two cups cooked penne pasta, drained
1/2 cup zucchini, diced
2 cups spinach
1/2 cup diced mushrooms
2 cups diced stewed tomatoes canned or home cooked
2 cups cannelloni beans canned or home cooked
2/3 cup pine nuts
oregano, basil, parsley, salt and garlic to taste
grated parmesan cheese
saute the zucchini until soft, add mushrooms, then spinach. add tomatoes and beans, pine nuts and herbs, until hot. add pasta. heat for 3 minutes. serve. top with cheese.
Emma Rosenthal, founder of The WE Project, and blogger at In Bed With Frida Kahlo, has a birthday wish for her 51st birthday (February 11).
Posted in Support Emma's work, The We Project
DEFINITION:
Dis-abled person: n.- A person one is able and entitled to dis, regardless of the standing in society (STANDING!) or the status of the offending person, without fear of any social consequences.
(from “Emma’s Lexicon” –a work in progress)
_______________________
I went to the city library today and while waiting to check out cds, a young latino man behind me, started calling me “Wierdo, in a wheelchair” “Don’t look at me” “What I said, what I said” and “bitch” and started posing aggressively. He continued this for some time, right in front of the librarian. NO ONE SAID ANYTHING, not even library personnel. Afraid for my safety and offended, I said to the librarian, “This is hate speech, please call security.” When three public safety officers (the library cops! Did you know L.A. had library cops!!???!!) arrived, they talked to him (man to man!) and before even speaking to me, dismissed him. As I began to tell my story, they cut me off, and with hostile indifference for my safety, my civil rights or for what he had said to me, told me they couldn’t do anything because of free speech which apparently includes harassment and hate speech. They told me that they didn’t know what happened since they weren’t there, refused to interview anyone who was, and added that they get all types in the library, including “people from skid row” and “mental cases.” They continued to tell me that this sort of thing happened all the time and there was nothing they could do, since they couldn’t arrest him.
But there should be some remedy (such as removal from the premises), other than arresting someone or doing absolutely nothing at all! And regardless of what he said, verbally accosting a total stranger is more than just speech, it is aggressive and threatening. Furthermore, it can hardly be city policy that people with dis-abilities, along with other protected classes, be required to accept abusive language in the course of accessing public services or working for the city. I asked the officers, one of whom was Latino and the other two were African-American, “What if I used racist terms toward you?” one of them asserted that that would be my right, that it was part of his job. “No it’s not” I told him. ”It would constitute a hostile working environment and it would be wrong, and if I heard someone speaking to you that way, I would say something.”
Offended by their indifference, I asked them their names. Two of the public safety officers walked away, one muttering, “I’m through here.” I demanded to speak to a superior. and the remaining officer took me to a sergeant, who basically repeated the same policy and was equally reluctant to give me his name. While I was talking to the sergeant, Officer “Through Here” interrupted, quite angrily, reprimanding me in front of his supervisor, as if I were a small child, stating that he had feelings too and that he walked away to calm down. He stated that I had talked down to him. The sergeant went on to tell me that they have to deal with knives and guns all the time. I think he said this to assert how insignificant my complaint was, but it also illuminates how outrageous their reaction to me was, as well: A retired school teacher in a wheelchair is too much for the library police to handle, despite all the other “types” they come in contact with every day. One uppity woman with an ambulatory device explaining the nuance of hostile working conditions, civil rights, harassment and hate speech and asking for names and badge numbers to three fully armed and uniformed city officers trained in weapons confiscation, is infuriating and justifies abandonment of their duty to provide a safe environment for everyone.
.
One would-be witness did come up to me later: -¿que pasó con ese tipo? Preguntó (“What happened to that character? He asked.) -nada se pasó, -contesté (“nothing“, I replied). Surprised, he expressed outrage that someone would be allowed to yell insults in the library like that.
You would think that there would be a code of conduct in the library. Can one YELL hate speech? Is it a matter of decibels? Are the badge wielding, armed, and academy trained (I was later informed) law enforcement personnel of Los Angeles, suddenly more schooled in the civil rights of L.A. youth, (I don’t think so), most of whom are harassed by the police routinely, simply for walking down the street? than in how to handle assertive women in wheelchairs? (Apparently!) Or is it that PWDs have such low status, that we’re fair game everywhere we go? (And are “skid row types” and “mental cases” less threatening than cripple gurls who have the audacity to take down names and badge numbers?) This is just one more example of the widespread acceptance of dis-ability discrimination! Teasing me apparently is a right law enforcement is trained to protect, my protestations, the actual violation, the instigating young man, the apparent victim.
The sergeant, eventually did give me his name, and did walk me to my car, in response to my concern for my safety, so there was that. But he continued to justify the behavior of his officers, even going so far as to state that perhaps they had expected me to take my anger out on them and had reacted in anticipation and that I should consider that. I told him that that’s where training should come in. –apparently they had been trained to respect “mental cases”, “skid row types” and “free speech” but not innocent citizens being harassed or how to handle articulate women in wheelchairs who have the audacity to assert their rights and have a voice. Hate speech and harassment should not be tolerated in public spaces. No one, including PWDs should be subjected to ridicule and humiliation for simply entering a public facility and such abuses SHOULD be seen as a security issues. There is no reason to arrest this young man but he should have been told, in front of me, that he can’t speak like that, that he was to let me alone, and if he did not, he would be asked to leave, and his library card revoked.
_______________________________
Check out the following video– what happens in this video, happens to PWDs all the time, with not only the same indifference, but with patrons or others (in my case, the library cops) actually jumping in to take the side of the offender. Also note what happens when just two people take action— how it changes the entire social dynamic.
http://www.youthforhumanrights.org/watchads/index.html
Chutzpah is a Yiddish word that roughly translates to “nerve” as in “She’s got a lot of nerve.” The classic definition is that of someone who has killed both his parents and then pleads to the judge for mercy because he is an orphan.
The first ad from “Youth for Human Rights” was probably brought to my attention via facebook. It shows images of children from many ethnic backgrounds, and asks, “Can you tell which of these children was not born free ? Can you tell which of these children was not born equal? Can you tell which of these childre does not deserve to be treated with dignity? We can’t either?” Missing from the ad, are any children with visible physical dis-abilities, children with and children with on-conforming appearances and weight.
Quite a statement, no? There’s always more information in what is excluded than what is included.
These are the children most likely to endure the daily humiliation and rights violations in the most “normal” of situations– the school yard, the playground, summer camp, assuming that these children can even get their “wheels in the door!”
So I wrote a letter to the organization, and I include the email exchange below. I also revisited the web page and found that there were several ads. I don’t know if they were new, or if I simply hadn’t seen them the first time. On reviewing all of them, in this human rights vision, I noted other oversights as well– gay rights, Palestinian rights, women’ rights that were either excluded or undermined by this campaign.
Here is that exchange:
There were no children with visible disabilities, outside of normative weight categories. in your commercial. These students remain the segregated in all communities and often are the most ostracized. What is your vision and work regarding the human rights of children with disabilities?
Emma Rosenthal
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From: YHRI
Sent: Nov 10, 2009 12:29 AM
To: Emma Rosenthal
Subject: Re: youth for human rights, and children with disabilities.Dear Emma,
Thank you for your comment. Of course we’re interested in rights for all, that’s the purpose of the whole activity. I hope you can use these materials to forward your purpose in this area.
Best,
Beth Akiyama
Coordinator
++++++++++++++++++
11/10/09
Ms. Akiyama,
I personally find it outrageous that you would have the chutzpah to even respond so patronizingly to my suggestion, stating “Of course we’re interested in rights for all” without also stating that you were working to address these oversights nor the acknowledgment that an entire segment of the population was excluded in your otherwise diverse image of humanity. –making the marginalization of this demographic even more marked in their absence!The exclusion of pwds (people with dis-abilities) as well as of people whose appearance doesn’t conform to narrow constraints of acceptability (the children most likely to be excluded from public school, programs, etc and most likely to be bullied, harassed and ostracized by their peers) is more than a minor editorial decision, but is part of an overall and rather comprehensive segregation of pwds from most areas of public life.
When I first wrote to you I had only seen the first ad. Having now viewed the entire series I am even more appalled. You show several classroom and playground scenes, yet there are no pwds, even quietly, in the background. In your human rights schoolroom, everyone is model beautiful and below average weight (for developed countries– malnutrition worldwide aside.) Most of the people with a voice in your videos are male, and the few spoken roles by women are not positive (the school teacher who doesn’t know about modern slavery and the young white woman who accuses a Black student of stealing from her). In the segment on nationality you have students from several countries, each stating “I am”, and the name of their country, including Israeli, but NOT Palestinian– a rather glaring oversight in the contemporary dialogue on human rights, and that ad ends by saying ”We are Mankind” instead of humankind, or humanity– an obviously more inclusive term. In your segment on the right to marriage all of your couples are heterosexual, thin, young, attractive, and definitely NOT displaying ANY dis-abilities. One of the couples, the man says “She’s my queen…. of course I’m The King.” –not exactly a human rights model of sexual equality. In “The Right to Democracy” a public forum, a city council meeting perhaps, is being conducted, and as the men scream back and forth, a small boy, gets on a chair and says into the mike “I have something to say.” There are no women in the room at all, How does that advance a human rights agenda? Judging by the exclusion of pwds in your ads, pwds don’t have a right to access to education or to play (schools and playgrounds being the areas of highest exclusion, marginalization and discrimination for children with dis-abilities), we don’t work, go to court, (in a recent small claims case, the judge refused to let me present my own case!!!), We aren’t included in your social security ad, except perhaps the boy with the cast on his arm. Despite the incredibly limited housing stock that is wheelchair accessible, you don’t include us in the ad granting everyone else a right to housing, (In the U.S. families with small children and pwds comprise the largest sector of the population experiencing housing discrimination). I could go on, but I think I’ve made my point. In the entire series, there is ONE example of a pwd, a brief image of an athlete in a wheelchair– an image pwods (people wiithout dis-abilities) find comforting, (referred to in dis-ability studies, as the hero gimp) but an image of dis-ability most pwds find difficult to live up to.
Finally, your last ad, states that these are “your human rights.” ”You don’t need to buy them or ask permission to have them.” “No one can take away your human rights.”
So, no, I don’t think I can use this material. it would be in contradiction to the basic principles of full inclusion and the vision of universal human rights that I adhere to. Human rights isn’t about nice pretty people, in expensive, well executed ads, with nice ideas. Human rights ARE denied, they ARE taken away, they HAVE to be fought for. People DIE defending them. And, most importantly, they have to apply to everyone, even those whose image isn’t pretty enough for you slick campaign. The only use of your material in my work would be as an example of the incredible unwillingness to recognize and include the issue of dis-ability rights, as well as Palestinian, gay and women’s rights, in the dialogue on human rights.
Emma Rosenthal
Posted in Ableism, Disability Rights
When I “think positive” I get in a lot more trouble, than when I am prepared for the obstacles that may come before me. As a person with a dis-ability (pwd) many obstacles are REAL obstacles. There are also social obstacles. The most humiliating experiences with dis-ability came when I was in the most positive frame of mind.
The constant directive to “think positive” is about conformity, about forcing the individual who may have very real concerns about very real social or personal situations, to behave in a way that makes OTHER people comfortable.
As social activists how can we begin to build a better world if we cannot bear witness to each others’ experiences or discuss unpleasant and tragic events and situations?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8339647.stm
BBC NEWS | Health | Feeling grumpy ‘is good for you
Whole World Press
Spring 2010
Edited by Osie Gabriel Adelfang
with an introduction by Cindy Sheehan and a forward by Amira Hass
Including contributions from:
Anna Baltzar
Maia Ettinger
Susan Greene
Linda Dittmar
Osie Gabriel Adelfang
Hannah Mermelstein
Tomi Laine Clark
Starhawk
Alice Rothchild
Jen Marlowe
Hedy Epstein
Kim Goldberg
Sandra Butler
Emma Rosenthal
On the web: http://www.osieonline.com/Home_Page.html
Sam Bahour, Co-Editor of Homeland: Oral Histories of Palestine and Palestinians, and Palestinian-American businessman in El-Bireh, occupied Palestine
August 17, 2009
“This is a moving collection of readings by Jewish women writers who are committed to the quest for justice and compassion in Palestine and Israel. They powerfully articulate, in their different ways, the axiom of our common humanity. It may have taken our whole life to reach that place (as one contributor put it), but those who are finally able to see, must stand up and advocate for sanity now, today.”
Deb Reich, translator, Abu Ghosh, Israel/Palestine
“Writing with personal modesty yet great humanity, these courageous women offer richly textured, revelatory accounts that will grip the reader’s thoughts and feelings. All the selections are finely rendered, insightful, and endowed with a determined sense of justice and compassion.”
Posted in Poetry and Poets
I sent this letter to the Eco Village, on two occasions, and months later, have yet to receive even an acknowledgement of receipt. I sent it via their email address and posted it to a local listserve. I do doubt that they ignore ALL emails they get. After all, they provide the email address so inquiries can be made. So why IGNORE this email? Why refuse to even dialogue on this issue? What is it with human rights organizations and activists absolute hostility and indifference to this issue?
According to their web page, which was updated this month, and still makes no apparent mention of dis-ability inclusion on their web page. They have a new page, entitled Some Neighborhood Issues and Potential Eco-Village Responses, which I hoped might have included some response to the concerns I raised, but no. Dis-ability inclusion doesn’t seem to be part of their housing agenda, their social agenda or their auto-dependency agenda. Their purpose is defined as follows:
We are a neighborhood in the built-out Wilshire Center/Koreatown area working toward becoming a demonstration of healthy urban community. Our whole-systems approach to community development tries to integrate the social, economic and physical aspects of neighborhood life to be sustainable over the long term. Eco-villagers intend to achieve and demonstrate high-fulfillment, low-impact living patterns, to reduce the burden of government, and to increase neighborhood self-reliance in a variety of areas such as livelihood, food production, energy and water use, affordable housing, transit, recreation, waste reduction and education. We also plan to convert the housing in the neighborhood from rental to permanently affordable cooperative ownership.
and
(emphasis mine) (maybe pwds aren’t healthy enough for this vision of the future?)
For more information about the eco-village: http://www.laecovillage.org/
According to their web page, their email address is: crsp@igc.org
Theirs is a nobel project, and it has done much good, apparently, in the community it serves, but whenever a vision of social justice or sustainability excludes any significant sector of society these omission must be part of the dialogue, must be welcomed, must be considered, and must inform a change in praxis.
______________________________
l.a. eco village:
i just visited your web site and wiki. i live in echo park, have a burgeoning urban farm, am a writer, activist and artist and educator. am very intrigued by your program. i do have one concern or inquiry and wonder why, for the most part, it isn’t included in your information.
with the exception that children’s special needs will be taken into consideration in accepting families, there is no mention of inclusion of people with disabilities in your program at all. you explain your policy around pets, without mention of service animals, have a discount for residents without cars, without mention that pwds (people with disabilities) often can’t rely on bicycles or public transportation, and therefore might have that requisite waived. there is no mention in your barter system for meeting the social needs for people who may have less conventional means of contributing to a community, or who simply are at a point in their lives when their needs outweigh what they can contribute.
as a community, what have you done to address these issues?
are these issues of concern to you as a community?
how do we build sustainable communities that are inclusive?
in building a sustainable community, how do we take into account needs that pwd and people with chronic illnesses may have that might not be needs of people who fit the dominant physical paradigm and may require extra ecological and financial resources? (such as air conditioning, cars, service animals, etc.)
if you have taken these issues into consideration, why are they not reflected in your mission statement or your on line presentation of your community?
if you have not taken these matters into consideration, why not?
in solidarity,
emma rosenthal
Posted in Ableism, Disability Rights, No Answer
The last few years have been overwhelming: the purges, death threats, isolation, humiliation, the overall initiation into the marginalization of dis-ability, the shutting down of the server my blogs were on, the reestablishment, post by post, image by image of the entire chronicles, the invasion of our home by 14 armed members of the Los Angeles Police Department, the confiscation of our property, the legal costs, ongoing health problems, the deaths of my father and Barbara Franklin, a close friend, several hospitalizations of my son, moving twice, finding a place to live, restoring an old house, becoming part of a neighborhood.
I started this blog: “In Bed With Frida Kahlo” to provide resources for other people with dis-abilities (pwds), and to speak to the overall experience of dis-ability; a source of identity and self-recognition for other pwds, and a way of exposing pwods (people without dis-abilities—aka the temporarily able bodied) to the realities of the daily indignities of dis-ability. *
People who know me, know I hate new age-y platitudes. I didn’t always. I invested time, money, hope, dreams and even my reputation on the illusion that positive thought and following one’s dreams would inevitably bring about a positive solution. “Do what you love, the money will follow.” “Follow your bliss” “What would you do if you thought you couldn’t fail? “ In the case of the latter, fail publicly, repeatedly, and to the detriment of my integrity and reputation, not because I intended to let people down, but because my expectations and my belief in that mythology were not in alignment with either my financial or physical realities.
The Annenberg Space for Photography is an amazing space, but thought alone did not create it. It took the wealth of the Annenberg family and lots of hard work to make a wonderful idea, a reality. Daily life and its demands and limitations are very different for those with money and those without. Life moves more slowly for those with fewer resources, slower yet, for those with options limited by both physical and social barriers.
It took two years for Andy and me to make a home together, to finish most, though not all the work on a very old house, that in the L.A. housing market, we barely squeezed into. I started projects, and then found myself overwhelmed with the minutia of life—the daily tasks, the unexpected emergencies, the requisites of responsibility to others, that would interrupt my work and delay responses that events demanded.
So here I am, in the present moment. Most of the past is behind us. I know that sounds funny, but this month I finally caught up on the finances on quicken: everything is categorized, documented, accounted for. We can finally really make a budget, plan our future, keep track of spending in the present tense. It is a huge load off our backs. The blogs are up to date, for the most part. I have a place to work, to stack my books on shelves, to file papers for research I’m doing for upcoming essays.
The transition to dis-ability happens faster than I can write. Hopefully now, the space and time exist to allow me a current response. Two humiliating events occurred this week, which is not uncommon for a pwd. Not uncommon at all! I hope this weekend to sit down and write my chronicle of the events. I don’t feel I have years of work looming over me like a tidal wave.
There’s some delay in writing these stories. It takes me awhile to understand what happened. There are so many nuances to dis-ability discrimination, trauma, shock. I am also, often too humiliated and ashamed to look at what has happened to me. I’ve done enough victim advocacy to know the fallacy of that thinking, which helps, but doesn’t remove the stain, stigma or injury, totally.
I also know the risks of writing about dis-ability discrimination—the common assertions- “What did she do to bring this upon herself?” “Is she lying?” “She’s probably just trying to get attention.” “She must have done something to contribute to the situation.” “She’s loud and demanding and she got what she deserved.” I’ve been told all of this, by human rights activists, educators and social service providers, even.
As Audre Lorde said:
“I write for those women who do not speak, for those who do not have a voice because they were so terrified, because we are taught to respect fear more than ourselves. We’ve been taught that silence would save us, but it won’t”
“My silences have not protected me. Your silence will not protect you.”
But the biggest obstacle to writing has been time and the responsibilities of life. Writing is process, there must be a space, often a ritual, and the muse must be courted. The drama of the last few years, the unpredictability, the danger, all had to take priority over the reporting of events. I never wrote about the airline flight attendants who refused to let me use the restroom at the front of the plane, refused to hold my place in line for the bathroom at the back of the plane, while I waited my turn in my seat, instead of standing, and ridiculed and humiliated me as I struggled to reach the back of the plane, while they denied me the use of the airline wheelchair that is mandatory on all flights, forcing me to collapse onto the floor until the line dissipated. I never had time to write about the numerous social service, educational and health care personnel who openly ridiculed me in front of my son instead of providing the services they were required to provide my family. I didn’t write about repeatedly humiliating experiences in Whole Foods, and other yoga beautiful establishments, including farmers’ markets, where dis-ability access is denied or impaired because our presence is seen to diminish the cachet of the establishment. I never wrote about the repeatedly miserable experiences I had in theaters, including one theater where, without even an introduction, one employee, after I had found my way to my seat, grabbed my walker (as per theater policy, apparently) because it took up too much space. (No similar demands were made of tall people for taking up too much space! For pwds, our ambulatory devices are our legs. Without my walker, I would not be able to access the restroom during the performance if need be, or get to the restroom in a timely manner during intermission. I would have had to wait patiently for this brutal matron to return my legs to me, on her own timeline, on her own accord.) Unreported were the numerous occasions where Andy would repeat something I had said, to be praised for the great idea, that seemed to go totally unheard when I made the same point, or where I was accused of being rude, and he was praised for being courageous, brave, outspoken. Good gimp gurls must be quiet!!!
And I never wrote about the human rights activist, who yelled at me for running into her with my scooter, when she backed up without looking, and then chastised me for driving inside a public building.
So now I hope to have the time, the space, the clarity to write, in the present time, not catching up with the past, but writing what is happening now, in the life of one crippled gurl guerrilla gimp, out to take over the world, one wheelchair ramp at a time.
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*I hyphenate the word, because disability is subjective. Little people are considered dis-abled, but tall people are considered enhanced. The deaf community does not, in general recognize deafness as a dis-ability at all. It really comes down to social values of what is desired, what is rejected and what is normative. If some people had wings and others didn’t, those without wings would be considered dis-abled.
THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR ACCESS LIES WITH THE EVENT PLANNERS. IT IS NOT THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE INDIVIDUAL ATTENDING THE EVENT.
The issue of disability rights is often either ignored within the larger human rights dialogue or treated with outright hostility. Too often events are either held in inaccessible locations, or the way space is used, in otherwise accessible locations, rendered inaccessible. Additionally, often individual attempts at participation are greeted with out right hostility and ridicule by many individuals who consider themselves to be advocates of (more worthy?) human rights causes. If we are to build a strong movement that is truly democratic, truly representative and truly uses all the resources, skills and expertise of our community, it must be fully inclusive. if inclusion is not a collective responsibility it is delegated to the individual to assure her own participation, to adjust to the larger constructs, rather than have the community make the adjustments and accommodations. Often participation is totally impossible. IF YOU WANT TO KNOW IF YOUR EVENT IS DIS-ABILITY FRIENDLY AND ACCESSIBLE– IF WE AREN’T THERE, IT ISN’T!!!!
Attached is a guide book, published by the City of Los Angeles, for making events accessible. I would add that
1. Progressive communities need to begin (BEGIN!!!) the dialogue on inclusion.
2.All events have a designated accessibility coordinator to make sure aisles remain clear and unblocked and to support people with dis-abilities, should problems arise.
3. Ridicule and humiliation of people with dis-abilities be treated like all hate speech, and that appropriate action be taken to assure events are not hostile environments.
4. Where “special” entrances are necessary, specific signage and staffing must be provided so that people with dis-abilities have the agency to come and go with the same liberty as all other participants, not having to wait until someone becomes available to assist them.
My biggest pet peeve, are otherwise accessible venues where the stage is not accessible. IT IS A VERY STRONG REMINDER– “YOU ARE WELCOME TO BE HERE, BUT WE DON’T FEEL THAT YOU HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY!”
http://ens.lacity.org/dod/indexpage/dodindexpage169433612_11152005.pdf
This blog was forced to move when the previous hosting site shut down. The process has been tedious. Each post and each image has been reinstalled one by one. A direct import was not available.
For more information on this process:
http://inbedwithfridakahlo.wordpress.com/site-under-construction-pardon-the-sawdust/
The following pages have recently been revised or reinstalled, providing new information to the threads; UTLA Human Rights Committee, and Anatomy of a Blacklist:
http://inbedwithfridakahlo.wordpress.com/2006/09/29/ableism-in-the-human-rights-committee-2/
To follow the complete thread; Anatomy of a Blacklist, go to:
http://inbedwithfridakahlo.wordpress.com/2009/06/28/anatomy-of-a-blacklist-a-thread-on-two-blogs/
