By Dawn M. Sanders
Just as we stand on the threshold of the labyrinth of life, our position and place in society is mostly cemented – albeit with a little help from external factors, such as breaking glass ceilings or barrier gates.
I have written extensively on this stuff, such as the Right to Self-Fulfillment or the importance of agency and emancipation, so won’t repeat myself, yet it simply can’t be said enough…
I recently participated in a debating workshop where the issue was how class influences climate change and how it affects the working-class the most and a guy made the point how ‘dis-abled people are still treated as the under-class.
He’s right, but I made my habitual point when he, like so many, placed the label before people. later emphasising ‘people’ with disabilities are in fact entrepreneurs, homeowners and parents so are people first – as more than one person in the room spoke of how ‘dis-abled people are on benefits by default, so come from fixed incomes and are inherently downtrodden.
I read this story the other day with interest and took to Facebook – pointing out the condescending nature of the headline, “Disabled Man is Left Heartbroken…” Okay, so a lot of people prefer or don’t mind the social model of identity language, but it’s the way the media pushes for the all-encompassing label before the person or pity – adding to an unlevel playing field.
Yet, within the article Bryan is given his agency with his name and desire to become something from the age of 2 and despite his obvious experience of discrimination by a local authority, he didn’t just want to sit around and do nothing.
On a personal note, a week ago today, I guess I hit a kind of plateau – my last year of my 5th decade, where next year will see my descend.
At the risk of my own middle-aged musings, the above story just kind of wrote the answer to my latest agonising and pondering on what the actual hell am I going to do with the rest of my time here?
While raising my son who has complex additional needs, getting him into a specialist school/college; then watching helplessly while he lost the formative years of his adulthood in decline, stagnation and isolation. I engaged with not one, but two degrees at university and several in-between qualifications. Okay, so I spent years with my head stuck in academia to gain my own since of agency and confidence in a fast-moving world, but my very first experiences of looking for work with a 6-month work visa on an American exchange programme here in the UK, were not good and fraught with the slightest reason to discriminate when I had gone from one job to a better job three-fold in the US – my country of origin.
A couple of failed businesses, a lot of political activism in staying the course as a lifelong tryer, I could well empathise with Bryan.
So, when I read his story and how his mother has advocated for him and complained of how he has been treated, I just thought, so if he gets that kind of treatment as a young man, who’s going to want me, out of the job market for decades, aging and oh, let’s not forget with a severe visual impairment?
As I have to stand and fight, fight, fight because, the hearings have continued after ten agonising years defending my family’s human rights and autonomy in court. Grovelling with the trail of pain it has caused my tiny family – the sadness, losing myself to my son’s needs, worries and of course my own need to literally do something for myself, the community and my political conscious – I have had to do this Eeny-meeny-miny-mo thing of:
Maybe do some volunteering but, would I be valued? Maybe try to relaunch Barriers to Bridges, the online platform I founded which formerly provided some of the most marginalised in society, a voice, but it needs to be sustained and monetised.
Get more involved politically, locally – well, I’ve tried and the cliquey nature of Exeter and the southwest often looks like no entry signs with a superficial or fickle veneer – different from the north where it’s more working-class and warmer, despite the cooler temperatures…
I know, I know it all sounds like a lot of excuses and self-built barriers, but I need to be pragmatic with lived experience and wariness of all the new challenges within journalism itself – AI, the danger in being left-wing or just outspoken, but I’ve started with writing this, got the bright red fire back in my hair and nearly under my ass. Yet, with a never-ending battle comes exhaustion, black clouds and the deafening isolation and depression – whether I’m sitting in a crowded pub or within the sanctuary of my home, not to mention the sheer lack of motivation and lost confidence.
Like Bryan in the above story, I’m all too aware of the need for self-worth, my son’s need for self-worth and the burning desire to contribute to the world – use my skills, intelligence and lived experiences.
From the sounds of how Bryan describes his feeling of self-doubt after such a calloused rejection – I bet he wouldn’t mind being described as Bryan the binman – A Young man with his determination intact. Not “dis-abled man Rejected Twice after working for free.” Okay, it rightfully highlights the injustice is routinely faced by people with disabilities who often have to work harder to prove themselves and for that it has to be commended.
Nobody can put a price on self-worth and the confidence or since of wellbeing it brings us.
