empowered – Dawn Sanders

Gagged, But Only for Now in Not Complying with the Class Pecking Order

By Dawn M. Sanders

How can one begin the healing process after ten plus years of being demonised and shackled by a system which treats single mothers or families from marginalised communities with heavy-handed control and the distain one would expect as a criminal or pariah, just for daring to stand up for our human rights and the truth?

Just in writing this piece alone is where I start, but there is anything but closure…

When I published this long-form piece in Barriers to Bridges – the online magazine I previously founded, not only did it fail to get the exposure it needed to draw attention to something rarely reported by mainstream or even alternative outlets, following on it has only been half the story.

As the above piece is long-form, I will just summarise – it provides a snapshot into the life I built raising my son as a single mum. His additional needs became more complex as he grew with diagnoses and intervention, but we had love and support in the early years.

He thrived at his special school, had a rich and alternative childhood and formative years, but then the tidal wave of change which caged a young bird just as his wings were about to spread has scarred us both for life.

When I wrote the piece in 2023 it had already dragged on for seven agonising years – the face-to-face lies which became courtroom lies; the demonising and framing me, a mother with a visual impairment; as an ogre, the disproportionate and blatant bias of a judge who had already made his decision before the hearings. The opposing parties barely played the charade of courtroom pleasantries, as their job was and always is, to smear the accused, the defendant, by reducing them to mere scapegoats for a system which fundamentally failed my son, but remember this was not a criminal case of abuse. If anyone has been abused in this scenario it has been my son and I. It was and still is, a game I refused to play so my son and I have paid the price.

I just hope anyone reading this synopsis of the whole ordeal, will take time to read the above article. Since that piece was published, there were several episodes of my son protesting for hours before getting in the car to be driven back up to his life of misery after weekends of visiting me, by the next year I refused to allow him to be taken back, a court order mandated him staying here and he now is living with me, as I recently found us a larger accommodation so his support workers have a bedroom and everyone has plenty of space. Oh, but you can better believe the vultures, as I’ve dubbed them for many years, didn’t like it.

Suffice to know, the hearings have continued and the new local authority where we reside are just as corrupt if not worse as the first where we moved to in 2010 and finally pulled my son from their authoritarian clutches.

As the current local authority spent several hearings blundering, spitting out half-baked mudballs at me – making things up and changing their position as they went along, they had opportunity after opportunity in hearing after hearing. Yet, – they brought nothing to the table, as they wanted to move my son again against his will – even after I had just found us our new rented house. At the final hearing, for now according to the court, when the local authority seemed to come to some kind of coherence, the judge halted further hearings – preventing me from giving evidence to confirm and set the record straight on false allegations set against me. So busy were the other parties hellbent on painting me as a difficult monster, not a single word was spoken on further efforts I had just made in addition to the lengthy battle, to improve our living situation.

In fact, if ever there was a blatant example of a spokesman for the judicial system spelling out how single mums on low incomes should ‘know their place’ – it came when, in the closing spoken statement, ‘so, Ms. Sanders has found a property, a necessary move, calling the shots’…

A’hum, no I’m not supposed to “call the shots” or be proactive as an educated and conscientious mother, I’m supposed to keep my head down and do what I’m told and let the ‘big people’ make all the decisions.

It was beyond nauseating and finally reached the point I couldn’t take anymore, so I left the remote hearing before it ended.

I’m not filling in all the gaps here, as I’ve at last reached the point where I need to move on, get myself back, ensure my son’s healing, wellbeing and recovery from his lost years are compensated for, with love, attention and self-fulfilment, but the process is slow.

I’ve decided to do what I have always intended, especially the longer the saga has dragged on and the more hurt and pain we have endured – I’m writing a book to chronical absolutely everything…

I have just this week reached out to Facebook groups for advice on starting the whole process. I’m returning to my journalism and authoring the book which already has a title and the same talented friend who designed the magazine covers of Barriers to Bridges, has agreed to design the book cover.

The plan is in the early stages as I consider appealing the case as well as, in a final attempt at autonomy in regaining responsibility of my son’s finances from the hands of the state vultures who took it from me some years ago.

Susan Hotin Renard wrote profound words of encouragement on the

Facebook group where I hinted at what the book would be addressing:

“I’m so sorry for what you’ve experienced. What you describe is something that frustrates me to no end here in the US as well.

The systematic dismantling of families by every means possible — through money, housing, food, medical care, and most of all, instability. It feels bound to become the very thing that erodes a culture’s humanity.

And you’re holding that story in your hands.”

Please visit this link and consider donating to the crowd-funder I’ve set up for obtaining legal aid funds for appointee-ship of my son’s finances in releasing the chokehold in this crucial area of his basic rights.

STOP DISSING AND START EMPOWERING

By Dawn M. Sanders

Last week witnessed the unleashing of, not only a budget and economic pledges or predictions we all feared, it was laced with the all-too-familiar ideologies embraced by the Tories.

We have a complex housing bill not yet understood by many, the rush to make every school (primary or secondary) an academy and most noteworthy, the further cuts to welfare benefits – adding to the despair of austerity.

So, focusing on the ‘dis-ability cuts as they are inevitably coined, I’m taking this opportunity to turn it all on its head by trumpeting my passions for equality, empowerment and true dignity…

Take note: I won’t be placing that all-prevailing, crippling label the main stay in this country insist on preceding before us as ‘people first’!

I have argued this point of contention time and again – mostly with ‘people’ with additional needs themselves and, I’m sticking to my guns!

My visual impairment is of course an integral part of my identity, but certainly not the first among equals in being a woman, mother or journalist…

A ‘dis-abled computer mouse is one that doesn’t work, ditto for toilets, cars etc.

Is it overly PC nit-picking? I think not…

As a journalist and writer, words, the connotations behind them and what they represent are hugely meaningful – especially when you’re on the receiving end of those negative connotations, such as lesser than, subordinate, weak – I could go on, but you get the gist.

The point is, just because I and others are visually impaired (or otherwise) doesn’t mean I can’t raise my son single-handedly as I’ve done; I still cook clean and maintain my home; I still have relationships with people in the human way most would expect and, I even enjoy some of life’s more clandestine pleasures…

This all isn’t to say for a second, that I and others don’t get blatant discrimination, especially in looking for work, social environments or on an equal playing field in the game of meeting a possible partner – in fact, being visually impaired, hearing impaired, wheelchair user, with learning/cognitive difficulties, is often an extremely isolating place to be.

However, the argument of the so-called “social model” which dictates all of these social/practical constraints should dub us as ‘dis-abled to the tune of how society sees myself and others is simply backwards.

It all hinges on, what one cannot do, rather than, what one can do…

Enough said, so when people go out in force – protesting their benefits are being taken away against a backdrop of: “Is This Any Way to Treat ‘dis-abled People” as the banner read, I’m insulted at being considered inherently vulnerable or fragile.

These people who, insist on milking an entrenched victim culture, one I have to fight against every day to “prove myself” a capable parent, employable or dare I say it, a sexual being, are ‘not doing me any favours’!

I’m forever infuriated at being lumped in a category of the “sick and ‘dis-abled” as people with long term illnesses have their own specific circumstances and anyone with severe/complex needs, is an individual – there’s never a one-size-fits-all…

Ultimately, do we not have the right ‘not to be impoverished’?

Why aren’t the likes of Dis-abled People Against the Cuts crying out for more equality in the workplace, employment or closing the loopholes within the so-called anti-discrimination act.

Yes, this government and its ideologies have handed us a double-edged cross to bear: on one hand, because we are rarely taken for our hard earned merits and qualifications when job hunting. For example, when employers take one look at me I get: “’Uh, how would you manage the stairs, finding the toilets – all delivered with an uncomfortable demeanour…

On the other hand, we’re told we’re scroungers if we’re not working in an environment which doesn’t give us half a chance and, supposedly the government is trying to get us into work?

So, what are they, the ideologists, doing to close the gap of discrimination for those of us who want to use our skills?

Nothing!

The DPAC (‘Dis-abled People Against the Cuts) movement is a short-sighted reactionary group – not offering solutions to the poverty trap most people with additional needs find themselves in – clinging onto the benefits system like a life raft.

In milking the victim culture, they don’t place us on an equal footing when the perfectionist bandits – standing outside nightclubs refusing to let us in under the guise of, health & safety or, we just couldn’t cope with a rough & ready mosh crowd.

By insisting to maintain the lowered status within society’s pecking order, those protesting against benefit cuts really should be protesting on why we are sentenced to a life absent of the same opportunities, most people simply take for granted.

Yes, the benefits we rely on help with added expenses: such as increased taxi fares, holistic therapies managing specific conditions or mobility equipment; (all of which should be secured) but being on state benefits is not an independent or dignified path and one which leaves us wide open to the shenanigans of the state.

Granted, there are those who cannot work due to their conditions, be it mental or physical, yet that should never be the thrust of what is perceived to be living “dignified lives?”

No, in my book of cross-cultural experience, dignity hinges on what I ‘can do’ and making it possible!

I want an empowering campaign which says: yes, I have limitations and additional employment/educational/support needs, but can still contribute to society in a meaningful way.

I want a campaign which says, I have to work harder, so deserve EQUAL PAY, OPPORTUNITIES promoting me as a social/sexual being. Not a campaign/culture of downtrodden, institutionalised oppression…

GET IT?

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/mar/23/disability-campaigners-occupy-parliament-over-benefit-cuts