Theme
9:04pm December 1, 2014

The White Institution (written ~2002, events 1999)

I walked down the street
With my eyes on the building of white
I knew they were like me
Autistic and trained not to fight 

They rocked behind bars and
I knew I belonged there not here
Not out on the streets
With the ones who had never known fear

My body moved forward 
To ocean with sand and with stars
But my thoughts, they went back
To the white institution with bars 

As slugs we might be
But the world it had fashioned a shell
Not home anymore
Not here, not on earth, but in hell

madeofpatterns this is my best attempt to recreate from memory the poem I wrote about that white institution with the tiny yards full of wrought-iron bars, and the beautiful gardens that nobody ever actually walked in, that I saw anyway. I can’t find my last post referencing this place or I’d link it. If I ever find the original version (probably in my computer that’s in the shop) I’ll post it if it differs significantly from this version.

4:51am August 17, 2014

➸ People First win freedom in Tennessee

Read the whole thing (click through the link at the top of this post), but here’s an excerpt.  This is what DD people can do, on our own, without parent advocates looking over our shoulders all the time.  We got help, but everyone needs legal help in situations like this.  What matters is we only got the help we needed, wanted, and asked for.  We did this – general-we, the DD self-advocacy community, mostly composed of people with intellectual disabilities.  Don’t ever, ever, ever forget it.  

“The one child looked at me and said, ‘Help me. Get me out of here.’ He was about six or seven years old. His eyes penetrated me.
"It scared me, and I thought if I could just get that child outside … but they are still in that institution. – Frances Hamblen

The child Frances speaks about, and 2,000 more adults and children — people who have been locked away in four different state institutions for people with disabilities — all will be free by the end of the year 2002. And People First did it.

In 1989, People First of Tennessee made a presentation on the subject of self advocacy to residents of Arlington Developmental Center. The residents voted to join People First.
In 1991, the U.S. Department of Justice (D O J) investigated complaints against Arlington Developmental Center from parents and ex-employees. People First met with the DOJ about that investigation, then met with Tennessee’s Commissioner of Mental Health/Mental Retardation to ask about the D O J’s Letter of Findings on the Arlington center.
In 1991, People First board members toured Arlington to view conditions and talk to members who live there.
In June of 1991, People First’s board of directors — 30 members — voted to sue the Arlington institution.
From June until December of 1991 when the suit was filed, members of People First visited the institutions, learned the law, became familiar with the state and community forces that make lockups possible, planned with their attorneys, and kept their planned suit a secret.

5:18pm December 6, 2013

How out of touch the LGBT community is about disability.

At an LGBT community center, I talked about how many developmentally disabled men, in particular those living in institutions with no say over their lives, have been forcibly castrated for showing sexuality, especially gay sexuality, and/or for cross-dressing.

The first question out of someone’s mouth (a nondisabled trans gay man):

“Did they ask to be castrated?”

He wasn’t being sarcastic.  He was actually equating forcible castration with voluntary sex reassignment surgery.  And there was an undertone that maybe I hadn’t thought of that, maybe I didn’t know enough about the situation to be condemning the practice.

I had no words, I couldn’t even respond.  Like… it shouldn’t even take explanation how wrong he was, and I couldn’t find words to explain the gulf between us.  Still barely can.  But:

HAVING YOUR GENITALS FORCIBLY CUT OFF FOR BEING SEXUAL, OR FOR BEING LGBT, IS NOT THE SAME AS BEING TRANS AND HAVING YOUR GENITALS VOLUNTARILY MODIFIED BY SURGERY.

I don’t know how that can be confusing.

Why is there no short, easy-to-remember phrase for this level and kind of assault on a person’s body?  Like abuse, sexual abuse, and forced surgery don’t even cut it.

10:26pm March 2, 2012

Exploration of disability institutions

I love looking at pictures of urban exploration. Except. One thing I don’t understand. Is why it is that going into abandoned mental and DD institutions is so interesting to so many people.

I mean, I can understand an ex-inmate going there. (Or staying the fuck away.) I can imagine disabled people going there to chronicle the history. And I admit to being fascinated by pictures of the interior of a Texas(?) institution made by the same company that made the first mental institution I was put into: the layout was identical, prison-like. But why the average person?

To me, they are places best avoided. I can’t describe what it is that puts me off about them the most. It’s something about the air. The air feels like concentrated evil battering against me. I don’t know if it stays that way after everyone’s left or not, and the physical and emotional violence that creates that atmosphere gone with them. But I can be sure that in general the last thing I’d want to do is go back in and find out. I mean what the hell??

I have to admit to skipping over those pictures and not wanting to reblog them. I don’t like being reminded. I don’t like the false impression some people give that the places that physically look the most creepy or disturbing are the most creepy or disturbing. And there’s doors in my head that I’d rather keep closed unless they’re needed.

I guess most people don’t have those associations. I wonder what associations they do have, that makes such places such a popular target for urban exploration. There’s all kinds of places I’d explore if I was physically able to. But not that. Not unless some good other than the satisfaction of my curiosity would come of it.