Linkspam: Berned

[davidgillon]

This one surprised me. Who is stronger on disability, Clinton or Sanders (obviously not Trump): Berned

And it's not just from one person, disability writer David Perry has confirmed similar experiences trying to get the Sanders campaign to engage with disability issues. While Sanders' suggestion that that people with chronic pain should 'treat' it with 'yoga and guided medication' is genuinely rage-making*.

Meanwhile rolling eyes at people horrified by #DisabilityTooWhite hashtag. If they had a clue about the origin of the movement they might realise there's a reason early groups such as UPIAS are commonly referred to as 'white men in wheelchairs'**! Seems like we have to educate people that interesectionality exists every time it's raised in relation to a different minority

* There's a place for relaxation techniques, I've used guided meditation myself, but they're by no means adequate on their own.

** I do see a slight irony that I'm saying this as a white man in a wheelchair!
 

Comments

[liv]

I am not really surprised. Non-intersectional socialists promote the interests of white, abled, working-class men, just like non-intersectional feminists promote the interests of white, abled, middle-class women. And both those are worthwhile causes, definitely, but activists like that are no better than non-progressives on any other issues, race and disability in both cases, gender for socialists, class for feminists. Look at the Labour party in the last election: they were all about "hard-working families", ie nuclear families headed by a paterfamilias well enough to work full time and support his dependent wife and children, and "not the party of people on benefits". And look at Corbyn now, he's in a similar position to Sanders, old white guy with a long and somewhat marginal / murky political history, who's pretty solid on anti-austerity but doesn't have much to say on any other issues.

[davidgillon]

Good point. We were beating our head against a wall over that aspect of Labour politics from well before the election, though they weren't quite as blatant about kicking us in the teeth over it as the Tories were.