tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1556371561007953336.post2004082114012865044..comments2024-03-16T16:44:18.220-07:00Comments on Bad Cripple: Syracuse University SPAWN: Philosophy of Disabilitywilliam Peacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00223601480542461802noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1556371561007953336.post-73707326187093768832014-07-24T03:10:35.854-07:002014-07-24T03:10:35.854-07:00Ben. Thank you for the clarification. You are corr...Ben. Thank you for the clarification. You are correct and I thank you for your comment. Simo and I correspond via email after the conference. He also wrote a critical reply. I enjoyed our conversations and am sorry for my error.william Peacehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00223601480542461802noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1556371561007953336.post-81595933336598250652014-06-17T09:16:05.472-07:002014-06-17T09:16:05.472-07:00Thanks, Bill! I understand your points about the d...Thanks, Bill! I understand your points about the difference between your blog and the Chronicle. I'll certainly get access somehow. I also really appreciated your point about lack of disabled discussants. So, so true. This is a systematic problem that really needs addressing, and I note you made the point in your latest blog on the Chronicle article. The other thing I noticed in the conference was the lack of diverse ethnicity - yet another issue :) You have my support in this, Bill, especially as the title of my paper was Does Philosophy Disable. I guess it does! Best wishes from a sunny London.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17656133871666472612noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1556371561007953336.post-70362269616099925612014-06-17T06:33:08.767-07:002014-06-17T06:33:08.767-07:00Simon, I truly appreciate your long comment. I als...Simon, I truly appreciate your long comment. I also want to emphasize I enjoyed the conversations we had. Despite the lack of access I enjoyed myself and learned much. <br />To address your points. There is no question the organizers and presenters did their level best to insure the pdf of papers were accessible to the blind. The same can be said about physical access for me. The organizers were assured physical barriers would not be present. Naively, they assumed this was true. But this was not the case as is the norm. What is said about access and reality are very different. They learned this the hard way. The end result in terms of access was not good. I appreciate the effort, and Syracuse is culturally welcoming, the fact remains the pdfs could not be read. Interpreter issues were addressed took late. Scholars with a disability who wanted to attend did not. <br />I do not question your expertise but surely a conversation about disability requires the presence of people with a disability. Hence the old slogan nothing about us without us.<br />Last point, I shoot from the hip here at Bad Cripple. The Chronicle of Higher Ed. published a story yesterday I suggest you read. william Peacehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00223601480542461802noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1556371561007953336.post-66067124866802001762014-06-16T16:33:18.759-07:002014-06-16T16:33:18.759-07:00Dear Bill, you make a great many valuable comments...Dear Bill, you make a great many valuable comments and I read these all with great interest. Certainly the conference was not physically accessible, and there were many mistakes made in the lack of planning by the university. This was spot on. You are also massively correct that the main issue here was the lack of an APA officer.<br /><br />However, I think there needs to be some redress made in terms of a couple of facts you were inaccurate about - apologies, I realise this piece was written from gut instinct on the first night, and I appreciate that, but you seem to have taken a scatter gun approach here. Firstly, we were asked to make our PDF papers accessible, and were, in good faith, told how to do so. I followed these instructions, and I am aware that a number of others did too. Perhaps these instructions were incorrect, but we were given this information. Secondly, you said that my paper discussed blindness (particularly Locke, et. al.) without a blind person being in the audience. Actually, my paper was focused on blindness, deafness and learning impairments. I have a hearing impairment, something I inherited from my family, the older members of whom are extremely deaf and would certainly be considered disabled. My father, when I was a teenager and he was still alive, was blind and in a wheelchair. I still have vivid memories of pushing him up hill and over grass at inaccessible college open days in the 1980s, and of having to live in a darkened house because he was photophobic. In the 20 years I have been writing about visual impairment, I have also deliberately worked with and taught students with visual impairment first hand. My PhD supervisor, still a friend and mentor of mine, is completely blind. Everything I have done - and I have DONE - and written about has been to further the education of students with impairments. There was also someone with a strong visual impairment in the audience. Perhaps this comment was based on visible impairments, and sometimes advocates can stereotype too in their anger and haste.<br /><br />I really do appreciate that you were super-pissed after the first night of the conference when you wrote this, and with bloody good reason, but in this blog article you seem to tar everyone with the same brush. Just because we don't look like advocates or look impaired - and I don't consider myself disabled, just impaired, which is a point I made in the debate - doesn't mean I don't understand these lived realities.<br /><br />This is a minor point, though, Bill, and I still really admire you, what you said, and defend your right to say what you said about philosophy (as a subject, not philosophers as individuals) in general. Perhaps disability advocation needs to be more refined, though, and aim before it shoots at everyone from the hip.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17656133871666472612noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1556371561007953336.post-42212004448039260062014-06-10T13:59:51.745-07:002014-06-10T13:59:51.745-07:00Wow, sounds like being cranky is terribly appropri...Wow, sounds like being cranky is terribly appropriate here. Why is any university sponsored conference, let alone one focusing on disability issues, inaccessible and not inclusive? Yeah, I'd be pissed, too. Sounds like it was the SPAWN of Satan conference.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13698445603454859506noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1556371561007953336.post-88328893833102871052014-06-10T12:48:53.081-07:002014-06-10T12:48:53.081-07:00Bill, your presence at the conference was invaluab...Bill, your presence at the conference was invaluable. When you told Dominque that when you read his work you feel like he doesn't want people like you in the world, he really had to take that in. It might not change him around in one go, but it does help and I think it does have an effect. As depressing as it might be for you, and I apologize on behalf of my benighted profession, I do hope you will come to these events more often.<br />Eva KittayEvahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14899537423867377205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1556371561007953336.post-71196578410463893872014-06-09T13:39:37.516-07:002014-06-09T13:39:37.516-07:00I learned a long, long time ago that if you want t...I learned a long, long time ago that if you want to connect with a minority group, you need the people who are in that minority and have lived it to do the connecting. I do not live with a disability but I also know that I do not have that first-hand experience. I don't quite get it and I never will. Shame on those who think they know more.Sara Buscherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07323922471965299451noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1556371561007953336.post-84055936237513258232014-06-08T14:44:02.963-07:002014-06-08T14:44:02.963-07:00I would say "truth teller" fits you just...I would say "truth teller" fits you just as well. It's only because you tell truths that are unpopular with the powers that be. I believe a bitter truth is better than a comfortable lie, but that's just me.tigrlilyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10498609958543007252noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1556371561007953336.post-77520848376402838062014-06-08T11:23:05.492-07:002014-06-08T11:23:05.492-07:00You hit mail on the head. No one gives a shit. Thi...You hit mail on the head. No one gives a shit. This is not an academic game and playing with metaphors. We are talking about real people who are at risk at multiple levels.william Peacehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00223601480542461802noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1556371561007953336.post-26572230451071160922014-06-08T11:19:50.252-07:002014-06-08T11:19:50.252-07:00I am dismayed, but not surprised. Throughout my Ma...I am dismayed, but not surprised. Throughout my Master's degree program (in Cultural Studies), I spoke out about the program's claim that it focused on marginalized populations, but failed to include disability in almost every instance. I was most definitely considered a downer, and accused of being a "one trick pony." As the parent of a child with Down syndrome, it was a harsh lesson in reality. How the hell am I supposed to create a better future for my kid when even the people who call themselves champions of equality don't give a shit about people with disabilities?Amyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08502625442668400560noreply@blogger.com