Reading the thread on how much more the world changed 1955-85 vs. 1985-2015 made me wonder: did the Disabled Community have an event analogous to the Stonewall riots? i suspect not, the closest being maybe disabled Vietnam vets demonstrating, and being forceably dispersed.
It’s kind of tough to riot when you’re disabled.
People don’t get arrested for simply being disabled, the way people were arrested for simply being gay back then. So I can’t see how an analogous event could take place.
EXCELLENT point! As I suspected, there probably is no analogous event.
Watching a PBS special recently, there WAS a sit-in in SF in the early 70’s.
Actually, friends of mine were going to sit-ins for disabled rights as recently as 10 years ago at various places around the country.
These were generally either picket lines or the “chain yourself to the doors and wait to get arrested” variety, intended to bring attention to specific problems in certain places. I seem to recall some issues because the cops often didn’t have vehicles sufficient to transport very many wheelchairs. And it just makes for bad press to drag someone out of their wheelchair so that you can throw them in a paddy wagon.
But I don’t remember ever hearing of any single big Stonewall-type event.
Not a Stonewall, but if you want to see a film about the events that lead to the Americans with Disabilities Act, check out Music Within. The protagonist is Richard Pimentel, a Vietnam vet with hearing damage, who became friends with Art Honeyman, a writer with cerebral palsy. Pimentel’s own disability made him aware of the greater prejudice Art suffered when they went out together for lunch. Art is brilliantly played by Michael Sheen.
Here’s the one that came to mind:
I think a lot of the reason there hasn’t been one Big Event people can point to is that there are so many different types of disabilities out there. And then there’s the arguments over what is and what isn’t disability, and what one should think about one’s disability, what others should and shouldn’t think about disability, what terminology is acceptable…and on and on and on.
There isn’t any single community to unite. I know there isn’t a single gay community per se either but in general if you take a pile of gay folks they are going to have a lot more in common on the surface than a group of random disabled people.
And I have no idea what might be done about it.
They wanted to do a march, but had to settle for a sit-in.
I’m going to hell.
Maybe someday, Jamie McGarry’s Pit thread will be seen as a Stonewall event.
