Paul K. Longmore Institute on Disability - Patient No More

Longmore Institute Director's NY Times Op-ed: The Price of 'Disability Denial'

Visitor — Wed, 24 May 2017 19:39:44 +0000

By: Catherine Kudlick

The following piece is cross-posted from the New York Times Op-Eds; see the original post here.

It was 1989 and I was immersed in my first teaching job, a one-year gig at Barnard College, with the possibility of something long-term. During that time, I had become friendly with a senior colleague named Bill. On our many walks along Broadway to grab deli sandwiches, we’d talked about our grad school days at Berkeley, the high rent of tiny apartments in New York and how to get the Barnard women to share our passion for European history in the small classes they’d asked me to teach.

One morning outside his office something felt off. Bill, who would be part of the team deciding whether to hire me, seemed nervous. Then he came out with it: “I’m wondering if you’d be able to guest lecture in my 100-person western civ class.” As I took this in, he added, “It’s part of, um, your interview for getting a permanent job here.”

I always knew my day at the podium would come. In fact, on one of our walks I’d asked Bill for advice about teaching larger classes. I told him about the details of my lifelong vision impairment and of my terror of public speaking, and asked about how I’d deal with calling on students when I couldn’t see them. In smaller classes, I learned quickly where people sat, and the give-and-take of conversation told me who was engaged. But applying this to more than 30 people seemed overwhelming.

I have nystagmus, a condition in which involuntary, jumpy movement of my eye muscles makes it difficult to focus, a chore that constantly challenges my brain as it frantically tries to keep up. As a child, my thick bifocal glasses and lack of confidence made me the brunt of cruel names and pranks, like being surrounded by kids who threw things on the ground and forced me to look for them. Later there were awkward, sometimes hostile encounters with potential landlords, dates and employers who I tried to brush off as a few gross kids who never grew up.

It had been a huge step to “come out” to Bill about the lifelong vision impairment that I thought I could hide. Starting in a new place with my doctorate safely in hand seemed like the perfect time to try on a new identity, one where I could be more upfront with others — and with myself — about what I could and could not see.

I remember the door frame with its chipped paint, Bill’s messy desk, the scuffed linoleum, the fluorescent lights that made us both ghastly as we stood on the threshold. I imagine an old clock ticking in the background. A soft, cracking voice — mine but not mine — finally broke the silence: “Is this something all job candidates have to do?”

“Um, well uh, no. It’s just that there’s, uh, concerns we don’t have about other candidates, about how you’d handle a large class, you know, because of your … well, you know.”

Of course I knew. At the same time, I didn’t want to know.

I paused, sensing that whatever I said next could destroy my chances for this job, and even future ones.

“I won’t do something that nobody else is required to do,” I said at last with a quiet force that surprised me. It was my first awareness of a visceral complicity between my body’s memory and my soul’s need to cry out — a feeling that one day I’d call conviction.

“I’m disappointed,” Bill said, “but of course it’s up to you.”

All at once, my nystagmus was on a rampage, not just in my eyes but throughout my body, from the hair on the back of my neck to my toes digging into the front of my shoes. I’m frozen. I’m tangled. I’m powerful from the force of it, oblivious and achingly hyper-aware. I want to vomit. I want to lash out. I want to run screaming.

Bracing against the door frame, I wondered how much of this was apparent to Bill. I said nothing, even as words formed: This is betrayal. This is wrong. This is discrimination.

It’s a painful revelation. The mind and the body fuse into one ugly knot of humiliation, anger, fear, doubt. You’re at this crossroads: You can suck it up and carry on as before. Or you can fight back.

All this happened the year before the Americans With Disabilities Act was passed. One of the little-recognized side effects of disability denial is that it inhibits the firing of the synapses that enables people to think of themselves as having rights. In other words, I was still many years away from believing that laws like the A.D.A., or any precursors that were in effect, applied to me.

But Bill and I — like most people around us and too many Barnards then and now — had been brainwashed in the same well-meaning society that still fails disabled people. We sat through tear-jerking movies where helpless blind girls groped and stumbled. Our heartstrings were pulled by fund-raisers showing blindness at its worst to raise money for cures that could be many years away. Images like these isolate people with disabilities not just from society but also from one another.

Though I am not fully blind, my vision impairment, and the challenges it presents, has made me particularly attuned to how others perceive blind people. Our words equate blindness with being out of control and clueless — phrases like “love is blind,” “blind rage,” “blind to the possibilities,” to “blindly carry on.” Such ideas slip quietly into our souls. They find their way onto playgrounds and into news stories, and before long they’re floating inside and outside of doctor’s offices, in sports competitions, film studios, policy debates. And in job interviews.

For the decade after Barnard it would be three steps forward, two steps back: a therapist who helped me ask if I’d rather imagine myself as an incompetent sighted person or a competent blind one; finding an exciting research topic in the history of blind people; discovering I’m a real ham when it comes to lecturing — the bigger the crowd the better.

But at my core I remained haunted and hurting. I couldn’t find a healing way to tell the Barnard story: Either every little detail poured out in a frightening rant or I clammed up, wondering if I really wasn’t qualified after all. Even as I researched and learned more about blind people’s history, I did everything I could to avoid being seen as “one of them.” Using a magnifier in public mortified me as much as the white cane I shoved into the back of my closet.

Then one day I met Bryan, a dynamic blind guy on the other coast who was several steps ahead of me on the journey. Each intense phone conversation upended years of denial and self-loathing. A wall I’d unknowingly constructed between me and the world began to crumble as I found strength and beauty in places I’d assumed to be off-limits.

He introduced me to the National Federation of the Blind’s Kernel Books, matter-of-fact stories told by blind people explaining how they did things nobody thought they could do: babysit, barbecue, teach. Each concluded that blindness isn’t the real problem; society’s responses to it is. Reading the first few, I began to sob uncontrollably. I had spent my life avoiding blind people, and in these pages I met scores of them living life with dignity. Now I was open to anything or anyone who would actively challenge my self-imposed limitations by encouraging me to embark on exciting adventures.

If Bill were still alive, I’d strut up to him with my white cane and proudly lead him to “Patient No More: People W ith Disabilities Securing Civil Rights,” the disability history exhibition I spearheaded. I would take him to the yearly Superfest International Disability Film Festival that my organization co-hosts with Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired in San Francisco to experience real camaraderie among disabled people and our allies. At both he’d discover captions and audio descriptions that he’d appreciate as someone entering old age.

Future Bills and Cathys need more fresh ideas like these about disabled people. Once freed from prejudice and shame, they can teach the largest class of all — society — to imagine people with disabilities as innovators, problem-solvers and true agents for change.

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Catherine Kudlick

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Superfest: International Disability Film Festival

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“Save Changes”: Telling Stories of Disability Protest (via Nursing Clio blog)

Visitor — Wed, 05 Apr 2017 18:06:21 +0000

This is a cross-post from the Nursing Clio blog originally posted here.

By: Catherine Kudlick

At first, it was a simple case of “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em,” as I worked with WikiEducation Foundation to teach a methods course in which students created disability history content. But the more I learned, the more it became clear that we were engaging in multiple forms of protest, especially once I began working on my own contribution.

My past warnings to students not to rely on content created by the crowd were perhaps a vestige of anxieties that had led authorities to suppress Wikipedia’s precursor, L’Encyclopédie in the decades leading up to the French Revolution. Its impresario, the Enlightenment thinker Denis Diderot, had already been imprisoned for challenging established knowledge.

Diderot would have been pleased by Wikipedia’s mission, “to bring about a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge,” at the same time that he would recognize its flaws. Most editors are young white men who, consciously or unconsciously, ignore those on the margins. And Wikipedia’s “notability” requirement (“significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject”) inherently favors information from establishment sources. Such rules reinforce existing ideas about which topics merit coverage.

My class faced real challenges. First there’s a daunting set of Wikipedia codes and hierarchies. And I was surprised to discover that even a generation weaned on social media fretted about public feedback from strangers.

Then there was the focus on disability history. A field that began to coalesce around 2000, it seeks to expand thinking about a group that makes up nearly one fifth of the US population today. Unfortunately, a prevailing belief that disability is a static biological condition prevents most from understanding it as something shaped by society and culture much like race, gender, class, and sexual identity. At the beginning of my disability history courses, I tell students that they’re on the cutting edge of history, much like those a generation ago who learned about women’s history and the history of African Americans.

I told this class that they were making history by writing it.

Pointing out that history has a history, I invited them to consider how putting a group in context can combat prejudice and stigma. An entry that tells the story of your people on the world’s seventh most visited website can’t help but catapult you from being an individual struggling alone to being part of something far bigger. With belonging comes a sense of pride, a sense of having something to contribute.

Learning along with my class, I wrote an article on the longest nonviolent occupation of a federal building in US history, the “Section 504 protest” in April 1977. Through an exhibit called “Patient No More: People with Disabilities Securing Civil Rights,” I’d helped bring this little-known disability Stonewall to life. The successful month-long occupation by over one hundred disabled people and their allies would pave the way for the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

HEW employee Bruce Lee posted a sign, reading “504 is law now make it reality,” in his office supporting Section 504 during the protest. (Photograph by HolLynn D’Lil)

Four years before the protests, congressional staffers had slipped anti-discrimination language from the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into a vocational rehabilitation bill that was up for reauthorization. This countered views of “the disabled” as pitiful wards of charity. Rights included making public spaces accessible to people in wheelchairs and mainstream education open to qualified students with disabilities. This “Section 504” applied to nearly all public spaces, including government offices, universities, schools, hospitals, and transportation systems.

Disability activists understood 504 as their bill of rights that still needed one signature from the Secretary of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) in order to be put into effect. Worried about costs, officials from the Nixon, Ford, and the newly-elected Carter administrations had stalled. After four years of trying every legal channel, activists snapped. On April 5, 1977 people with disabilities took to the streets in cities with regional HEW offices. Almost everywhere protests were either cut off or fizzled.

In San Francisco things were different. With little warning, over 100 people streamed into the Federal Building and refused to leave for nearly a month.

504 protesters occupied the HEW offices at 50 United Nations Plaza, making them the headquarters of the “Section 504 Emergency Coalition.” (Photograph by HolLynn D’Lil)

The protests succeeded in part because of the Bay Area’s unique climate. Since the 1960s disabled people had been drawn to the rich mosaic of minorities who challenged the status quo: gay men and lesbians, students, artists, and practitioners of new religions, all that included people with disabilities. Decent weather made it easier to participate in antiwar protests, civil rights demonstrations, and the Free Speech Movement gathering momentum at UC Berkeley. In this electrifying environment disabled individuals came to think of themselves as people with rights, while putting them in touch with potential supporters.

The 504 occupation also succeeded because savvy organizers, including Kitty Cone, Judy Heumann, and others, had spent years cultivating relationships and building coalitions. In addition to galvanizing disabled people themselves, they had educated politicians. Mayor George Moscone helped with portable showers while Congressmen Phil Burton and George Miller had the 4th floor of the federal building declared a temporary “satellite office of congress,” a theatrical stunt that allowed them to hold a public hearing about the protesters’ concerns to garner media attention. City officials allowed hundreds of people to gather each day on Civic Center Plaza below to cheer on the occupiers.

The protest also enjoyed wide support from local community groups. In line with its popular food programs, the Black Panther Party brought in hot meals for all 100+ occupiers, including BPP members Brad Lomax and his attendant Chuck Jackson.

Protesters gathered in front of City Hall in support of the 504 occupiers. (Photograph by HolLynn D’Lil)

And the disabled people inside risked their jobs and even their lives to be there. Amidst office furniture, people from different races, social classes, and with a variety of disabilities and their allies created a makeshift society. Some were seasoned protesters while others had never slept away from home before. Spending so many hours together forged cross-disability coalitions rooted in true interdependence — such as when someone who couldn’t speak could dial a phone so that someone without use of her hands could make a call. Just like in any community, there was bickering and intrigue and romance, but here there was also a sense of purpose and a political awakening.

I teared up as I hit the “save changes” that would make this story public on Wikipedia for the first time, knowing a hard-fought victory was now part of electronic history and of course up for grabs.

But how permanent is it? Even before the November 8 election ushered in an era ever more hostile to minority rights, I sensed something like 504 would now be hard to pull off. Everyone is on guard, literally and figuratively, in a national climate of building walls rather than alliances.

I imagined my students hitting “save changes” buttons of their own. Future activism will likely be about occupying virtual spaces and other tactics we can’t yet imagine. History inspires us and the next generations to take heart that the seemingly most disenfranchised can — in the words of 504’s Kitty Cone — “wage a struggle at the highest levels of power and win.”

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Commander in Health: Why We Can’t Have a Sick President

Visitor — Thu, 15 Sep 2016 22:38:19 +0000

By: Robyn Ollodort

When you imagine a leader, what characteristics, qualifications, and attributes do they have? Is physical fitness or overall wellness one of them, and if so, why?

The current preoccupation with presidential candidate ‘health’ follows Clinton's pause in campaigning after fainting and receiving a diagnosis of pneumonia. In response, the Trump campaign has arranged to apparently prove his health via television interview with Dr. Oz tonight, and his doctor has promised that Trump will be the "healthiest president ever elected." This debate has eclipsed any generative discussion of who our next president should be, instead focusing on measuring and quantifying bodily integrity. Following Clinton’s collapse, the Democratic candidate released her health documents in hopes of saving face, though the ordeal underscores a trend in this presidential election of candidates’ avoiding coverage to keep their health issues relatively secret. Of course, this is not the first time that those vying for the oval office have practiced some level of attempted discretion: see President Eisenhower and the 2016 Candidates ages.

Even our current President has faced scrutiny regarding his well being. This recent scandal reveals that presidential candidacy, and indeed serving as Commander in Chief, is not just about age, but about proving some overall standard of health and fitness to rule the free world. Of course our disabled president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, also faced intense scrutiny and some claimed that he tried to hide it.

Having to prove your ‘health’ status as a qualification for a job is: a) illegal, and b) impertinent. Insisting that the President, or any leader, have their health proven according to some arbitrary, needlessly rigorous standards have been demonstrated unnecessary by FDR’s effective leadership during one of the most trying times in US history, and by many disability rights movements, most notably Section 504. Indeed, this year’s candidates should be considered according to the WHO’s definition: “Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” There were then, and continue to be now, people in leadership positions (yes, even high up ones!) with diverse bodies and relationships to medicine. Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth Special Adviser for International Disability Rights

We need to realize, as Americans who can vote, that our decisions should be based not on people’s bodies and their relationships to them, but on their carefully considered positions and carefully-articulated plans to address our nation’s ailing social body. #cripthevote

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"Patient No More" Traveling Exhibit to Hit the Road for Three More Years!

Visitor — Wed, 27 Jul 2016 20:49:23 +0000

Patient No More has been picked up by Exhibit Envoy!

Photograph by Anthony Tusler

Discover a remarkable, overlooked moment in U.S. history when people with disabilities occupied a government building to demand their rights and won. We are proud to announce that Exhibit Envoy, a non-profit which helps showcase traveling exhibits, has added Patient No More to their line-up, which will help us keep spreading this story far and wide for the next 3+ years! As noted on their website,"[Exhibit Envoy] creates exhibitions with two audiences in mind: you and your community. [Their] exhibitions include art, history, culture, and natural history content."

The Patient No More project includes a traveling exhibit, in addition to the main exhibit, to bring the content featured in the main exhibit to various locations throughout the United States. The traveling exhibit lends geographic accessibility to much of the content of Patient No More and seeks to reach as broad an audience as possible. Whenever possible, we also offer unique programming that is free and open to the public. We Won! We Won! We Won! Previous hosts of Patient No More:

50th Anniversary of the California Regional Centers at the Janet Pomeroy Recreation and Rehabilitation Center.
Cal State University, Monterey Bay
Marin County Office of Education
Notre Dame High School, San Jose
Silicon Valley Independent Living Center
Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco
San Mateo County Office of Education
Cal State University East Bay
San Francisco City Hall
San Francisco State University

Patient No More is presented by the Paul K. Longmore Institute on Disability at San Francisco State University. This project was made possible with support from California Humanities, a non-profit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Visit www.calhum.org. Learn more about the exhibit and the history of the 504 protests at patientnomore.org. To find out how you can help bring the Patient No More Traveling Exhibit to your local library, community center, university/school, or business, click here and book today! Schedule:

October 13, 2016 – October 21, 2016	Santa Rosa Junior College, Santa Rosa
October 26, 2016 – October 28, 2016	Kaiser Permanente Diversity Conference, Los Angeles (Private Conference)

August 26, 2018 – October 21, 2018

Arkansas State Capitol, Little Rock / University of Arkansas, Fayetteville

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Donor Profile: Anthony Tusler

Visitor — Tue, 05 Jul 2016 18:04:58 +0000

This week we sat down to talk to longtime friend of Paul Longmore, Anthony Tusler, at his house in Penngrove, CA. Disabled since the age of five, Tusler is a motorized wheelchair user. Describing Anthony’s contributions to disability rights and advocacy takes some time. In addition to over 20 years as director of disability services at Sonoma State University, he has led important work to draw attention to the higher rates of alcoholism and drug use in the disability community, he has researched and published about technology and access, and he also promotes disability in the arts, through his own photography and studying disability in music.

He first met Paul Longmore back when Paul was a graduate student writing about George Washington. A shared colleague recommended they meet, and Anthony remembers thinking then that Paul would some day be a leader in the disability movement. Shortly after, Anthony arranged to have Paul give a lecture on euthanasia for The California Association for Post-Secondary Education and Disability (CAPED) because he knew Paul had a voice and perspective that needed to get out there. While many of Paul’s friendships were more academic and bonded in disability theory, Anthony recalls that their connection was rooted in a shared love for disability culture. When Paul Longmore almost poisoned himself by taking too much Zinc to fight off a cold, Anthony just laughed to Paul’s relief, both agreeing that such a mistake was standard “crip stuff."

Since Paul passed away and the Longmore Institute reemerged in 2012, Anthony has been a vital supporter, both with his time and as a donor. In 2013, he hosted a concert at his home to benefit the Longmore Institute. He played a number of roles to support the Patient No More exhibit, which featured his photography from outside the building on the first day of the 1977 504 occupation. It’s not an exaggeration to say that the exhibit could not have happened without him. In particular, he convinced photographer and 504 protester HolLynn D’Lil to share her historic collection of photographs, primary sources, and notebooks, previously kept private. If Anthony had not vouched for the Longmore Institute’s integrity and recognized the importance of making this collection public, “Patient No More” might not have had enough materials. Anthony poses before giving a photography lecture at the Patient No More exhibit. Photo courtesy of Anthony's Facebook page.

Anthony disclosed that his first work with the Longmore Institute was less successful than he’d have hoped. In 2012, he gave a talk on disability and music that he felt just didn’t hit the way he wanted it too (he teases that Associate Director Emily Beitiks having her water break and needing to head off to have a baby minutes before the event was partially to blame). But this experience only strengthened his bond to the Longmore Institute. Afterward, Director Catherine Kudlick pushed him on how he could tighten the presentation and offered to help. He said, “This moment exemplified what makes you guys unique. We don’t critique each other’s work enough in the disability community, so it touched me that Cathy was not only willing to speak honestly with me but also offer to help guide it forward. No other organizations are offering this sort of support for the development of disability culture and scholarship. The Longmore Institute is in a unique position, being a part of a university, to do this work that invests in the long-term.”

He urges other people to start volunteering with or donate to the Longmore Institute because “Disability culture is essential to our efforts to improve the lives of people with disabilities. It can’t just be about services.” Anthony’s friendship with Paul Longmore was based on this belief, and he is grateful to see that the Institute’s recent work supports it as well. Anthony has supported our annual Giving Tuesday efforts for the past two years. Photo courtesy of Mr. Tusler's Facebook page.

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Subversive Access: Disability History Goes Public in the United States

Visitor — Tue, 24 May 2016 18:28:11 +0000

Disability History is taking off in Western Europe, as evidenced by the Public Disability History Blog started in January 2016 that has already surpassed 10,000 visitors. In the guest blog shared below, Catherine Kudlick joins the conversation by introducing the “Patient No More” exhibit.

In summer 2015, the Paul K. Longmore Institute on Disability at San Francisco State University mounted an interactive, multi-media exhibit “Patient No More: People with Disabilities Securing Civil Rights". We faced several daunting challenges that ultimately made our installation like no other. In fact, we have been sharing our process with museum professionals and continue to learn as we go. 1977 disability protests in San Francisco. Photographed by Anthony Tusler

First, the story itself: on April 5, 1977, more than 100 Americans with and without disabilities began a twenty-six day occupation of San Francisco’s Federal Building to insist on getting civil rights. Four years earlier, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 made it illegal for any facilities or programs funded by the national government to discriminate against disabled people. One official’s signature stood in the way of the law taking effect. After four years of waiting, a coalition made up people with different disabilities launched protests across the country. San Francisco’s occupation proved the most involved and successful. In fact, thanks to support from local community groups like the Black Panther Party, Glide Memorial Church, the Gay Men’s Butterfly Brigade, as well as local and national politicians, it remains the longest unarmed take-over of a federal building in US history. The occupation itself and subsequent victory gave birth to a national disability rights movement and helped pave the way for passing Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) thirteen years later in 1990.

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Teaching the Sighted about Blindness in a Way that Doesn't Suck (Leave your Blindfolds at Home!)

Visitor — Mon, 11 Apr 2016 21:51:04 +0000

By: Emily Beitiks For years, well-intentioned teachers have used simulation activities to teach sighted people about blindness. You put on a blindfold, stagger around a building for a few minutes, and typically rip the blindfold off at the end with a newfound gratitude that you aren't one of those poor, tragic blind people. Understandably, blind people have criticized this educational "tool" for causing more harm than good, when all it simulates is the first few moments of seeing nothing. Who wouldn't be completely traumatized by being thrown into the world without learning the many alternative ways of doing things?

After taking a tour of the state-of-the-art San Francisco LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired that will open June 10, I am excited to report that new options are coming, (and you can leave the blindfold at home!).

Just teach your students about the design and access features in this new building, and maybe if you’re really lucky, like I was, you too can take a guided tour with project manager Elizabeth Freer (sighted) and consulting architect Chris Downey (blind). This lesson will leave sighted folks with a stronger grasp of how blind people navigate the world and how really smart design to minimize barriers might make doing it even easier in the future.

The building is located at 1155 Market street. LightHouse bought the entire building, but will occupy the top floors 9-11 and rent the other spaces.

Here's what happens when blind people have the clout and the resources to call the shots with an appreciation for beauty and a sense of playfulness. From floor to ceiling, the project team has worked eighteen-hour days to ensure that the building's design incorporates what can only be described as an aesthetic of blind and low vision users. Different textures on the floor distinguish between highly trafficked paths and workspaces. Lights and sounds direct people towards exits and determine what direction they are facing (as 95% of blind or low vision people see light). Acoustic designs throughout provide important cues, from how to operate the audio-visual equipment to what else is going on in the community space. A brief pause on the tour while Chris and Elizabeth test the sound of the newly installed fans in the training kitchen. Another obstacle: safety from fires vs. the need to minimize all background noise.

And it isn't all utilitarian. Wood on the handrails and the edges of tables are satisfying to touch, just as the floor texture was also chosen so that cane tips had a pleasant sound and feel for users getting from one of the plush small offices to one of the many open areas to share coffee and converse.

Together, every detail lets visitors know that they're in the center of a very happening place to be. As blind architect Chris Downey put it for San Francisco magazine, “We wanted to convey the idea that this is an exciting place and promote a sense of possibility as opposed to the idea of fear.”

I won't spoil all the building’s secrets before their big launch, but the whole experience blew me away (and luckily for me, I will get to visit this space often as the Longmore Institute partners with the LightHouse to run Superfest: International Disability Film Festival). After the tour, Longmore Institute Director Catherine Kudlick remarked, “I was near tears at a few points. It really feels like the dawn of a new era for blind folk!” But even better yet, the design team didn’t limit their focus to blindness and considered all forms of access, for example, for Deaf people, wheelchair riders, little people, the needs of families. At the Longmore Institute, we know how challenging this can be from our efforts to maximize access while designing the “Patient No More” exhibit. Competing accommodations can be difficult to negotiate, but the art of striking the right balance is so very worth it when it succeeds, bringing different disability communities together.

So, educators who feel that impulse to teach your sighted students about blindness, look to the SF LightHouse instead! When the building opens, sighted visitors will see people new to blindness training alongside old hands updating their tech and cooking skills. They'll see blind staff people working in nearly every aspect of operations, including Executive Director Bryan Bashin.

As Paul Longmore once said, "Prejudice is a far greater problem to overcome than any impairment; discrimination is a bigger obstacle than any disability." Here's to replacing those traditional simulations of blindness that leave participants feeling sad and dreary with a form of emersion that teaches something joyous and new.

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accessible architecture

accessible design

disability

LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired

Patient No More

Paul K. Longmore

Superfest: International Disability Film Festival

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Last Batch of #PatientNoMore Camera Booth Selfies

Visitor — Wed, 17 Feb 2016 17:57:37 +0000

The Longmore Institute’s “Patient No More” exhibit celebrates the accomplishments that the disability rights movement has achieved, but we are also eager to draw attention to the ongoing social justice work that is still being fought for. We asked attendees to the Patient No More exhibit to write their “I’m #PatientNoMore” statements, and then take a selfie. Here’s our last batch! Click on a photo to see an enlarged version.

We have really enjoyed hearing what makes all of us "Patient No More" and although the exhibit is closed for now, the dialogue continues! Thank you to everyone that participated.

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New Orleans Students Sell Brownies to See "Patient No More"

Visitor — Tue, 16 Feb 2016 00:52:13 +0000

By: The Paul K. Longmore Institute on Disability

Last year, a teacher reached out to the Longmore Institute, saying that she had a group of students, all with learning disabilities, who wanted to see our exhibit "Patient No More" at the Ed Roberts Campus. We hosted many field trips over the exhibit's six-month run, but this call was unique; the teacher was calling us all the way from New Orleans. The students would first have to fundraise in order to make this trip happen, so they launched a GoFundMe campaign called "Berkeley or Bust" and sold brownies to drum up enough funds.

To share the history of the 504 occupation with students who had traveled so far and worked so hard was a wonderful moment for the Longmore Institute. We arranged for 504 participants Maureen Fitzgerald, Corbett O'Toole, and Dennis Billups to come out and share their stories with the students. Watch this 2.5 minute video (audio described and captioned) of the students' day at the Patient No More exhibit:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jymnOKRlC1M&w=560&h=315]

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"I'm #PatientNoMore" Bullhorn Shouts, Installment 3

Visitor — Wed, 16 Dec 2015 19:20:40 +0000

The Longmore Institute’s “Patient No More” exhibit celebrates the accomplishments that the disability rights movement has achieved, but we are also eager to draw attention to the ongoing social justice work that is still being fought for. We ask attendees to the Patient No More exhibit to shout their chants into a bullhorn, recording the audio. Here’s the third batch of chants we’ve received…check back on our blog for more to come!

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRCspMIM1qI]

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