The Bare Minimum: Why ‘Recognition’ is Still Meaningless

One thing ignorant people often say to me is “more places have facilities now, so I don’t know why you’re angry”.

I tell you why I’m ‘angry’, it is because that far too many places are inaccesible and the few businesses/companies that do follow international laws only give the bare minimum.

The bare minimum will never be, in any scenario, enough to make up for the hundreds of years of institutionalised inequality, mistreatment and disgusting injustice.

Often, people try to shy away from the real issues disabled people face, like they ignore that hundreds of thousands of hate crimes that occur each year, and like they ignore the fact that in most of the world 80% (and rapidly growing) of disabled people are out of full time work and in some areas we are denied work altogether. Systems and society also hugely overlook the fact that the people from the outside who want to help, often, use disability as either a way to make money or to take away from the real issues at hand.

The majority of businesses around the world do not follow UN regulations on disability, even if they do it is basic and doesn’t encompass all disabilities. If you want to find any misguided statistic about it to argue against my statement, just know you’re wrong. I am disabled, therefore I know what disabled access is like, and many people face a daily struggle that many refuse to acknowledge.

Making a place accessible isn’t just putting a ramp in and gracing the disabled populus with at least a couple of spaces, it doesnt necessarily mean that inside a store is accessible and doesn’t actually make up for really crap facilities within that premises.

Let me share some of my own experiences of the problems with facilities. Recently, I decided, despite a struggle, to go to London and try to record some music for a side-project I hope to roll out. I stayed at a premise that was promised as ‘disabled-friendly’, bare in mind that should mean fully accessible and have adequate facilities.

The reality was that the toilets had the worst handrails that were cheap and barely on the wall, it had the lowest toilet seat that nobody in a wheelchair could transfer from and furthermore, the sink hung over the actual toilet.

For anyone who isn’t disabled I imagine some of those flaws I listed may be OK, you may be able to find a way around them, even though they could be impositions for able-bodied people too.

When it came to washing myself and doing my oblutions, I couldn’t!

I couldn’t magically switch off my disability, I couldn’t magically make my apathetic and lifeless body work!

As much as I love fruit-flavoured Volvic water, I didn’t enjoy drinking a bottle every time I needed to urinate, in order to have a facility to urinate into. I didn’t even have the dignity to wash myself after, accidentally, happening to have urinary incontinence because I couldn’t get to a facility in time.

I had to use a flannel, lukewarm water and hand-soap to wash myself in my wheelchair. I was barely clean, but felt even dirtier and degreded. Nobody should have to go through it unknowingly, let alone knowingly. Disabled people go through things that, in other circumstances, may be a source of humour, but in reality are filthy and damn-right destructive to your confidence.

I couldn’t help just burst into tears, I remembered saying to myself, “this is not dignity, this is an absolute joke” and “why must I be treated like an animal?”.

I don’t want people thinking of me as lesser and that I am weird, I didn’t want to use a bottle of water as a conduit for my oblutions, I wanted to have the same dignity as other people. I wanted to clean myself properly after such an embarassing moment in my life, but I wasn’t even granted that.

Just because I crave the same rights as the able, doesn’t mean I want the facilities of someone who is able, or atleast not as mobility impaired as myself. The truth of the matter is that I can’t operate like someone without a physical disability, I can’t walk, I can barely slide these days, and I need help in order to live a life that is equal in dignity to someone without the same issues, or atleast close enough as possible.

It is what I say all the time, it is the BARE MINIMUM!

Sometimes I wish people would just tell me “fuck off, you ain’t wanted round here”, instead of offer me a diamond but deliver a jewel made from cheap plastic.

I wanted a stress-free weekend, because I was truly scared how I would manage away from my facilities at home. Instead, I wasn’t even allowed to have another day to not worry about how I’d manage, because it was constantly in the back of my mind.

The worst part for me, and the most undignified part of that whole trip was when I couldn’t get out of bed because it was so low down. I had to wait for 4, inadequately trained (in disability liaison), members of staff to lift my limp lifeless body and put me in my wheelchair.

Is that what society thinks is enough!

Here’s the problem with society, you refuse to see my struggle, you refuse to do anything meaningful to help the community and give vulnerable and decent humans the chance to truly enjoy their existence on this mass of rock we call the earth.

SOCIETY MAKES ME FEEL IRRELEVANT, IT MAKES ME FEEL LIKE NOBODY HEARS MY JUSTIFIABLE GRIEVANCES, IT MAKES ME FEEL FILTHY!

This is why unemployment is so high, why people like myself feel they can’t leave their own houses, which now have become like open prisons, and why we feel lost.

I thought we weren’t in institutions anymore?!

If that’s the case why do we still feel imprisoned, undignified and ignored. We are still mentally/physically segregated, and still struggle.

We are lying if we think this enough for our community, these peace-meal efforts to pretend like people mean jack shit to someone who for 20 years of their life has struggled to do the things that most able-bodied people do naturally.

I had to write this, because I am appalled, I am ashamed and I feel alone.

Facilities and anything for that matter (employment and transport) are not good enough, they just aren’t, it is appalling that I have to say this in 2016.

JD Weaver