Wednesday 10 April 2013

Always in the top ten - disability discrimination, state sponsored and coming in under your radar


'In ancient Greece a cripple or beggar or criminal (the pharmakos) was cast out of the community, either in response to a natural disaster (such as a plague, famine or an invasion) or in response to a calendrical crisis (such as the end of the year).' [wikipedia]

Dibs is on disabled people.............always top of the list apparently, and still coming in high, and always in the top 10!


Disability sanitised

We have never left the shores of ignorance behind,
merely built new piers and breakwaters of attitudes
to hold back the tide of internal change.

Superstitions re-sown
re-ironed labels
re-attached.

Through generations
secrecy re-engaged,
society's invisible balm.

Charitable attitudes and state justified attacks
now tuned to frameworks of benevolent policy and ramped access.
All crumble behind the real walls of gate keepers

paid to close the doors,
paid to measure the length
of one's subservience to another's power

For us to listen to their handed down justifications;
to limit who we are,
who we can become,

to risk our lives to their callous hands, made,
it would seem, from empty promises
and condescending eyes,

conscience paid-off
the tab cleared,
spun on a purpose far from public sight,

set on courses not even you know of,
rather not seen at all,
or perceived, a vision hidden,

seemingly etched into
the fabric of fear, veil fixed,
nailed to your closed

form filling
box ticked
mind.