My Project: The Intellectually Disabled Voting

by silvzback

The right to exercise all basic human rights are consistently diminished or totally denied to those with intellectual disability labels. In this country, federal, provincial and territorial human rights legislation was developed incrementally. The principle that persons with disabilities are entitled to the same rights as the rest of the population began to make its way into our statues and common law in the 1970s and 1980s. However, the full entitlement of persons with intellectual disabilities to exercise thse rights has yet to be achieved. As a family member to multiple individuals with intellectual and mental disabilities, the experience of witnessing rights violations of people with disabilities is all too familiar. With the Presidential election coming up on November 6th, the “universal right” to vote has been something I have become interested in in the context of disability. Providing rights information in a socially contextualized manner is essential, and people with intellectual disabilities who require information in very specific forms case by case to understand what is being said, make this an even more pressing and misunderstood field.

My initial interest in this research topic derives from my live in aunt who has Downs Syndrome. She lived with my grandmother until she died ten years ago. After, she moved in with my aunt for seven years, and the last three years has lived with us.  My grandma never introduced Sarah to voting because she thought that with her level of intelligence it would be as good as vote manipulation. My aunt I dont think cared as much about the morality of it, and saw Sarah as an adult whose situation was effected greatly by those who are in power (funding for programs she attends, social security, special education, etc) and therefore should vote for those who were more in support of disability rights and funding. Sarah immensely enjoyed voting and so though my mom thinks Sarah votes the same way she does, because she hears all of her political information by way of my mother whom she spends the majority of her waking hours with and that this might not be “right”, she doesn’t have the heart or the right to prevent Sarah from continuing to do what she loves, voting.

Sarah is also my access. I will go with her as usual to Special Olympics events and see if I can speak to some of her friends. I can foresee permission posing a problem. All of her friends are not able to sign documents for themselves, but rather have guardians responsible for them. The more intelligent among them who are more likely to vote and give good interviews go to the events alone and therefore accessing their parents will be all but impossible. I am entertaining the idea of interviewing some parents of individuals who dont vote about why they dont take their children to the poles.

My write up will include what effects individual decision making capacity, the human rights of people with intellectual disabilities, and the challenges to the implementation of those rights. I am interested to see what insight my interviews shed on the topic.

Hope or Endurance?

by silvzback

I really liked Studs Terkel’s book “Hope Dies Last.” I found myself wondering how much of the text is his own making (editing and summarizing his interviewee’s oral histories) and how much is the result of asking the right questions. For a class last semester I conducted my first oral history interview without much instruction from a teacher or otherwise. I know I need to work on my interviewing skills and refining my technique, but I wonder whether this text sets an unrealistic standard for the unedited transcript of an in-depth interview. I appreciate that Stud gave voice in this text however edited, to people from all walks of life. This includes a congressman, union organizers, priests, immigrants, students, the homeless and more. Before I began this week’s read, I read the books cover. The Chicago Tribune wrote “If you’re looking for a reason to act and dream again, you’ll find it in the pages of this book.” I’m not sure that’s what this book did for me. It almost made me feel the opposite. I have a strong belief that every person is as worthy as the next, but I think I judge rather harshly, what kind of lives are “better” than others. I am ashamed of this fact, because I think it often results in feelings of pity. Dierdre Merriman’s piece is particularly close to home for me. “I’m an immigrant from Ireland, who is disabled, a recovering alcoholic, and has a mental illness. But I have a dang good attitude.” I grapple with which is better, my feelings of pity or another’s feelings that she is happy with her lot in life. I tend to think my stance is more equality centered, as it is founded on me wanting what I see as positive and fulfilling, for others. When you think another is genuinely hopeful and satisfied in a situation that you consciously know you would never be ok with, I think is belittling, but the opposite might be as well be, as it involves projecting your own feelings onto others. I think Dierdre’s story touched me so much because a lot of my family members are in practically the same situation and so I felt I had an inside perspective. Her parents were alcoholics, she was an alcoholic, she was abused to the point of acquiring a life altering disability, she had a mental illness, she wasn’t the mother that she would have wanted to be, and yet she was now attending college. Not to belittle the exceptionally of this, but her message of “hope” is that she doesn’t judge people and has a new lease on life. I shared a table with a guy at the Free Speech Movement Cafe one afternoon when the place was exceptionally crowded. He didn’t seem to take the hint when I continuously tried to return to my studies and gave short responses to his questions, and proceeded to overshare for the next hour before I finally left, sure he wouldn’t. He said his parents owned one of the large raisin production companies in the central valley. He then proceeded to talk about how he had been severely bullied by migrant workers children in high school. I could see why, but kept that to myself. Instead I asked whether his parents paid minimum wage to their workers. He said “no.” They tell them they dont have positions open and the individuals beg to be hired “for anything!” To him this condoned them hiring undocumented workers. I said “dont you think they deserve a living wage?” His response was that they could support their lifestyle with the money they received. I asked why he didn’t think they would need money to send to their family back home, and whether paying them more would mean they could provide a better life for themselves and their family who immigrated with them? He said that they didn’t seem to want more. This was around the time I decided to leave. This man was definitely racist and a whole lot of other things I wont include in this post, but it represents to me this idea that there is “hope” and happiness in others lives at various levels of existence. I think this concept undermines peoples real hopes and aspirations. I do believe this book represents the human ability and drive to survive and endure despite immeasurable hardship, and in this there is a degree of hope for mankind.

Alameda Point Collaborative

by dasquarebear

Alameda Point Collaborative

The Alameda Point Collaborative provides supportive housing to over 500 formerly homeless residents. Formed in 1999, vacant military units now house veterans, children and families in 200 units.

Alameda Point Quote

by dasquarebear

“Alameda Point will now be the economic engine that drives the whole city of Alameda.”

—

Marie Gilmore, Mayor of Alameda, annoucing transfer of former Alameda Naval Air Station to City of Alameda. After 14 years of negotiations, the city will receive Alameda Point at no costs. Source: Jones, Carolyn, “Navy turns Alameda air statin over to city.” San Francisco Chronicle. 11 September 2011.http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Navy-turns-Alameda-air-station-over-to-city-2298587.php

Ken Hartman

by welt-am-draht

Hi Folks, I am sure everyone is busy with finals- but if you get the chance, I think this might be worth a read. This is from Ken Hartman who I asked to participate in my project. Ken is serving life in Lancaster Prison. 

For more on Ken, here is his website: www.kennethehartman.com

Here are some of the articles he wrote for the Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kenneth-hartman

And, in case you do not get the chance to read it now, I will mention him, and this essay again on the 17th…

Dave

CALIFORNIA, EDUCATION, AND PRISONS IN THE AGE OF AUSTERITY

(for lack of a better title)

by

Kenneth E. Hartman

The expectation of prison is of a kind of post-apocalyptic Lord of the Flies burned-out city ruled by Kurt Russell’s ugly brother, complete with the eye patch and some crudely drawn tattoos. No doubt, generations of films that center on the one percent of prison life that is, in fact, terrifying have planted these images in the collective consciousness. But those of us who have endured the begrudging passage of time know that the core of the punishment, the tip of the state’s lash, is awful boredom.

In California, home of the prison-industrial complex’s pinnacle achievement, the vast Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, at one point the largest prison system in a nation of really big prison systems, time passes slowly, miserly, and dully. The average prisoner is drained of vitality through years of an existential nothingness.

At the higher levels of security, prisoners spend months on lockdowns, are subjected to the brutality of a hardcore minority of extremely violent gang members, and almost never have an opportunity to participate in any kind of meaningful programming that might have helped them recover from the troubles that landed them in prison.

It’s difficult for me to connect to the prison experience of the lower levels, the medium and minimum-security places, because all of my 33 years have been served in maximums. · I know this means my perspective is exceptional – we in the bowels of the system constitute less than a fifth of the total, and we who have been condemned to expire at this level are but three of four percent. Similarly, it’s tough for me to grasp the experience of a prisoner with a date certain, tougher still when that date certain is right around the corner.

Drawing this out further, my life itself is a kind of radical departure from the norm. I married, fathered a child on a conjugal visit, and became a relatively effective prison reform activist. I even wrote and published a well-received memoir. One could reasonably say that I did all of this because of prison. I certainly never would have met my wife, a legal secretary, if I wasn’t doing time, and without her I wouldn’t have fathered my beloved daughter. It’s highly unlikely that I, the son of an enlisted man in the military, white working class, would have become a prison reform activist if I hadn’t gone to, prison. More likely, like my estranged siblings, I’d be a Republican living in a far less colorful community.

Nevertheless, the better, more accurate analysis of my life is that I accomplished what I accomplished in spite of prison.

If I had not gone to prison I might very well have died on the streets of an overdose; I might have been killed by the police or in a drunken brawl by a sidewalk commando of superior skills. It’s possible I could have lost my mind on drugs like several of my homeboys who languish still in mental hospitals. I might have killed myself.

But I also could have aged out of “the life” like most people do, at around my middle twenties, not coincidentally the time in prison that I stopped living like a troglodyte and started to seek out positive growth and forward movement. I could have become a successful citizen. It’s within the realm of possibility that I could have met a different woman, fell in love, married and fathered other children. Maybe I could have written a book about my journey out of North Long Beach down to Newport Beach.

It’s possible that being sentenced to prison rescued me, but it’s hard to justify a slow, grinding death sentence on that speculative basis.

A couple of years, maybe a decade, but not forever. Austerity in here has meant fewer teachers, less programs, and diminished reasons to get out of bed in the morning. Behind the electrified fences, out of sight of the rest of the world, the boredom has been extended and deepened. Rehabilitation, such as it is, those nice programs that put folks through college and provide much needed second and third chances, have only rarely been offered to prisoners of my class, the violent recidivists. Now that funds have dried up the chances for us have shrunk down further.

I am neither better nor worse off than I was four years ago. That’s the crux of the problem with a life without the possibility of parole sentence – I am frozen in amber, the same amber from four years ago, the same amber four years from now. ·

Aftermath of a crisis

by smileselam

Fascinating video that analyzes the Global Crisis from various angles. Definitely check it out whenever you get the chance!

Central Valley Water ‘Crisis’

by analilias

Mapping Oakland

by robert-histeye

We’ve been talking a lot about mapping projects so I figured I should put this up here. I created 4 maps to visualize the breakdown of segregation of (and movement of African Americans into) East Oakland from 1940 to 1970.

Each dot represents 100 people.

by dasquarebear

”’99 Problems‘ is a creative mash-up of public speeches by President Obama to the instrumental of Jay-Z’s song of the same title. The song uses most of the profanity, critiques of magazines, some key phrases and an equivalent to Jay-Z’s dialogue with the racist white cop–but with Mitt Romney instead.”

Source: Daily Regiment

 

Race & Ethnicity maps of the East Bay, 1990-2010.

by dasquarebear

Race & Ethnicity maps of the East Bay, 1990-2010.

Based on the U.S. Censuses of 1990, 2000, and 2010, this map depicts race & ethnicity around the University of California, Berkeley.