Last week I went to the Disability Hub meeting. A police officer from the community neighbourhood team came to speak to us about a toolkit they are in the process of creating to help raise awareness of different diversity groups within the public for the force. The police representative seemed to be well informed and aware, however when I asked him if he had the documents he passed around during the meeting in electronic format, he wasn’t sure what to answer as he had not thought about it!
On the way to the disability hub, I thought I was having a pleasant exchange with the taxi driver and was able to not feel on edge, only for him to ask at the end of the journey ‘if you don’t mind, what happened to you?’ When I refused to answer him, saying ‘no actually I do mind’, he said ‘it’s OK, I’ll pray for you’!
Wait, it even gets better!
On another taxi journey, the driver turned to my PA and said, ‘what is wrong with her?’ When my PA brushed off the question, the driver started to talk to me in a very loud voice saying, ‘ARE YOU OK LOVE?’. I cannot comprehend how people can be so patronising and not realise how rude they are being.
Last Saturday we went to see a play called ‘Dancing Bear’, a semi-autobiographical account of LGBTQ+ community and the isolation and discrimination they face on daily basis and even within their fate community in churches in modern Britain. I could see lots of parallels with the disability community – similar oppressive structures. A BSL interpreter was creatively and cleverly embedded in the play, which was fantastic. However, the audio description did not live up to expectation, and most scenes, including the key moments were left undescribed, so I was not able to follow the play fully.
The Q and A following the play was interesting and some disability issues were discussed. We have sent a feedback email to the writer and have informed her of my concerns. I am hoping that they will take the VIP’s access needs on board more for their next iteration of the show.
The highlight of this week was to see my article in print in the current issue of Disability and Society. It is important for me to tell my story of the Armenian academic trip in which I gave lectures and workshops while only relying on my wonderfully supportive parents. I hope my point was clear that it should not be down to my aging parents to provide support in that specific context rather academic mobility should be the norm for disabled researchers as it is for non-disabled scholars, and the academic community should be inclusive and accessible to all.
The Dialogue model is a useful way to address a comment that a person has made that we don’t feel comfortable with like a disablist comment/opinion. The model follows four stages of ignore, postpone, refer or dialogue in order to take us through a constructive dialogue about a topic. The ‘I’ Statements, on the other hand, are based on a non-judgemental model, where the person simply expresses how a certain conflict has made her feel and invites the other person to have a constructive discussion. I preferred the latter as it’s more about owning up to how one feels and taking responsibility for it instead of blaming the other. Following this, we came up with some conflict scenarios from personal experience in small groups. We then sat in two lines to do role plays with those topics, using our new dialogue models as tools to resolve the conflicts. I chose to use the statement ‘You don’t look blind’ for my scenario, which is often expressed in a complimentary way, however this is not received in the same way, at least by me. While the person role playing my scenario did not appear to realise the importance of ‘blind’ identity to my personhood, when acting out, I think the group understood the message.
Outside the course, I participated in a focus group with some other equality hub members about how to make Leeds city centre more accessible. We had interesting ideas about the things we liked about Leeds and the things we didn’t like. From my perspective, I like open spaces such as Briggate and its pedestrian zone, and what I don’t like is the narrow pavements, especially when people leave their black, green and brown bins blocking the path. We also spoke of an ideal Leeds and what we would like to see. Recommendations included more lighting and safe spaces, audio signs and information (including bus/train timetables) and wider pavements. All in all it was a productive session for us, but much depends on how much is taken on board by the council when planning a more accessible Leeds.
For the second time, David and I went to the historical talks held in 
I attended the second session of the Women for Peace course. This week, we looked at Max-Neef’s Fundamental Human Needs, which explains the importance of understanding, love and affection, rest and leisure, identity, freedom, creativity, security and protection, subsistence, and participation in equal measures. According to Max-Neef conflict occurs when one or more of these are lacking. The chart was thought provoking, and while I liked the principle behind it, I did not feel these needs apply in equal measures across cultures or ages. Sat in silence, we then made assumptions about one another in pairs. Looking into each others’ eyes, while making a number of assumptions was a very uncomfortable experience for many of us, myself included. Culturally we are not conditioned to make direct eye contact for longer than a few seconds. 