Ain't disablism the same as racism?
9:19am Wednesday, 8th September 2004
Disabled people's negative freedoms are infringed every day. Disability Awareness in Action notes on its 'violations database' that since 1990, 682 disabled people have lost their lives because of disablism in the UK. That is, they have been deliberately killed just because they were a disabled person. Discrimination is not restricted to 'full participation in society'.
Equally, members of the ethnic minority community are still disproportionately represented in the job market - their positive freedoms are also compromised by ignorance and prejudice.
So there are similarities and differences in the scale and manifestation of the prejudices faced by both groups. Just as there are between the discrimination faced by women and ethnic minorities or between gay and disabled people.
What binds these different types of discrimination together is not necessarily the outcomes of prejudice, or the means of tackling exclusion, but the roots of it. As the definition we we came up with DAA and Scope highlights, disablism arises from 'the belief that disabled people are inferior to others', which can be applied equally to sexism, racism or homophobia. What the 'isms' all share and communicate then is a simple message - discrimination, however it manifests itself, is unacceptable where we are all human beings.
Disabled people's negative freedoms are infringed every day. Disability Awareness in Action notes on its 'violations database' that since 1990, 682 disabled people have lost their lives because of disablism in the UK. That is, they have been deliberately killed just because they were a disabled person. Discrimination is not restricted to 'full participation in society'.
Equally, members of the ethnic minority community are still disproportionately represented in the job market - their positive freedoms are also compromised by ignorance and prejudice.
So there are similarities and differences in the scale and manifestation of the prejudices faced by both groups. Just as there are between the discrimination faced by women and ethnic minorities or between gay and disabled people.
What binds these different types of discrimination together is not necessarily the outcomes of prejudice, or the means of tackling exclusion, but the roots of it. As the definition we we came up with DAA and Scope highlights, disablism arises from 'the belief that disabled people are inferior to others', which can be applied equally to sexism, racism or homophobia. What the 'isms' all share and communicate then is a simple message - discrimination, however it manifests itself, is unacceptable where we are all human beings.
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