are still non-persons. They’re still not allowed in films; they still have to be played by non-disabled actors.

Would a serious film dare to have Joan of Arc or Elizabeth I played by a man in drag?

Would a white man get away with blacking-up to play Desmond Tutu or Nelson Mandela?

Ah, but women and black people are allowed to be real people nowadays – more or less. The disabled aren’t even allowed the “less” – we still have to be portrayed by non-disabled actors.



I would include the link for the Google search page for “Raspberry Ripple Awards” but it's much too long and isn't clickable anyway: try searching for "Raspberry Ripple Awards" yourself if you're interested.

Crip Rant

I’m a cripple with attitude:
why should I feel any gratitude
at being unremittingly viewed
as having no right to be valued?

The council sends me letters it knows I can’t read;
but it makes no attempt to meet my need.
I‘ve told them and told them I’m registered blind,
and I need larger print, if they’d please be so kind?

They don’t bother to even pretend that they care:
they just shrug and lift their hands in the air.
Of caring and empathy there’s not a hint
when they keep on repeating “We can’t do large print.”

They won’t tell me how my rent account stands,
cos “we can’t do large print, so it’s out of our hands”.
They screwed up my rent and the first that I knew
was getting a Notice to Quit out of the blue.
(Funny how they managed to do that letter in large print!)

But I’m a cripple with attitude:
when I meet this response I get rather rude –
I’ve asked, I’ve insisted, I’ve fought and argued,
but everything I say has just been pooh-poohed

Is the council really so poor
that it can’t afford the gear to ensure
that all of its tenants can access with ease
its ongoing snowstorm of forms and decrees?

They’ve told me, get someone to read it for me –
why can’t I just ask my family?
Cos I live alone – Oh, so where are they?
A long walk, two train- and three bus-rides away.
(if it’s any damn business of theirs where my family live)

Well, why don’t I knock on my neighbour’s door
to see if they’ve time to do the chore?
Yeah, give all of my personal details away
so they can ignore the DDA

But I’m a cripple with attitude:
my eccentricities don’t include
letting a total stranger intrude
into my personal solitude

It’s been the law since ’ninety-six
that they have to take the steps to fix
problems that rise when people like me
can’t see what you “normal people” can see

What do they care if that’s the law?
why should they bother to do more?
I’m disabled, with no right to privacy,
any more than I have to dignity

I’ve lost count of the times that I’ve fought this fight
to be seen as a person in my own right –
to be treated with common courtesy
as a paid-up member of humanity

But I’m a cripple with attitude:
and I won’t give them any latitude.
The DDA was designed to preclude
the prejudices that they exude.

I have to grovel, to pray and to plead
to get anything that I can read –
something that you all can do with ease
I have to beg for on bended knees.

Oh, they don’t mean to treat me with aversion –
but let’s be honest, I’m not a real person:
I’m disabled, so how could I expect
to be treated with even a hint of respect?

Are they incompetent, stupid or lazy?
whichever it is, it’s driving me crazy
I can’t cope with all the stress they’re giving –
It ruins my life (if you can call this living).

But I’m a cripple with attitude:
and I’m sick of the pious platitude
that as a cripple I should be subdued …
but I return to the fight with my spirit renewed.

In the 21st century
I’m still having to grovel for charity;
for the council to get off its arse to ensure
that all of its staff know, and comply with, the law.

I want to live in dignity,
not have to get someone to read for me.
I want to live my life my way,
not have to give all my secrets away.

Can you imagine living like this?
With a council that’s constantly taking the piss?
I’m disabled but they make me a cripple;
I’ve problems enough but they make them triple.

But I’m a cripple with attitude:
if they want a fight they’ve found the right dude.
One thing I can say with certitude …
they’re the ones that will find themselves screwed –
cos I’m a cripple with attitude!



080929 2320
081120 0115