504ever
Thursday, March 26 2009
One of the best things about blogging is the people that interact with me here and elsewhere in the blogosphere, and what I learn from them. For example, Joe Wright commented on my post about disease organizations, and points to a response on his own blog. You should read his post – in particular, towards the end where he talks about the 504 sit-ins in 1977. This is the first I had heard of it, but it’s important history to anyone who is disabled or chronically ill. The eventual result of these demonstrations was the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the more recent the ADA Restoration Act which includes those with serious illness under the protections of the original Act. If you have a few minutes, listen to the NPR report on the 25th anniversary of the sit-ins.
In the second part of the report, Paul Longmore makes the point that prior to the sit-in, disabled people understood their disabilities primarily in medical terms; the obstacles they faced were assumed to be intrinsic to the disability. The sit-in helped people appreciate the extent to which the obstacles they faced were in fact the result of other people’s decisions and actions, and that disabled people could work together to remove those obstacles.
I got into blogging in part because of a similar realization: the biggest limitations in my life are not the clinical features of my disease, but the actions and decisions of others vis that disease. So where other patient bloggers talk about their symptoms, meds, diet, etc, I spend much more time talking about health care reform, patient empowerment, and so on. Maybe that costs me readers, but I really do believe that chronically ill people face subtle but pervasive discrimination in American society – and that it won’t change until more people know about it. The ADA Restoration Act was a big step in the right direction, but we’re still some ways from a society in which sick people can participate fully and freely. It’s inspiring to see the previous generation taking on a very similar fight – and winning.
