The SDS Has a Problem: Will they Respond?

I am not a fan of the SDS (Society for Disability Studies). I should enjoy going to SDS meetings but I do not. I have been to two SDS meetings and did not enjoy either meeting. The meetings completely and utterly fielded to resonate with me. I know people who are actively involved in the SDS and I respect the fact they get much out of their involvement. I am not one of these people. In fat I am very critical of the SDS and two years ago I took the SDS to task on this blog. See: http://badcripple.blogspot.com/2010/05/academic-conferences-who-can-afford-to.html

Two critical essays about the SDS have been published in the Feminist Wire in the last few days. The most recent article by Corbett Joan O'Toole is devastating.  See: http://thefeministwire.com/2013/11/op-ed-cha-ching-economic-barriers-in-disability-studies/ O'Toole's essay is devastating because it is so basic. All you need to know is the basic math:

Conference registration: $230

Hotel room (3 nights at $159 * 17% for tax and lodging fees): $558

Airfare (roundtrip): $325

Transportation from airport to hotel (round trip): $54

Food (hotel restaurant per day * 3 days minus conference meals): $90

Required costs for this conference: $ 1,257

These are conservative numbers, particularly the food costs.  But often that is the only place where I can cut costs. So when I attend a conference, I eat as little as possible outside of meals covered by registration, and I bring food containers from home to save part of each meal to eat later. On the first day I find a local store and purchase drinks and nonperishable food to stretch my money.  Hotels are rarely near grocery stores so I am usually paying for overpriced, highly processed foods.

I do this not because I want to. I do this because I am poor. I am a Disability Studies scholar. And like many other disabled scholars, I am poor. I receive $1,100 a month in government benefits and a pension from when I worked.  Soon my pension ends and I will live on $810 per month.

There is no need to read the rest of O'Toole's essay. The economic reality cannot be ignored. Adaptive sport programs encounter the same problem as the SDS: it is extremely expensive to participate. I would speculate the SDS and a typical adaptive sort center is beyond the budget of 90% of all people with a disability. Both the SDS and adaptive sport programs have the same response to economic reality: scholarships are available. Sorry but no. A scholarship is of no help to most people with a disability whose primary concern is putting food on the table and paying rent. To participate costs money. To participate involves transportation.  When one lives on $810 a month as O'Toole does the SDS or a adaptive sport program is a pipe dream. O'Toole calls this a "dirty little secret". I call it exploitation. The SDS exploits the very people it studies and supposedly advocates for. But there is very little advocating going on at the SDS. Indeed, the only advocating I have seen in my limited exposure is individual career advocacy. This is a nasty mean spirited comment. It is also true.  We are talking about the tacit acceptance of economic gate keeping. O'Toole calls this economic ableism. Ouch! We are talking about class. Only the privileged and elite can afford to attend the SDS. Those with tenure, those who hope to get tenure, and those that want to enter the field participate. The people who do not attend accurately represent the disability norm. Poor, unemployed, socially isolated, economically deprived. In a word, disenfranchised. O'Toole who really nails it when she concluded: 

When economic barriers create a Disability Studies without a majority of publicly identified disabled people, it is an oppressive enigma wrapped in a conundrum hidden beneath a patina of deceit.

It is not often I can say this: I wish I wrote those words. I am sure the SDS leadership is not happy. I am sure they will correctly state we are a professional organization, all such organizations must charge fees and we do more than most to provide scholarships and be inclusive. Hell, I bet an SDS committee is being formed. Meetings will be held. A response will be drafted. Blah, blah, blah, blah... The real problem with the SDS is it has no soul. Forget the famed SDS dance. Forget activism. The SDS is an intellectually isolated silo. The SDS is a social and academic network that is devoid of interest or relevance to the vast majority of people with disability. This is a disgrace. Paul Longmore would be horrified. Ed Roberts would be appalled. Longmore's work went well beyond disabilities studies scholarship. His work was rooted in activism and he railed against the social and economic forces that oppress people with a disability. He was the soul of the disability rights movement. Hey, this is not an original observation. Look at the cover of Longmore's classic Why I Burned My Book. This is John Hockeberry's line. 

John Kelly, a real activist and scholar who I deeply respect, asked me today what can be done. I pessimistically replied nothing. I observed online formats will not work because people are inherently social. We need to see and meet each other--break bread and share a meal.  There must be a solution. Here is what I propose. I suggest we create a nation disability rights day. We can call on each and every independent living center, disabilities studies program, national organizations such as ADAPT, NDY, DREDF, and many more. All people with a disability meet and advocate. Practice various forms of civil disobedience. Be confrontational. Be direct. Support those with no support. Go to a nursing home. Go to a group home. Support those with no support. Do not do this for your career. Do this because it is is the right thing to do. Do this because your life depends upon it.  Even a grim man can dream.