Allies 4
♬🎶 Everybody needs good neighbours.
Just a friendly wave each morning,
Helps to make a better day. ♬🎶
Barry Crocker
I’m finding it hard to write about how frightening shared spaces can be for me. This relates to the last blog because if people were introduced to the notion of being an ally at work, more of us would take this understanding onto the street.
I was trying to explain to someone on the street a while ago that I need to park close to home because I cannot walk far. It was her response that felt like a body blow. "Why live here?’ She asked me.
On the face of it, it’s an innocent question. But the assumption beneath it was problematic. As came through later in the conversation, she was asking me why I hadn’t bough a house elsewhere. In ‘disabled people’s land’ I presume. Because, she kept asking why I’d moved into a normal [sic] neighbourhood...
“There isn’t a land for disabled folk!” I wanted to shout. There are no houses with drives, level access, big room, adjustable kitchen counter heights, ground floor bathrooms... at affordable prices, they just are not built!! The idea that there’s a street, or suburb, where ‘you lot’ can live is also reprehensible. Yet it appeared to be an option for this woman.
I have these conversations occasionally, or variations on a theme... unintentional bloops that escape the lips of those unfamiliar, and therefore reliant on ideas that don’t stand up to scrutiny. I can’t help thinking that our neighbourhoods would be safer for disabled people if those so privileged by them were made to think. It must be wonderful to be able to negotiate a full day with having to worry about parking, access, toilets, bad attitude, rejection, challenges... Privilege here is not being on the receiving end of a belief that disabled people belong elsewhere. The idea that we should somehow seek permission in shared spaces. To be held apart in groups, networks and communities, by the benevolence of those kind enough to let us in.
Being a community ally, is making sure space is not only open, but absence is noticed. "You were not there, where were you?"
Had we all received a modicum of disability equality education in our working lives, imagine how much safer our communities would be. Of course making the workplace safe is a priority. But we are born to be human not solely workers surely? Beyond familial relationships there are many connections that are critical to our sense of belonging.
Our neighbours are wonderful, and mutual support, understanding, and cake are in abundance. But, on our street it’s Kevin’s enthusiastic hello that outshines mine on every occasion, a generosity that states I belong in his world!
As some will have noticed, there’s a progression in the last 4 (5) blogs. The sequence matters to me. I’ve moved from a personal, to a friendship, to a professional, to end on a community dialogue with purpose. I wanted to be able to show how our language changes depending on relationships, context, place and space. Not being able to refer to the intimacy within my relationship with my sister, makes it really difficult to point out how boundaries differ in the workplace. As a disabled woman, I look for allies everyday, people able to buffer the ableism and sexism the world sends my way. In public spaces, I need others to know how to articulate the complexities and nuances the culture that surrounds us. Thankfully many do!!
