It’s becoming increasingly obvious that a significant portion of mainstream society is still finding it difficult to understand how marginalisation works, which is the very reason why this ‘marginalisation culture’ continues to persist.
The Mojo Mathers ‘issue’, which isn’t even an issue at all, shows just how uncomfortable New Zealanders can be about certain communities receiving ‘special treatment’. I’ve been involved in some pretty painful debates against people who don’t believe that Maori and Pasifika shouldn’t receive ‘benefits’ such as tertiary scholarships. But it should be a real concern for New Zealand when people start to say that an MP with a hearing impairment shouldn’t spend taxpayer money to fly to Masterton to be interviewed because she needs to lip-read.
When I first heard about this story and the outrage surrounding her action, I first wondered what put people under the assumption that Mathers had a plethora of options as to what would be the most effective way of carrying out this interview. Then I became outraged over the outrage. Granted, the outcry didn’t last very long, but the point is that it shouldn’t have even happened at all.
Having a disability means that one has to approach certain situations differently to an able-bodied person. For example, I cant just get up and go out at a seconds notice; a certain amount of planning has to go into it such as checking for accessibility, organising transport etc. it shouldn’t be that hard to get things done but until conditions improve, its our reality. And in order to get crucial work done, you often have to do or spend extra money, which I would assume was the circumstance that Mathers was in and the primary reason why people with disabilities need a certain amount of financial assistance.
It’s interesting to see how persistent certain mentalities are in this ‘post-modern’ and ‘post-colonial’ society of ours. We say that we want to build an equal society where everyone is given an equal opportunity to perform to their potential and where anyone can be at the decision-making level in this country regardless of physical ability. But if this really and sincerely is the case we desperately need to start listening to all segments of our society, most importantly those segments that have faced a history of exclusion, marginalisation and discrimination – a history that we, as a country are still dealing with the repercussions of.
What would have been an issue with doing the interview via a video link?
Ummm – Gosman, you do understand that Mojo is deaf right?
Cough-cough. How embarrassing for you Gosman.
The willful ignorance about disability that permeates mainstream culture is an additional burden that people with disabilities carry every day. The ludicrous expectation that Mojo should “just read the lips” of an interviewer via video link would be laughable were it not for the insult imbedded in it.
Lip reading does not provide more than an approximation of the communication sent. Speech reading is limited, because many phonemes share the same viseme and are therefore impossible to distinguish using visual information alone. Sounds whose place of articulation is deep inside the mouth or throat are not detectable. It has been estimated that only 30% to 40% of sounds in the English language are distinguishable from sight alone.
The fact that most deaf people have never heard the language they are being asked to ‘read’ makes the expectation to understand utterly unreasonable.
Suggesting that the process be engaged in via the filter of video is plain silly.
Typical of the marginalizing and bullying mentality the seems to reside on the troglodyte right. If you could just use your imagination for millisecond even you might understand that a video link with its less than perfect display would be almost impossible to lip read.
I spent a brief time in the public service in a position that required us to make spending decisions on behalf of the public and the way that myself and others in my position would handle a situation like this was to ask ourselves whether this would be a wise way to spend our own money to achieve the desired outcome. Bearing in mind that she is profoundly deaf and is a lip reader, I would have reluctantly made the decision to allow her the extra funding to travel there personally for political expediency.
However, what does concern me about the Mojo Mathers situation is what was said on National Radio this morning on the political report. The comment was made by the political reporter that Mather’s supporters ‘don’t know what all the fuss is about. The cost to the taxpayer would barely have added up to much over $500, hardly anything to be concerned about.’ I have a small piece of advice to those people, NEVER say that $500 of other people’s money is hardly anything to be concerned about. If they think $500 is inconsequential and the cause is a good one, maybe they should pay for it themselves.
Mathers is an elected MP. It’s her job to travel around the country talking to people about politics. If she required a palanquin to accomplish that, we would have to pay for one.
Personally I didn’t hear any ‘outrage’ except from The Taxpayer’s Union. Sean Plunket discussed it on one of his shows and most people felt she was just doing her job (but I don’t pay much attention to Twitter or Facebook so may have missed something there.)
Sadly, this unfortunate discussion made into an issue, should never have been an issue in the first place.
To the best of my knowledge Mojo Mathers is an MP and any professional services made available to her to assist in her effective administration of her duties should never been seen as ‘special treatment’. Question, would anyone consider any other Member of Parliament seeking the services of a linguist/language interpreter as ‘special treatment’? No. So why then do ‘we’ continue to label those members in our society who are disabled, as persons receiving ‘special benefits/treatment’?
I sit here saddened and quite shocked to read that in today’s age of great advancement and ‘human under-standing’, people can still be so incentive, unreasonable, mindless and selfish in the way in which they treat each other but especially those who are differently able. Here in The Barbados Parliament, the President of our Senate, Her Honour Senator Miss Kerryann F. Ifill, is known for efficiently executing her duties to the Crown and the people of Barbados. And any professional services required by her in administrating those duties, are so provided and never once considered to be ‘special treatment’. I omit to mention, Senator Miss Kerryann Ifill is seeing impaired.
Miss Daud, the foregoing contribution to The Daily Blog was well written, and only goes to show that more people need to give voice to the inadequacies in our present day society, as and when they do occur.
I presume this post is the due response to the moaning by the “New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union” about the “expense” incurred by Mojo Mathers, Green MP, who went to an interview and got some extra assistance.
Yes, this is one factor, and there are many others that play roles in this in everyday life. Social and cultural exclusion are everywhere, they are too often just not talked about enough, and still not sufficiently addressed as social issues.
But while we have so many have their individual personal lack of understanding or outright bias, it does not help, when you have a government going on about people choosing welfare support as a “lifestyle choice”. It does not help when you have MSD and WINZ employ a Principal Health Advisor likening benefit receipt and dependence to “drug dependence”. It does not help to have a mentor of that man, and of the wider medical practitioner profession, who goes on about most people with “common” health issues and disability simply suffering from “illness belief”.
So in some ways we are going backwards, I feel.
Paula Bennett spoke out a challenge in her speech to medical professionals in September 2012, that we should look at disabled athletes, and what they can achieve. It sounds almost as if she was saying, hey, toughen up, and move on with it:
http://www.beehive.govt.nz/speech/speech-medical-professionals
Quote:
“We pride ourselves on this – the Kiwi can do attitude – and because of it, New Zealanders have tallied up a long list of incredible achievements. Many have achieved in spite of everything, by overcoming seemingly insurmountable barriers. We get right behind these Kiwis.
I’m thinking of people like Olympic gold medallist and amputee Sophie Pascoe, and Jonah Lomu an outstanding All Black who starred in test matches and a World Cup despite a debilitating kidney disorder.
Given this can-do attitude, you have to look at our welfare system and ask – does this reflect the New Zealand we live in today? Does it reflect the attitude that Kiwis can do anything? You’d have to say the answer to that is no, and that is simply because the welfare system is out of date.
We have a system which focuses on the condition and not the person. This evening I am going to talk to you about work as the pathway to wellness.”
That may sound good and challenging for some, but the detail is all about what we now know about the “new welfare”. Bennett’s talk is more like the the catch call to get sick and disabled into open employment, and you better prepare for it not all being what it may seem, it is rather about medium to long term cost-cutting.
The ready ideologues are there in the medical field, delivering the bizarre “science”, all paid for by controversial health and disability insurer UNUM, which is a corporation that was convicted in US courts for denying claimants their due insurance payouts, by using questionable assessment methods and experts.
Here is a taste of Mansel Aylward’s illness belief “research” and theory:
http://www.gla.ac.uk/media/media_210440_en.pdf
http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780198530107.do#.UeTFHOV9XmE
And the biopsychosocial model is not without its critics:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/57443035/Niall-McLaren-A-Critical-Review-of-the-Bio-Psycho-Social-Model-1998
http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/matrix/psychiatry_200902/index.php?startid=25
http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=UYv1-4xmgxsC&pg=PA62&lpg=PA62&dq=Epstein+bio+psycho+social&source=bl&ots=-YyYhAKOAM&sig=uqbd28nO2IRa-9FrY3OP3oec0-k&hl=en&sa=X&ei=-eXoUc7JPMKeiQf8-YDwBw&ved=0CDgQ6AEwBDgK#v=onepage&q=Epstein%20bio%20psycho%20social&f=false
http://www.bu.edu/paideia/existenz/volumes/Vol.6-1Ghaemi.html
This is stuff that is of concern, especially for those with mental health disabilities!
More found here:
http://accforum.org/forums/index.php?/topic/15188-medical-and-work-capability-assessments-based-on-the-bps-model-aimed-at-disentiteling-affected-from-welfare-benefits-and-acc-compo/
The Taxpayers Union are a rightwing biased organisation, I hear nothing from them when it comes to National MP junkets including our Prime Minister
Can we put Gosman in the Kermadec Islands and let him communicate via smoke signals? Please.
Comments are closed.