CHICAGO
Disabled pride
New tradition of celebratin, struggle
By Lou Paulsen
Chicago
More than 1,000 people with disabilities,
caregivers, assistants, family, and other supporters marched
and rolled along Chicago's lakefront on July 18 in the first
annual Disability Pride event.
Hundreds of disabled individuals and members of advocacy
groups like Access Living, ADAPT, Progress Center for Inde
pendent Living, National Disabled Students Union and the
American Associ ation of People with Disabilities were joined
by large contingents of workers from service organizations,
including the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago and the
Chicago public schools.
Organizers say this is the first event of its kind since the
1990 Disability Pride event in Boston. Very pleased with the
turnout, they hope that as Disability Pride becomes an annual
tradition and spreads to other cities it will become the kind
of central event for the country's 50 million disabled that the
annual Pride events have become for the lesbian, gay, bi and
trans communities.
The mood of the diverse crowd of all ages, nationalities and
orientations was celebratory; but for the disabled community,
celebration involves struggle. A week ago, Chicago's Democratic
administration "revoked" the permit for the Disability Pride
event because of "construction work." Organizers waged a
successful legal challenge, while making it clear that they
were going to show up--permit or no permit.
Disability rights are a working-class issue. According to
the National Center for Health Statistics, about one person in
10 in the U.S. has a condition that impacts on their major
activities, like school or work. But in this capitalist
society, in which accessibility is a low priority except where
it has been won by the struggle, disability often means
unemployment and poverty. As much as 15 to 20 percent of the
poorest communities are disabled, while having the least access
to adaptive services and technology. Wages for personal
assistants are so low that it is often a case of "the poor
caring for the poor."
A contingent from Service Employees International Union
Local 880 brought together the disabled, family members and
personal assistants. Signs and t-shirts read, "Fighting for a
living wage," "Proud to be cared for by my union homecare
worker," and "Homecare workers and the disabled march together
for rights."
Local 880 has negotiated a contract for the 20,000 homecare
workers paid by the Illinois Department of Rehabilitative
Services that will bring their pay to $9.35 per hour by 2007.
But they still receive no health benefits, and face a long
fight for a living wage against the Democratic state government
and its crisis budgets--which are a product of the bipartisan
federal policy of war.
For more information about the annual event and about
disability issues, visit www.disabledandproud.com.
Reprinted from the July 29, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyrighted
under a Creative
Commons License.
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