Charities: Govt rhetoric on welfare leading to inciting attacks on disabled people..

[Mrs Magpie]

How can the default assumption about people in wheelchairs now be that they are faking it

When my husband was last verbally abused for not really being blind there was a) an assumption that he must be fraudulently claiming benefits whereas he works and b) he clearly was too independent to really be blind. Interestingly since he got a Guide Dog the only attack he's suffered on the street was a woman setting her Staff to attack the Guide dog and finding it hilarious, rather than a direct attack on him.

 

[frogwoman]

But surely if somebody is carrying a cane for being blind or is in some disability aid thing how can people look at that and think "nah they must be faking it" do people actually think people choose to be in wheelchairs by choice? who the fuck would choose to be pushed around in a wheelchair? How can anyone believe this shit?

who the fuck would fake being disabled? Do people actually think this is real??

 

[Mrs Magpie]

But surely if somebody is carrying a cane for being blind or is in some disability aid thing how can people look at that and think "nah they must be faking it"

To be honest, the media view of having a disability (esp. fictional portrayal) is that of being utterly incapable and requiring help 24/7 so seeing someone who is moving about with skill & confidence confounds prejudice and so obviously, they must be fake.

 

[frogwoman]

but it's so obvious, a healthy person would not be pushed around in a wheelchair ffs. i've been in the position where I needed help to go to the toilet etc, thank fuck it was only for a couple of days, but do people honestly think somebody would fake losing the use of their legs say or having to carry a stick just so that they could get some money! i've been in the position where I could not walk and can quite honestly say i would never want to go through that again, let alone fake not being able to walk and having people help me to the toilet despite the fact that I could walk, I found it so humiliating and disgusting. How can people be so thick? I do not fucking understand unless they are just cunts and are using the scrounger/faking it thing as an excuse.

 

[frogwoman]

Do old people fake having Parkinsons or whatever? I mean jesus! that's the level of stupidity we're looking at here, I cannot believe how anyone could think this is real. I know you get some stupid people in the world but fucking hell!

Btw Im not doubting what you're saying I just find it so hard to get my head around anyone being so stupid.

 

[treelover]

But surely if somebody is carrying a cane for being blind or is in some disability aid thing how can people look at that and think "nah they must be faking it" do people actually think people choose to be in wheelchairs by choice? who the fuck would choose to be pushed around in a wheelchair? How can anyone believe this shit?

who the fuck would fake being disabled? Do people actually think this is real??

Little Britain may provide some of the answer..

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

'Welfare to Work policy 'casts the disabled as cheats'

Flagship initiative threatens safety of the disabled by suggesting that they are scroungers, say charities

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/jul/24/welfare-policy-incites-hatred-disabled.



The Observer is reporting that a report for an alliance of over 50 charities has claimed that the constant drip of leaks, smears, and misinformation by the Govt, Chris Grayling(actually personally named and blamed in the report) and then the natioanl media is leading to verbal and sometimes physical attacks on disabled people.

You gotta be pretty fucked up to launch physical attacks on disabled people, out of the blue.

 

[Frances Lengel]

Little Britain may provide some of the answer..

Fuckin hated that programme, me. Never mind attacking disabled people, Little Britain made me want to attack fat, testosterone- defficient baldies.

 

[Frances Lengel]

..

 

[Mrs Magpie]

Little Britain may provide some of the answer..

It was happening long, long before Little Britain.

 

[frogwoman]

yeah, I've been diagnosed with various mental health problems as well. When applying to jobs I always put that there's nothing wrong with me even though there is.

 

[ViolentPanda]

What i dont understand is why people would want to attack somebody in a wheelchair. I mean what the fuck? Really? I suppose some people are just cunts and bullies but even so. How can the default assumption about people in wheelchairs now be that they are faking it or has there always been that prejudice and they are just findin an extra "reason" for it?

Some people prefer scapegoats whom they believe can't fight back.

Has there always been a proportion of disability hate crime or has this got drastically worse in the last few years?

It's always happened, but the scale has changed. It's much more prevalent now that it was 10 or even 5 years ago.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I just can't understand why though I know kids are cruel to one another when at school and I was bullied at school at times because of behaving "weirdly" but for a grown adult to physically attack somebody in a wheelchair or who is blind? What the fuck? I mean seriously? I don't understand it. I know that a lot of racism etc happens because people feel "threatened" but what is threatening about somebody in a wheelchair?

People have had at least 5 years of fairly overt indoctrination via the broadcast and print media, telling them that claimants are frauds and scroungers, and people with disabilities are the worst of the worst, pretending to be ill to get extra money.
No amount of reality can erase that messge from some of the minds it's been placed in, so people with disabilities are going to bear the brunt of such physical attacks on claimants for years to come.

I'd advise anyone who uses a walking stick to weight the bottom end, and practice swinging it through an arc at knee level.

 

[frogwoman]

Some people prefer scapegoats whom they believe can't fight back.



It's always happened, but the scale has changed. It's much more prevalent now that it was 10 or even 5 years ago.

It's the whole mindset of somebody looking at person in a wheelchair and thinking that they are faking it, not only is it abhorrent but to me it's completely incomprehensible , I mean what the fuck? Who looks at somebody in a wheelchair and thinks that? What's next, looking at a car-crash victim and thinking that they faked it in order to skive off work? I cannot get my head around this type of "thinking" at all.

nobody can actually believe this surely? it's more likely that they're just looking for any old excuse to be a cunt?

 

[frogwoman]

People have had at least 5 years of fairly overt indoctrination via the broadcast and print media, telling them that claimants are frauds and scroungers, and people with disabilities are the worst of the worst, pretending to be ill to get extra money.
No amount of reality can erase that messge from some of the minds it's been placed in, so people with disabilities are going to bear the brunt of such physical attacks on claimants for years to come.

I'd advise anyone who uses a walking stick to weight the bottom end, and practice swinging it through an arc at knee level.

would a grown adult really attack somebody in a wheelchair because of what it said in a newspaper though? are they just bullies/sadists looking for a target?

 

[ViolentPanda]

But surely if somebody is carrying a cane for being blind or is in some disability aid thing how can people look at that and think "nah they must be faking it" do people actually think people choose to be in wheelchairs by choice? who the fuck would choose to be pushed around in a wheelchair? How can anyone believe this shit?

who the fuck would fake being disabled? Do people actually think this is real??

They do.

My paternal grandad died in '94, at the age of 82. from the age of 55-onward he was blind, so he learned to get around places he knew by learning the combinations of distance and directions to get from one place to another. Being able to do so competently and only carrying his cane in places he wasn't used to meant that he'd occasionally get people saying "you can't be blind", at which point he'd take his shades off and peel back his eyelids showing empty sockets (he didn't get on with glass eyes, they made his sockets itch, apparently! ). Great trick though, because it would totally gross out the no-mark who'd questioned his blindness.

 

[dennisr]

yeah, I've been diagnosed with various mental health problems as well. When applying to jobs I always put that there's nothing wrong with me even though there is.

mental health issues are the hardest ones for people to understand, imho - folk just don't get it - "pull yourself to together", "stop being so selfish", "other folk have real problems". I've seen close up how hard it can be for (ex) partner trying to move on from / deal with ongoing serious depression problems. I sometimes, to my shame, found it hard to put up with myself.

 

[Mrs Magpie]

he didn't get on with glass eyes

Neither do I! When clearing my M-I-L's place after she died I found a beautiful little box amongst her petticoats in a chest of drawers...imagining a little brooch perhaps, I opened it...her late husband's glass eye...bit of a shock, that.

 

[ViolentPanda]

would a grown adult really attack somebody in a wheelchair because of what it said in a newspaper though? are they just bullies/sadists looking for a target?

It's not just "what it said in a newspaper" though, is it? It's near-relentless, this barrage of disablism in the last 5 years or so. It's in papers, it's the subject of radio phone-ins and TV docos, and it's constantly reinforced by one-sided shite like "Saints or Sinners", where the coverage is deliberately skewed so that more benefit cheats than "saints" are shown in each episode.
You've also got issues like the coverage about Remploy, where the emphasis is continually made about subsidy while missing the point that Remploy has been and could be self-sustaining if the management hadn't redefined the capabilities of the workforce downward and let decent contracts slip in order to facilitate a run-down of the Remploy operation.

 

[frogwoman]

Yeah. You could be right, sorry. It's just that I gave the human race a bit more credit than that. I'm not doubting any of what you're saying. I just find it completely incomprehensible why anyone would choose to behave in that way.

 

[Mrs Magpie]

...a further report on the rise of disability hate crime...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19589602

 

[ViolentPanda]

but it's so obvious, a healthy person would not be pushed around in a wheelchair ffs. i've been in the position where I needed help to go to the toilet etc, thank fuck it was only for a couple of days, but do people honestly think somebody would fake losing the use of their legs say or having to carry a stick just so that they could get some money! i've been in the position where I could not walk and can quite honestly say i would never want to go through that again, let alone fake not being able to walk and having people help me to the toilet despite the fact that I could walk, I found it so humiliating and disgusting. How can people be so thick? I do not fucking understand unless they are just cunts and are using the scrounger/faking it thing as an excuse.

Using a wheelchair or a stick/sticks/crutches has an impact on your health anyway, so anyone supposedly "faking" in the medium to long term is merely buying themselves joint problems down the line, as well as connective tissue and muscle problems almost straight away.

 

[Blagsta]

I just can't understand why though I know kids are cruel to one another when at school and I was bullied at school at times because of behaving "weirdly" but for a grown adult to physically attack somebody in a wheelchair or who is blind? What the fuck? I mean seriously? I don't understand it. I know that a lot of racism etc happens because people feel "threatened" but what is threatening about somebody in a wheelchair?

It reminds people of their own vulnerabilities.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Little Britain may provide some of the answer..

Little Britian is shit and unfunny, but it didn't create a problem, it just picked up on a perception and ran with it.
Wouldn't expect anything different from something written by a couple of quintessentially middle-class tossers.

 

[ViolentPanda]

would a grown adult really attack somebody in a wheelchair because of what it said in a newspaper though? are they just bullies/sadists looking for a target?

They do it because a politically-motivated narrative ("disabled people are scroungers") has been allowed to be disseminated long enough and intensely enough that the narrative has become naturalised (i.e. taken up as "commonsense") by some people, and not just the archetypal "ignorant thickoes" that the media like to attribute such actions to, but by people who should know much better.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Neither do I! When clearing my M-I-L's place after she died I found a beautiful little box amongst her petticoats in a chest of drawers...imagining a little brooch perhaps, I opened it...her late husband's glass eye...bit of a shock, that.

They're quite beautiful, in a weird way, although I can see as how having a disembodied orb staring up at you from a box could be disconcerting.

 

[_angel_]

It's not just "what it said in a newspaper" though, is it? It's near-relentless, this barrage of disablism in the last 5 years or so. It's in papers, it's the subject of radio phone-ins and TV docos, and it's constantly reinforced by one-sided shite like "Saints or Sinners", where the coverage is deliberately skewed so that more benefit cheats than "saints" are shown in each episode.
You've also got issues like the coverage about Remploy, where the emphasis is continually made about subsidy while missing the point that Remploy has been and could be self-sustaining if the management hadn't redefined the capabilities of the workforce downward and let decent contracts slip in order to facilitate a run-down of the Remploy operation.

The "lefty" BBC who probably genuinely think they are fairminded because they feature one or two "genuine" claimants.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Yeah. You could be right, sorry. It's just that I gave the human race a bit more credit than that. I'm not doubting any of what you're saying. I just find it completely incomprehensible why anyone would choose to behave in that way.

Because not everyone is either as open-minded or as able to think critically as you are, unfortunately shit like this will happen.

 

[ViolentPanda]

The "lefty" BBC who probably genuinely think they are fairminded because they feature one or two "genuine" claimants.

Well quite. They sell themseles as neutral while retailing government and establishment propaganda.

 

[frogwoman]

So are these people the type of people who never grow out of calling people spastics in the playground or whatever or have they been persuaded ideologically that this is a good idea?