No freedom in the city

[cosmolinguist]

The most horrifying detail in this story about a wheelchair user not being able to get to the stage to receive her award for disability work is hiding in the caption of the photo.

I am so jaded and cynical when it comes to ableism that I'm not often surprised any more, but I did a whole Mike-Hobbes-style wheezing, hyperventilating laugh when I read the caption under a photo of this white woman using a power wheelchair holds a fancy plaque while rolling her eyes and pointing over her shoulder to some steps up to a stage. (There's a podium behind her that is only suitable for a standing typical-height adult, so in the absence of other microphones she wouldn't have been able to be heard even if she had been able to get to the stage.)

The caption is "Despite a ramp being available, staff presumed Ms Landre didn't want one."

There was nothing else about this in the story! I want to hear how the staff that presumed that are never going to do so again.

Why not always have the ramp out? Why ever "presume that somebody didn't want one"?

The many possible answers to this (it's poor quality, they lied about the existence of the ramp, they assume no one ever wants a ramp because of systemic ableism and it didn't occur to them that this event would be any different...) are all bad.

Comments

[barakta]

I suspect there isn't a ramp (or it's unsafe or non compliant) and the staffmember got bullshitty and babbly when faced with THEIR awks with Anna saying "errr, where's ramp pls?"....

Fair play to Anna for the media handling, it's getting noticed outside of my disability circles that I can see even with less onlineness today (migraine brain).

[lilysea]

I've been using a power wheelchair since 2010, and the number

of "ramp-shaped-objects", that people have presented me with in public spaces with a flourish of accomplishment, that are

a) noncompliant
b) unsafe
c) dangerous
d) in some cases, genuinely life-threatening

is ...!


(Cyclists talk about bike-shaped objects to refer to cheap, unsafe, unrideable bikes. I think we should start talking about ramp-shaped objects...)

[barakta]

Ramp-shaped-objects makes perfect sense. I have a wheelchair-shaped-object in homage to the bike-shaped-objects (my partner is a cyclist). My WSO has a label on it saying "wheelchair shaped object" cos it is a piece of shit, but was the most affordable solution when our house is not suitable for powerchairs.

I think people who don't use ramps for wheelchairs (prams are different!) don't realised how carefully they need to be secured AND how the edges are lethal with caster wheels. We didn't know when we built half-a-ramp for use with above mentioned WSO when I was recovering from surgery. But we have experienced wheelchair using friends we should share photos of our-ramp with and they said "needs an edge!" so we added right-angle-metal...

The problem is people assume any old piece of flat material will do as a ramp. Not recognising the weight demands, edge-safety, that it shouldn't be a fucking channel ramp and so on. They are conned by lack of knowledge and orgs selling unsuitable ramps without considering the range of wheelchair users.

There's a video in the UK of an unsuitable ramp and a wheelchair user faceplanting forwards when the ramp fails. Several powerchair using friends have fallen OFF ramps which were badly set up etc... TERRIFYING! And of course, orgs who provide the ramp, the staff will be really pressuring you to just use it "it'll be fine" "it'll be ok" etc and they just don't understand the physics or the risks!

I remember a friend going to an event and having been promised a ramp for her rollator, gets there and discovered it was a shitting channel-ramp which she couldn't use. Completely nightmare. Not the event's fault, they'd asked for a ramp, venue said they had one. No one realised they'd use channel ramps. Friend now has to say "not channel ramps" every time and specify that it can attach safely and not be too steep.

Reminds me of various "not X or Y or Z" I have to do when asking for captions at an event similarly. I know people will substitute a cheap shittier thing cos they don't know better and they're not taught to learn better.

[conuly]

What. Everybody wants a ramp!

[jesse_the_k]

Wow.

Wow.

[otter]

That caption! WTF?!? Unfortunately, I have seen at least one other person unable to go on stage to receive an award for their disability advocacy. I'm sure there are too many more.

[silveradept]

That caption is so gloriously perfect that it could not have been an intentional selection, because anyone who recognized what that said and meant by being there would also have to weight whether or not they wanted to damn that organization that thoroughly with such a caption.

It seems like it should be easy and obvious that any and all places that have a raised stage or similar should have ramp access to it, but perhaps I am thinking too much about all the people I know who really could use such things, regardless of disability or otherwise.