Disabled people don't want handouts: we want equality

Visibility now — To mark 25 years this month since the Disability Discrimination Act came into effect, in an extract from her book 'Crippled', writer Frances Ryan argues that it's time to stop seeing disabled people as a drain on the public purse and to defend their fundamental rights.

Since its inception in late 1940s post-war Britain, the welfare state has produced some great strides for disabled people. Under the increasing growth of the state, the late 1940s to the mid-1960s marked a fundamental shift from the squalor of the workhouses – in which the destitute disabled were abandoned – to the belief that disabled people’s living standards were increasingly a responsibility of the government.

This also marked progress in cultural understandings of disability, as disabled people – throughout history said to be cursed, insane or simply lazy – began to be seen, at least in part, as members of society. Yet by the 1990s, while race and sex discrimination had long become illegal, disabled people in Britain were still the only group not to have basic rights enshrined in law. There was still no guaranteed access to work, transport or education.

Gains that did occur during this period were not handed down by a benevolent government, but were the result of long-term lobbying and grass-roots campaigners. As I was at school in the summer of 1992, disabled activists with wheelchairs and placards filled the streets and descended en masse to the television headquarters of Telethon ’92 – ITV’s then annual twenty-eight-hour fundraiser.

The protesters were not simply challenging what they saw to be the programme’s damaging depiction of disabled people – pitiable and tragic – but a country that, however well-intentioned, was willing to grant charity handouts to disabled people, but not equality.

Regular protests followed: from wheelchair users kettled by police outside Westminster, to disabled people handcuffing themselves to buses. By the mid-1990s, disabled campaigners had successfully pushed for the Disability Discrimination Act – for the first time in Britain the law provided disabled citizens with access to the workplace, and with it a wage, as well as rights to public transport and schooling.

Twenty-five years later, it would be natural to feel disheartened at the progress. A widespread austerity programme has seen people with disabilities, chronic illness and mental health problems routinely driven into destitution, pushed from the workplace and stripped of the right to live in their own homes.

Meanwhile, the coronavirus pandemic has brought further strain onto disabled people: millions have been shut inside their homes shielding, whilst many have struggled to access food, medicine, work, or social care. The gains that generations of disabled campaigners fought for have been rapidly rolled back, and the promise that the Great British welfare state would always protect disabled people shown to be little more than a fantasy.

What is both bleak and a source of hope is that it is entirely within Britain’s power to fix this. Far from being inevitable, inequality for disabled people is avoidable. The transformation in disability rights over the latter half of the twentieth century came about as a result of concerted efforts to improve the lives of disabled citizens. On the other side of the coin, the increase in hardship for disabled people over the past decade is a direct result of political choices. Britain can stop disabled people going hungry, if we have the will.

The kind of history that seems to dominate our culture is too often centred on the concept of a benevolent ruling class bestowing rights upon marginalised groups. This has been particularly prevalent when it comes to disabled people – a group who have long been viewed as passive, weak, as infants in need of ‘looking after’.

But as my book, Crippled, seeks to show, disabled people are the ones who know their own lives, and it is their voices that should be amplified in a society that so often tries to speak for us. Disabled people, like the working class, have organised throughout the decades to gain our rights and – as these rights are threatened afresh – it is disabled people who are front and centre of the fight back.

Progress is not a straight line. It ebbs and flows; it flourishes and strains. Despite decades of progress, the intricate threads that make up disabled people’s safety net are always vulnerable to those in power who wish to cut them away.

As successive generations, it is up to each of us to remake the case for state support for disabled people as a fundamental right. It is not hyperbole to say that the stakes have rarely been higher than now.

This is an edited extract from Crippled: Austerity and the Demonisation of Disabled People by Frances Ryan, out now on Verso Books and audiobook

In 2022 People’s History Museum, the national museum of democracy, will explore disabled people’s rights and activism as its headline theme.

Follow Frances Ryan on Twitter.

Enjoyed this article? Like Huck on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.


Ad

Latest on Huck

Red shop frontage with "Open Out" branding and appointment-only signage.
Activism

Meet the trans-led hairdressers providing London with gender-affirming trims

Open Out — Since being founded in 2011, the Hoxton salon has become a crucial space the city’s LGBTQ+ community. Hannah Bentley caught up with co-founder Greygory Vass to hear about its growth, breaking down barbering binaries, and the recent Supreme Court ruling.

Written by: Hannah Bentley

Cyclists racing past Palestinian flag, yellow barriers, and spectators.
Sport

Gazan amputees secure Para-Cycling World Championships qualification

Gaza Sunbirds — Alaa al-Dali and Mohamed Asfour earned Palestine’s first-ever top-20 finish at the Para-Cycling World Cup in Belgium over the weekend.

Written by: Isaac Muk

Crowded festival site with tents, stalls and an illuminated red double-decker bus. Groups of people, including children, milling about on the muddy ground.
© Alan Tash Lodge
Music

New documentary revisits the radical history of UK free rave culture

Free Party: A Folk History — Directed by Aaron Trinder, it features first-hand stories from key crews including DiY, Spiral Tribe, Bedlam and Circus Warp, with public streaming available from May 30.

Written by: Isaac Muk

Weathered wooden building with a tall spire, person on horseback in foreground.
Culture

Rahim Fortune’s dreamlike vision of the Black American South

Reflections — In the Texas native’s debut solo show, he weaves familial history and documentary photography to challenge the region’s visual tropes.

Written by: Miss Rosen

A collage depicting a giant flup for mankind, with an image of the Earth surrounded by planets and people in sci-fi costumes.
Culture

Why Katy Perry’s space flight was one giant flop for mankind

Galactic girlbossing — In a widely-panned, 11-minute trip to the edge of the earth’s atmosphere, the ‘Women’s World’ singer joined an all-female space crew in an expensive vanity advert for Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin. Newsletter columnist Emma Garland explains its apocalypse indicating signs.

Written by: Emma Garland

Three orange book covers with the title "Foreign Fruit" against a dark background.
Culture

Katie Goh: “I want people to engage with the politics of oranges”

Foreign Fruit — In her new book, the Edinburgh-based writer traces her personal history through the citrus fruit’s global spread, from a village in China to Californian groves. Angela Hui caught up with her to find out more.

Written by: Katie Goh

Huck is supported by our readers, subscribers and Club Huck members. It is also made possible by sponsorship from:

Signup to our newsletter

Sign up to our newsletter to informed with the cutting edge of sport, music and counterculture, featuring personal takes on the state of media and pop culture from Emma Garland, former Digital Editor of Huck, exclusive interviews, recommendations and more.

Please wait...

Accessibility Settings

Text

Applies the Open Dyslexic font, designed to improve readability for individuals with dyslexia.

Applies a more readable font throughout the website, improving readability.

Underlines links throughout the website, making them easier to distinguish.

Adjusts the font size for improved readability.

Visuals

Reduces animations and disables autoplaying videos across the website, reducing distractions and improving focus.

Reduces the colour saturation throughout the website to create a more soothing visual experience.

Increases the contrast of elements on the website, making text and interface elements easier to distinguish.