Behind the Ball in Signal Boosting
Jan. 22nd, 2012 01:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
capri0mniIt's been in the back of my head to signal boost and promote this idea for the last couple of weeks, but, well... I kept putting it off, in part because I wasn't sure what I wanted to say about it, if anything. And now the date is tomorrow, and there's no more room for putting it off.
Dave Hingsburger (and many of his blog readers, Yours Truly included) want to have an "International Day of Mourning and Memory" for those people who have been sent away to live Institutional Lives because their minds and/or their bodies are different. And when they die in these places, they have no family to mourn or remember them* ...
Dave Hingsburger explains his reason for the date in this post: http://davehingsburger.blogspot.com/2012/01/january-23-international-day-of.html and his reasoning is pretty compelling, imnsho.
He has also posted links to a video & song that tells the true story of one such person who was sent away to live in one of the more "progressive" institutions, back in the 1930s. Here: She Never Knew (She Never Knew) [trigger warning for hate speech graffiti]. This song was running through my head yesterday, as I was writing up my post on "The Steadfast Tin Soldier", and I have THOUGHTS about it. But I think there are enough of those to make their own post. So maybe I'll post about it on Tuesday (Tomorrow, I'll post about remembering those who've been locked away, as my means of observing the day).
*In doing Google searchers for images for my Monsters In Town! song, I learned that institutional "homes" in Minnesota wouldn't even put family names on the grave markers on their grounds, because being connected by name to someone so defective would be too shameful for the survivors... So the grave markers would only have the patient's case file number.
Dave Hingsburger (and many of his blog readers, Yours Truly included) want to have an "International Day of Mourning and Memory" for those people who have been sent away to live Institutional Lives because their minds and/or their bodies are different. And when they die in these places, they have no family to mourn or remember them* ...
Dave Hingsburger explains his reason for the date in this post: http://davehingsburger.blogspot.com/2012/01/january-23-international-day-of.html and his reasoning is pretty compelling, imnsho.
He has also posted links to a video & song that tells the true story of one such person who was sent away to live in one of the more "progressive" institutions, back in the 1930s. Here: She Never Knew (She Never Knew) [trigger warning for hate speech graffiti]. This song was running through my head yesterday, as I was writing up my post on "The Steadfast Tin Soldier", and I have THOUGHTS about it. But I think there are enough of those to make their own post. So maybe I'll post about it on Tuesday (Tomorrow, I'll post about remembering those who've been locked away, as my means of observing the day).
*In doing Google searchers for images for my Monsters In Town! song, I learned that institutional "homes" in Minnesota wouldn't even put family names on the grave markers on their grounds, because being connected by name to someone so defective would be too shameful for the survivors... So the grave markers would only have the patient's case file number.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-22 07:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-22 07:54 pm (UTC)In some ways, I think this day may be a good place to start for that.
So much easier to begin with: "But we were told this was better for them! We're sad that it wasn't," rather than pointing out that PWD are the objects of hatred.
It's horrible that we have to pussyfoot around the issue to avoid provoking more violence, but when trying to turn around centuries and millennia of thinking, it's sometimes best to start by pealing away at the edges, like peeling back layers of flaking paint.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-23 06:56 pm (UTC)AAARRGH! 'scuse me while I have a rage blackout.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-23 07:13 pm (UTC)This is why I often focus on the silly and ridiculous. Because if I lived my life actually thinking about this stuff, I'd spend most of my time in blackout mode.
(am writing my memorial post, now)