I urge you to visit Disability Power and Pride and learn about their promotion of full participation in politics and culture by people with disabilities.
I urge you to visit Wordgathering and read poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and literary essays by top tier American writers with disabilities. The latest issue is up.
I urge you to read the following article by Rebecca Schleifer from the Huffington Post:
Rebecca Schleifer: Disabled and Disenfranchised Voters
(Huffington Post)
September 7, 2012
NEW YORK, NEW YORK– [Excerpt provided by Inclusion Daily Express] State efforts to restrict voting access have dominated election news this year. Since the beginning of 2011, legislators in 41 state governments have introduced at least 180 bills that would make it harder to register or to vote. At least 25 laws and two executive actions have been enacted, affecting 19 states. These include laws requiring proof of citizenship or photo identification to register or to vote; limiting voting registration opportunities; and reducing early and absentee voting.
The U.S. Department of Justice and voting rights advocates have challenged these laws for violating the Voting Rights Act and the National Voter Registration Act, and raised concerns about their discriminatory impact on low-income people, and racial and ethnic minorities. But what hasn’t been mentioned in the media coverage, and what seems of little concern to supporters or opponents of these laws, is their discriminatory impact on one of the country’s largest minorities: people with disabilities.
Federal laws like the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Help America Vote Act require accessible voting systems, to ensure equal access and participation for people with physical and visual disabilities.
But according to a 2009 US Government Accountability Office study, more than two-thirds of polling places are not fully accessible; nearly 25 percent did not have equal access to a secret and independent ballot, and voting in a polling place, considered the “hallmarks of an effective and informed right to vote,” as voting rights expert Michael Waterstone has noted.
Entire article:
Disabled and Disenfranchised
http://tinyurl.com/ide0907124
I urge you to read the following article from the UK’s Guardian:
Catch Up With The Paralympics Vibe — Stop Excluding Disabled People
(The Guardian)
September 7, 2012
LONDON, ENGLAND– [Excerpt provided by Inclusion Daily Express] The London Paralympics has not only succeeded in getting out a mass message, with 21st-century skill, that disabled people can be sexy, exciting, achievers and media stars. It has also highlighted protests that have made many more people aware of some of the worst contradictions surrounding disability. These include the acceptance of Atos as a Paralympics sponsor at the same time as its heavily flawed assessment procedures are terrorising thousands of disabled people and the arbitrary closure of Remploy factories in the name of inclusion, when more and more disabled people are being excluded from mainstream employment.
Both messages may fade as the thrill of the Games recedes. But the UK’s changing demographics resulting in the presence of many more disabled people of working age and beyond are likely to have a more enduring legacy.
Currently, as can be seen with government welfare reform, the default position for public policy seems to be to treat disabled people as a powerless group to be safely stigmatised, segregated and wheeled on to be scapegoated at difficult times. But the days of such attitudes are likely to be numbered, as disabled people, helped by the Paralympics, emerge as a more substantial, assertive and self-conscious minority.
Sadly, hostility towards disabled people is not confined to politicians and press; both can still count on at least some public support. What isn’t clear is whether such populist prejudice is rooted in perceptions of people making false claims to be disabled, or enduring negative stereotypes of disabled people as dependent, unproductive and parasitic.
Entire article:
Catch up with the Paralympics vibe — stop excluding disabled people
http://tinyurl.com/ide0907127a
Related:
Are companies on track for a sustainable approach to disability?
http://tinyurl.com/ide0907127b
Planet of the Blind 