My ruby Blind Day!

My Ruby Blind Day

The Monday before last, 60 years ago, the queen ascended the throne; 200 years ago last week, Charles dickens was born. The nation (according to Radio 4 at least) is taking any opportunity to celebrate any anniversary we can, however significant or insignificant!! Well, inspired by such ecstasies, I’ve decided to celebrate the ruby anniversary of going blind! Hurrah! Tiddley-pom, Tarrum-tarrum! Ping!
So last Wednesday was my Ruby Blind day! Yes, 40 years ago last week, I went blind. 40 years ago on the 9th February 1972, the operation set to “save” my sight, failed. I stepped into a world that would, within 18 months fade to an opaque mistiness. Back then, immersed in the negativity of the age, I called this world “the grey bumbling world of the blind”. But doesn’t the world regard such events as tragic? What, and in one so young – they gasp. Not only was I only sixteen, but considered to be a promising painter, to boot. Positively heart-tugging, wouldn’t you say?

Ever since I REALISED that some people in the world couldn’t see, I’ve known that one of them one day might be me. Even before I understood this, other children had already started to treat me differently, for I was severely myopic. “
Oi blindy” they would yell as I sought to find the safe path between them and their nastily threatening bouncy balls. Not only did I look different but I was lousy at most games.
For all those reasons and more, I was mocked, ostracised and sometimes bullied by other children. I had no language to explain what was different about me. All I knew was that I was different, and being different meant feeling inferior in some way.
Ok, so going blind wasn’t actually much fun. Since the summer before, I’d been putting up with various invasive and sometimes painful interventions, when I first became aware that the vision in my left eye had iridised into refracted crunchy shards of diffused light, of use neither to man nor beast. Each examination under general anaesthetic made me sick as a pig and more than that, loitering for hours with nothing to do in gloomy corridors other than sit with my eyes tight shut against the searing pain of the dilating eye drops was so boring, even if it did mean I got the day off school! Until the rebellion of the retina of my left eye precipitated a chain of medical interventions, during the previous summer, I had struggled to keep up at school. I had no way to articulate why I couldn’t see the same way others could and without being able to explain this, my needs were never considered. As soon as someone gave me a label (even though this was to shift and change as often as my ability to see the objects around me), my (till then ignored) need to move closer, to have things written bigger, to be given more time, were finally met. I was given permission to be visually impaired, even if they couldn’t understand just how little sight I ACTUALLY HAD left. As a result, my performance at school rapidly improved and within six months the prospect of collecting reasonable grades at ‘O’ level was for the first time in my academic career, looking possible.
My class mates soon got used to me wandering up and peering closely at things. I was able to explain my seeming rudeness as just not being able to see what was going on. Now that I had a name for it, I found new confidence to engage more with others instead of hiding my impairment behind a mask of aloof and lonely independence. At school, the other girls rallied round and were competently supportive. If they felt anything about what was happening to me, to my immense relief, no one mentioned it.
So when I finally prized my poor swollen eyelid open on that morning in February 1972 after the operation, what I saw was a vividly green sky, a frothy white candyfloss blob (which was a tree of some kind in blossom) Framed by a gently oscillating and muzzy window-frame. Darkness hadn’t so much descended upon me, rather the world had melted into indistinct patches of colour and shade. Everything was now tinted with yellow, its filter marooning reds, gilding whites and turning blues to green.
In the next 18 months, the world would turn from misty shapes aping reality into an obstinately black edge series of patches of dull coloured amorphous shapes, shot through with beadlets of shimmering light bearing no resemblance to what was in front of me. Darkness never descended totally. For some years to come, I was to be bothered by this strange visual tinnitus until I at length forgot to look anymore.

I went back to school and sat my mocks. As February turned into March, I watched the world around me change from the monochrome of hostile winter to the brilliance of benign spring. My painter’s eye feasted upon the shape of bare branches, dark against the vivid green sky as they frothed into creamy blossom and frilled into leaf. I watched the sun streaming low between the houses and splashing across the pavements. I stepped into the sunlight and it dazzled me , turning the world gold and black, immobilising me in its glare. If I had any consciousness that this would be the last Spring I ever saw, I never dwelled on it

On Easter Monday, I woke up to see that the poster of Bop Dylan had melted into a shifting patchwork of blacks, whites and greys. Within a few hours I had exchanged my bed for a hospital one. The pressure in my eye was out of control, and its very structure had buckled against the onslaught of haemorrhaging fluids. It hurt, but then in those days it always hurt. For five weeks, I lay flat on my back and fretted. My exams were but a few weeks away, the green spring was edging into a blindingly bright summer; I had lessons to attend, subjects to study AND PARTIES TO GO TO. Talking over my head, the doctors recommended I be registered as “blind”. Blind. That short sharp slap of a blunt and final word, flat almost, left me breathless. It sent shivers down my spine. I felt somehow exposed, pinned helplessly under a spotlight for all to see. The silent subject of my nightmares, the place of panic that I fell into when I woke in the night and couldn’t see a light, had arrived, although it wasn’t actually dark. I went back to school to sit my ‘O’ levels. Toting my bright,shiny,new long white cane, smartly dressed in my neat school uniform, I was a shocking sight. This was not meant to have happened and momentarily for everyone around me as well as for me, the world had turned upside-down. After all those years of living with a hidden visual impairment, I was suddenly the centre of attention. Utterly visible now, I could do nothing without someone having something to say about it. I had got used to being invisible. It was shocking to no longer be ignored. Before blindness descended, I had been afraid to look at people in case they saw that my eyes were different, I would put my head down and avoid eye contact. If people thought me rude so be it, rather that, than they discover I was different. Now, there was no choice and there was nowhere to hide either. IN the midst of my blindness, I had become over-visible.

40 years ago, there was no protection against discrimination. Disabled people were the problem, not society, the environment or anything else. My future prospects were immediately narrowed. Time and again I would be reminded that it was my fault if something was less easy for me to do because i was blind. Most insidiously, I wasn’t to expect to live anything other than an ordinary but restricted life.
I lasted one term in the sixth form at mainstream school before I was removed to Chorleywood College, a special if somewhat expensively exclusive school for blind girls. My blind survival skills were ruthlessly and effectively hot-housed over the next two years, so was my bolshie spirit – though that was perhaps an unintended consequence of the experience! . I was shocked to realise that even for my academically gifted and capable classmates , the future offered narrow prospects, the best of which was to find a sighted husband. Well as you can imagine, I wasn’t satisfied with that!
An insidious bi-product of confinement to special school was to determine me never to have anything ever again to do with disabled people, so eagerly did I want to escape the restrictions I felt being put on my dreams by association with them. During that time, isolated if surrounded by non-disabled friends, despite shining as a blind person in a sighted world, quietly I blamed myself for every piece of discrimination and exclusion that came my way. Only when I was finally able to share these experiences with other disabled people, did I learn that it wasn’t me at fault but society. The day I discovered this, I let go at last of the shame of being a blind person and began to celebrate this part of me as something positive.

Life’s path is strewn with obstacles, whoever you are. For a blind person there are many hazards. The pain of walking into a lamppost pales into insignificance compared with the pain of rejection because of other people’s narrow view of my capabilities as a blind person. Bruises mend, dents to self-esteem are harder to heal, but they are not incurable.
For 40 years I walked a path as a blind person, strewn with obstacles. I’ve climbed quite a lot of them. One or two have defeated me. I dreamed back then of going to art school and thought this lost to me. I went to art school – in fact I went to two!
Sometimes kettled by other people’s limiting beliefs; I have become formidably articulate in describing what is wrong and what needs to change. Belligerently persistent, if something gets in the way, I move heaven and earth to shift it. If it’s immovable, I find another way round. My experience of living as a blind person in a sighted world has taught me these vital skills.
Would I be quite so belligerent and tenacious had I not gone blind? I like to think that my experience of visual impairment has positively shaped the way I think and who I am. However, I also have a determinedly independent, resourceful and energetic frail 85 year old mother, and so resistance might also be in the genes.
Confined by other people’s discrimination, I fight back against restrictions. Ubiquitously notorious as my friend Polly describes me; I hope I stand as a positive role model for other disabled people. So I celebrate my ruby blind day; I look back to the journey taken with not a little pride. Over the last 40 years, I’ve sat down in front of parliament demanding discrimination legislation that has changed disabled people’s lives beyond recognition. I’ve worked from within local government to make them support disabled people to live independently, I’ve chained myself to buses so that disabled people could have freedom of movement, I’ve argued with police and law makers to get them to recognise the existence of disability hate crimes and make them do something about them. But what kind of world will we be living in when I celebrate my Golden or even my diamond blind day? Will we still have a welfare state or national health service that adequately supports those who need it? Will we continue to have (even though it is somewhat limited) protection from discrimination? Will my disabled comrades and I be still at large, fighting for our rights, changing the way the world is so that it is more inclusive of all people, or will we have been locked away in institutions because all support for independent living has been withdrawn? Well if I’ve got anything to do with it, we’ll be rising up, fuelled by our pride in who we are as disabled people.
Kirsten Hearn (14th February 2012)

End of an era?

End of an era?
The last ever meeting of the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA) was held this morning. I grilled the commissioner over Stephen Lawrence, independent community advice, the importance of a representative workforce and DV. As an Independent Member of the Metropolitan Police Authority, for 9 years I’ve been tweaking the tail of the police, leaning across and prodding them into action. I know things changed as a result of my presence and efforts. I know that on the whole my community and friends approved of what I was trying to do, even if they thought I was barking, and possibly wasting my time. Sometimes, I suspected I was, too.
The Con-Dem government is abolishing police authorities (bodies set to scrutinize police forces and consisting of politicians and independent members). Most will go in November when they’ve elected Police and Crime Commissioners. London has gone early because the Tories think the Mayor of London can fulfill that role.
Elected Police and crime Commissioners cannot do the level of holding to account that Police Authorities did. A lot of the work of the MPA was done by Independent members, Greater London Authority (GLA) members not having time because of all their other duties. In the first 8 years of its existence, it was Independent members who drove reviews and scrutinies into key important issues such as workforce Equality, Stop and Search and, mental health. Independent members drove forward the work of the domestic Violence and hate crime multi-agency fora. It was independent members who engaged in the detailed investigations of practices that led to key strategic organisation-wide change.
The current government’s mind set is for influence rather than regulation. Influencing is fine if all concerned are equal. It’s what “old boys’ network’s” do; it’s what the most articulate (probably middle class and white) communities find easy to do. Who will advocate for those at the margins, disenfranchised and without a voice? We have equality laws because it is the only way to make sure of some semblance of fairness – limited though law often is and notwithstanding all the usual lack of access to justice lots of people experience.
So I lose a position early that I enjoyed and am good at. I also lose a sizable chunk of income. This is not the climate to be a professional advisor in. It’s not the time to be a consultant, trainer and coach. It’s also the middle of the deepest recession we’ve had in many, many years. At a time when my natural clients (public bodies, not-for-profit sector etc) is being cut left right and centre, the future looks a bit grim, money and influence wise.
Bugger!
Kirsten Hearn (12th Jan, 2012)

Invisible women

Invisible women
“Gerard McDermott, Gary O’Donnahue, David Blunket, Ryan Kelly, and Peter White … Can you name any famous blind women in arts, politics or the media?” I tweet. To impatient to wait for an answer, I ask Mr Google. Out of the more than 100 visually impaired people whose names come up, (see links at the end of this article) only 15 are women. Of that, only 3 (singer and Operatunity Winner Denise Leigh, Adrian Mole author Sue Townsend, and folk diva Frankie Armstrong are from the UK. In response to my tweet, Cheryl Gabriel, the producer of BBC Radio 4′s in touch (also visually impaired and pretty influential, I’d say) ads, journalist Sue Arnold.
Is that all, I wonder. I’m sure there are more. Maybe my net search skills aren’t up to much. Maybe I’m far too impatient to painstakingly interrogate page after page of the net, trying to winkle out that illusive female talent. But maybe there is another issue here? As we break down disability barriers, does our sledgehammer have to hit harder to get visually impaired women through that glass ceiling?
Well does it matter, I ask myself? Why not glory in the success of our brothers in struggle. Irrespective of what I think of David Blunket’s politics, he has been a most handy role model to cite. I have even been known to say “If David Blunket can do it, then so can I!”, or more often, “if the Home Office can make that accessible for David Blunket, then you can make that accessible for me!” This latter use of David’s role has been extremely handy when arguing for access to information so I can make key decisions about major policing, transport or equality matters as a non-executive Member of various bodies.
As a candidate in the labour List for the next Greater London assembly elections, I’ve got a special interest in how David’s needs are or are not met. The fact that there has been a totally blind MP has definitely been encouragement for my political ambitions.
Gary O’donnahue, the Beeb’s Chief Political Correspondent has beaten back discrimination to achieve a mainstream high profile job in front of the camera and microphone. I can’t help but feel a certain glow of satisfaction hearing Ryan Kelly (Jazza in The Archers) and Gerard McDermott (regularly playing all kinds of roles in radio drama) knowing they are both visually impaired actors playing sighted roles.
YES BUT, YES BUT, YES BUT … WHERE ARE THE WOMEN?
Frankie Armstrong is a shining light. Well- respected for many years on the folk scene, wonderful singer Frankie has championed all kinds of causes including disability. She and Denise Leigh (opera singer) pretty much stand alone in the music business as high profile visually impaired women. On the popular music front, I can’t think of a single visually impaired woman with the kind of profile Stevie Wonder has, or Ray Charles, Jose Feliciano or a plethora of blind bluesmen. Well I know that disability in any form hardly makes a showing in the pop world at all, so I guess it is a huge mountain to climb. And anyway, what would the image makers do with an obviously visually impaired woman pop star? They shove ugly dark glasses on all the blind blokes. You can get away with it as a bloke if you look a bit lived in (as long as you’re not in a boy band of course).
For a while at the beginning of her career, the singer Gabrielle wore an eye-patch to conceal a droopy eyelid until she got it fixed. Any woman who isn’t symmetrical, thin and traditionally good-looking – disabled or otherwise – is going to have a pretty hard time in a business ruled by sexism and sizism.
We like our male newsreaders grey and distinguished. It brings a bit of gravitas, am told. A grey haired woman newsreader of a certain age is considered too old for the job and will usually be replaced by a younger, sleeker model. We also like them to be thin and symmetrical. Women have also broken down many barriers in the media, although there are still battles in relation to gender stereotyping, black representation and older women. Our TV screens and airwaves are far more populated by women’s voices and faces than ever before. But still not a single one of them is a visually impaired woman.
In other spheres of influence, such as politics where women have made such gains, I can’t think of a single visually impaired woman local councillor, let alone a visually impaired woman member of any of the nations or the UK parliament. A blind brother comrade refers to the barriers faced by visually impaired people in progressing in all spheres of life as the “Braille Ceiling”. Two-thirds of the blind population are female yet visually impaired women are underrepresented in many areas of public life when compared with visually impaired men. So does the Braille ceiling have a significant gender bias?
There are a number of leadership initiatives targeting disabled people. Will Disabled women come through equally in such projects or will sexism and gender bias be an additional barrier. Research shows that black and ethnic minority disabled people face barriers to and is also under represented in leadership positions. There is a disabled BME leadership programme designed to redress the balance. When I was a local government senior manager, I went on a Woman’s Leadership Programme. It made the most immense difference to my career. Is it time to have some targeted programmes to level the playing field for disabled women?
Web links:
Ten famous blind people who changed the world, www.disaboom.com

100 Famous blind and vision impaired people
www.disabled-world.com/artman/publish/famous-blind.shtml
Famous real and imaginary blind people www.rnib.org.uk

Institutional disbelief In The Polite Society

Institutional disbelief In The Polite Society
I sit at the back of the hall. It’s our last night. As is traditional, we’re entertaining each other.
Two people take centre stage. It’s a sketch about a blind date. Harmless enough perhaps until the woman opens her mouth. She is playing someone who has something “”wrong” with the way she is speaking. I’m not clear whether she is pretending to have speech impairment or has something stuck in her mouth because I am blind and can’t see her.
She is a talented actor and her portrayal is realistic. The audience laugh. They continue to laugh as she plays out an absurd drama with her partner. I am alone. No one explains to me what is going on. All I know is what I hear. Bewildered, I sit waiting for the end of the sketch, for something to save the situation, to prove to me that this is not ableism alive and kicking amongst ordinary educated folk, but it never comes.
Just before the evening ends there is another sketch involving someone who appears to have a speech impairment. I don’t wait to see if there will be a saving twist. I walk out.
Later in the safety of my room, I find myself weeping uncontrollably. I am shaking. I am remembering what it felt like to be mocked and what that mockery led to.
I can’t believe that in this place, this haven of safety where everyone really works to be supportive of each other there are people who think it entertaining to ridicule people with speech impairments. I am even more shocked that no one else seems to mind.
On Monday last, the Equality and Human Rights Commission launched the Disability Harassment Inquiry. I read the report with interest- having been at point’s part of the inquiry team – I want to find out how the evidence I heard way back when has influenced the findings.
The report authors call it “Hidden in Plain Sight” – they say there is a culture of disbelief surrounding disability harassment. The authorities (police, council, health service etc) don’t take disability harassment claims seriously: The report says: “There is a systemic failure by public authorities to recognise the extent and impact of harassment and abuse of disabled people, take action to prevent it happening in the first place and intervene effectively when it does.” Well I don’t know about you but I’d call that institutional discrimination.
This is exactly how the powers that be responded to the murder of Stephen Lawrence. No one believed it was a racially motivated murder. Today, race hate crimes are more likely to be acknowledged though whether the authorities properly respond to all of them is questionable. But there is something else going on too which is even more insidious. Assumptions are made about disabled people’s capacity to be good witnesses based on beliefs that we are somehow lesser than ordinary (non-disabled) mortals. The charity and medical models perpetuate the belief that it is we who are the problem and not society.
Everyone, sometimes even disabled people ourselves believe that it is our fault for being different, for daring to exist. What is actually going on is a deep-rooted if unconscious hatred and disgust of disabled people that goes back beyond the concept of Nazi useless Eaters into the dark past. The common psyche sees impairment as wrong and something to be cured, eliminated or prevented. Deep down under the equality veneer, and the vulnerable victim label, individuals working in public authorities innately feel that being disabled is the problem. No wonder we’re not taken seriously. All the most serious cases of harassment examined by the Inquiry started with low level name-calling. Over time they escalated, following the traditional pattern of behaviour described by Alport’s Scale of Oppression.

This is how Alport’s works. I have a mate, let’s call him Ian (that is not his real name) eighteen years ago, Ian who is HIV positive began to develop the symptoms of AIDS. Despite combination therapy, his condition developed and he started using a wheel chair on bad days and a walking stick on good ones. Because of his impairment, he was re-housed in an accessible ground floor Council flat, with an on street parking space.
1 Name calling:
The children on the estate began to taunt Ian. Because he didn’t always use a wheel chair and had an accessible flat, they accused him of pretending to be disabled.
2 Exclusion:
someone found out about his status, he didn’t know how. The adults on the estate stop talking to him and the children ran away screaming ‘plague’ when they saw him.
3 Discrimination:
The neighbours put two and two together and guessed that Ian was gay. One man in particular was often visiting Ian in his flat and one day, one of the children peeking in through Ian’s sitting room window, saw them kissing and told all the other children who added to their taunts ‘fag’ and ‘batty boy’. The adults made it clear that Ian was not welcome at the tenants meetings and was not invited to a street party that the residents were planning. They also complained to the Council about Ian’s car, which they said was parked in other people’s parking spaces, which Ian had to do as another resident parked in his space.
4 Threats/attacks:
One morning, Ian got up to find that abusive words had been scrawled on his car and the wings scored by something sharp. He got the car re-sprayed only to have it happen again the following week. He complained to the police and to his local Councillor. The police came to talk to the children and their parents. Two days later, his tyres were slashed. Ian started to park his car in another street and had to struggle to his house on foot or wheels. Elimination/genocide:
a sustained campaign of criminal damage began, accompanied by name-calling, avoidance and so on. When his windows were smashed for the third time, Ian could take no more. He took an overdose and was admitted to hospital. He was not expected to live but thankfully did. He decided to move in with his boyfriend until the Council re-housed him somewhere else.
Ian is alive and thriving today but could so easily have been one of those cases examined by the Inquiry. It’s just five steps from name calling to extermination.
When I was a child, the children on my housing estate started to call me names. Encouraged by my parents to rise above it, I chanted back “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.” When the children started to exclude me from their games, I would play by myself, feeling lonely and miserable. When they started to kick footballs at me as i passed, I began to feel scared. Had my family not moved away at that point, who knows where that would have ended? What would the authorities have done if I had complained about the name calling, the ignoring or even the football kicking? They would have told me to rise above it I’ve no doubt. Disabled people, like all other oppressed groups are the target of jokes and cruel misrepresentation. This insidiously leads to the stereotypes being believed. It becomes common then that children, who look, sound or behave different should be mocked. Soon the playground is ringing with “Spazzo, spazzo, spazzo”. Adults call each other “spazzo” or say “Duh” pulling down the corner of their mouth with their finger when they’ve said or done something which they think is “stupid”. Well educated, nice, liberal people at the end of a weeklong training course do skits mocking disabled people and their companions laugh.
“Hey that’s life. There’s no harm in it”, everyone thinks.
If I object, I’m a humourless politically correct miserable spoil-sport. But the thing is, if we let people perpetuate stereotypes, if we smile weakly at the dreadful jokes and let things go; the names lead to exclusion, to discrimination, to attacks and threats and then by then it is but a short step to extermination whether by one’s own hand or another’s. Lay Alport’s scale across any of the cases examined in the Disability Harassment Inquiry and you see the pattern repeating itself again and again. This is why it is so very dangerous if the powers that be now ignore this report, if institutions who could do something about disability harassment ignore it at the low level name calling stage, then more disabled people will die and hundreds, maybe thousands more will live in misery wishing that they too were dead. And then what kind of a society will we be living in?

Kirsten Hearn
Monday September 19, 2011:

Queen of the QUANGOs and other paths to revolution!

Queen of the QUANGOs and other paths to revolution!
When I found myself having a second panic attack in the ladies toilets at Walthamstow Town hall, I knew it was time to leave. For 16 years I had been a high-profile equality officer in local government, working closely with elected members and the community to ensure the Council provided services to meet the needs of users. As such, it was my job sometimes therefore to deliver unpleasant messages to the Council’s elected leadership. When the then leader of the Council chose to shoot the messenger, I decided that enough was enough!
Everyone always thinks they can do equality better than the professionals. In my 16 year career in local government, I’d been abolished several times and so it was not hard to manoeuvre myself out of a job with a small amount of money to keep me going. At the time of leaving, becoming a non-executive director was far from my thoughts. I started up a coaching and training consultancy and slowly began to make a modest name for myself. Ken Livingstone has had a huge influence upon my career choices. Way back in 1984, just as I was emerging from Art school and set on a life of activism, art and penury, I was lured into the Grater London Council to work as an outreach worker to disabled people’s groups. Paid to help the crips to revolt? Yes, it was a fantastic job. When abolition came 18 months later, I was hooked on a salary and I went for another job instead of returning to the front line of the struggle.
When Ken became Mayor of London in 2000, he was looking for someone who could champion disability rights in a transport context. Well, I knew all about accessible transport, having been arrested several times for being chained to a bus! I applied for the Transport for London board and was appointed to champion equality, particularly disability. It was not long before I got a taste for this non-executive lark and began to apply for more.
In 2002 I’d been advising the Metropolitan Police on LGBT issues for two years. When a vacancy for an independent member came up with the Metropolitan Police Authority, I applied and was appointed. With two substantial non-executive positions, I needn’t do anything else to pay the rent, well for a couple of years at least. But however, as all non-exec positions are necessarily, part time and time limited, it was important for me to keep other irons in the fire. From the initial intention to run a training and consultancy business, I diversified to add a number of none-executive positions to my portfolio of activity.
Since those early days, I’ve advised government on disability issues through serving on the body that set up Equality 2025, as a member of Equality 2025 itself, then as an external member for the Department of work and Pensions Disability Equality Delivery Board (the internal body that advises ministers on disability issues). I did two terms with the Transport for London board and am on my third term with the Metropolitan Police Authority (and about to be abolished again!).
I was thrilled to be appointed as the first Chair of Inclusion London, the new London-wide community interest company whose role is to be the voice of deaf and disabled people in London, to support London’s deaf and disabled people’s organisations to survive and thrive and to promote an enterprise culture amongst deaf and disabled people. This is a paid position. It means that I can give it sufficient time without being distracted by needing to be paid for all that I do. Equally important to me though unpaid, is the role I have had for the last 7 years as a trustee and sometime vice chair of the Consortium of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community and Voluntary Organisations. This is a national third tier infrastructure body trying to build the strength of the LGB&T communities. I’ve had to oversee a range of key tasks from appointing two Chief Executives, to helping to provide the strategic direction to shape the organisation’s future, learning skills of immense use in other non-executive positions.
So how do I get these positions? All of mine have been in public service and the vast majority have been openly advertised and use the Office of the Commission for Public Appointments (OCPA) guidelines. All of them have involved making an application and going through a recruitment process, very much like what one would go through to get a job.
The fact that all my work has been in the public sector is significant. Yes, in some way it’s a choice, but also, I have found that there are a number of barriers to people from the public sector breaking into the private sector non-executive world, not the least of which is that many private sector non executive positions are often not advertised. But that’s another story … Then there is the tricky question of access to work support. Non-executives are not employees, even though we may pay tax and NI,
Access to work is not easy to get. I have managed to get support around computers (I am visually impaired) but on the whole the support I’ve needed to do my work as a non-executive has been provided by the organisation I am providing that non executive role to. They have bought me equipment, paid taxi costs, provided p.a. support and provided information in an accessible format. If they hadn’t done this, I could not have done the job. Organisations who want diversity on their board will provide the support but sometimes a bit of a delicate negotiation has to take place. So what is my future as a non-executive? The Con-Dem government made a bonfire of QUANGOs. Others have however been created in their place. The world of the non-executive has become rather dog-eat-dog! But I like what I do and for the time being, I will continue to apply for non executive positions. I like the inside outside role that I play in institutions that affect people’s lives. It’s a fabulous place from which to drive institutional change, and institutional change you know can lead to (psst, say it quietly) revolution!

5 steps to where?

Here’s a piece I performed with the Drill Hall Darlings, London’s lesbian story telling troup, last weekend.
5 steps to where?
The city is rainbowed with revellers. I march through the crowd searching for the safe space. Where the fuck is it! Ah here are a handful of disabled comrades, but they’re hidden behind a load of tall blokes with footballs. Great! The cripples have been tucked away out of sight. We’re obviously not photogenic enough. Maybe we’re spoiling the image of “gay”? ON a cool and cloudy evening on the last day of April, the pub is busy. Everyone is looking forward to the weekend.
With a punch as hard as a hurricane, the air roars. The explosion tears out windows and doors, It shatters glass, and drives the filthy nails into the flesh of anyone standing in its path. Three people die that night. A rainbow tide snakes jauntily through the streets. Spectators on the pavement erupt into enthusiastic cheering and applause. They clap sympathetically as the motley crew of crips limps and rolls past. Cameras click.
In the centre of a non-descript piece of pavement, candles, flowers and other offerings encircle a humble London tree. A knot of silent people stand, heads bowed inremembernce. One week ago in this very place, a young man was kicked to death by those who hated him because he was gay. No matter how difficult it is to be here, no matter how inaccessible London Pride is to me as a disabled dyke, nothing and no one will stop me marching. I march for myself, to assert my right to be here, in solidarity with those who are afraid to be here and in remembrance of those who will never be here again.
An ugly metallic voice punctures the air, his “message mangled, inaudible despite the megaphone. Flanked by suspiciously camp looking police, the man from Christian Voice spouts his bilious bigotry. AS one, the parade hisses and boos him, drowning out his evil message.
And I think, he means me! He means all of us! He means every lesbian, gay man, bisexual and Tran’s person in the world!
From insults to genocide, there are but five steps. From name calling to suicide, not much more than a breath. 5 steps, or a breath, just five steps, just a breath. So tell me, what price freedom of speech?

My Perfect Pride?

My Perfect Pride?
There’s a place for us or the land of make-believe?.
It’s a gloriously sunny day. The skies are clear. There’s a little teasing wind which is really quite refreshing.
Today is London LGBT Pride. The city has gone rainbow. Everyone’s promising that the parade will be the best ever.
I’ve been checking out the wonderful new web site which is really accessible to jaws users! I am really pleased to see that the line up on the main stage reflects the diversity of our community and is a nice mix of politics and art. That’s how it should be. I’m particularly pleased to find out that, of the three presenters, one is a deaf lesbian actor who does not speak. Everything she says will have to be voiced over for the hearing public, turning the tables nicely on the usual arrangement.
I’ve booked my P.a., I’ve chosen my outfit. For once, I’m in good health and non of the things that make going out for a whole day and walking a lot sometimes difficult, are bothering me right now. Thank you body for your perfect health timing!
I swing happily toting my shiny bright white new long cane down the road heading for the bus stop. AS I get off the bus, the driver calls out “Happy Pride!” I do a little dance on the pavement before entering the tube where I find my P.A. lurking in the shade – she doesn’t like sun and is sporting a huge very silly hat!
The Victoria Line is crammed full with colourfully dressed LGBT people and our allies. I sit down next to a large bearded fairy in a pink tutu and we share a few words about our sartorial choices for today.
There’s a stream of amazingly dressed people pouring out of the tube. My P.a. Gets her describing mouth on and starts to tell me about them all. AS we walk past All Souls Church, suddenly, the air is pierced by a lesbian rebel yell, a magnificently ear-splitting yet tuneful ululating warble. I bellow back. “That’ll be the Older Lesbian network”, I say to my P.A. who is laughing as she’s never heard me yodel like that before!
“OMG” exclaims my P.A. “You’ll never guess what I see rolling along before us?” She describes two dikes in wheel chairs, both dressed as giant rabbits, ears and all. For extra decoration, they’ve stuck bunny tails onto the back of their wheelchairs too! They weave their way efficiently amongst the wandering groups of people heading for the start of the march. I’m pleased to learn that the crowd is peppered with visibly disabled people in all kinds of costumes. AS we walk, friends yell greetings, but I don’t stop to chat, I want to get to the front of the march.
“We’ve been hear ages,” says JU. “Shush darling”, she says to Jeanie her elderly retired assistance dog who is excited to see me and is barking a welcome. Julie goes on to explain that they parked up at Waterloo Place at the reserved blue badge parking bays. Amazingly, an access steward was loitering nearby looking for disabled people to assist. The steward helped them get to the shuttle bus stop and a bus rolled up ten minutes later. They’ve been here an hour, the Regard Banner is up marking the safe space, for all to see. They’ve had coffee and something to eat and have located 3 accessible toilets in nearby cafes.
It’s as though I’ve walked into a Regard social, everyone is here! Old friends and some strangers too. Before long, I’m exchanging news and admiring costumes. This does involve a certain amount of slightly gratuitous groping, but what is a blind dyke to do if not do the hands on examination of the eye candy – which I call feeling the hand candy!
Everyone is happy. Even Michael, the chief access steward is satisfied and only occasionally yelling at his troop of energetic and keen stewards. There’s a Brazilian Samba band standing nearby. They start a particularly jolly rhythm. I can’t resist. I have to dance. I start to jig about, and before I know it, the whole of the safe space is dancing; stewards, disabled people and P.A.s. Even the assistance dogs are shaking a tail or two! “How many people are in the crip space? I breathlessly ask my P.A. “There must be loads!” she confirms that it looks like there’s at least 80 and every few minutes, more join us.
“We’re off!” shrieks Ruth, backing over my feet as she tries to turn her chair. I yelp and thump her chair but she ignores her crime and rolls away in front of me. “Just because you can’t bleeding’ walk”, I mutter, but my anger is mock, RUTH has been running over my feet for the last 20 years and I no longer take it personally.
We start to walk. It’s just the right pace for me, fast enough that I feel we’re going somewhere but not too fast to make it impossible to keep it up. On either side, watchers on the pavement erupt into enthusiastic cheering and applause. Cameras click and I hear solo voices soaring above the babble and then sinking back down into the general cacophony.
We get this all the way along the route. From time to time, I recognise the voices of friends, but mostly it’s a good natured anonymous babble. Sometimes I wonder if the applause is because we’re disabled and they’re cheering the brave crips. Mostly I feel happy and proud; I stand up straighter and feel like I’m walking on air.
Yes, this is the London Pride parade and I’m justified in feeling proud. I’m walking for myself, to assert my right to exist, to be visible and out and proud for all disabled LGBT people. I’m walking for LGBT Disabled people who can’t be here and I’m walking for my ancestor disabled LGBT people for whom going on Pride would have been a dangerous impossibility. I’m walking too for all my dead disabled LGBT friends, recently and not so recently departed. I feel tears prick my eyes and my throat become a bit lumpy. This is why I come. This is why I’ve always come, no matter what the barrier.
I’ve rolled in the Pride parade with my leg plastered up to my hip, having discharged myself from hospital the day before to be here. I’ve walked Pride marches with friends who have been scared to be here but who bravely stay the course because if they don’t, they will have to continue to live a lie. I’ve rolled a few Prides when my legs just wouldn’t carry me. I know that should a time come when I can’t walk or be pushed in a wheel chair, I’ll insist on someone to damn well push me in my bed. I’m here to defend our love rights and no one, not even the most homophobic bigot and nothing; no lack of accessibility is going to stop me being here, year after year after year!
It is perfect, just perfect. The Samba Band is not far away. I jig along until I hear an ugly voice shouting. I can’t hear what he is saying but I know its Stephen Green, that notorious homophobe with a handful of other sickos, flanked by police making their stand. As one, the whole safe space hisses or does the sign language version of a hiss.
I smile to myself an remember the Police Silver Command for the march telling me that he’s handpicked the gayest and dykiest looking police officers he can find to police Stephen Green. He says, they were queuing up to do this duty. I wonder if Stephen Green has realised that he’s surrounded by a bunch of screaming queen and purposefully butch dyke police officers. Has he ever looked at a lesbian or gay man? Would he actually recognise one when he came face to face with one. Well there’s a load of them facing him right now! I hug myself with glee and walk on. We come to the point where the Regard contingent peels off. Here, a barrier is removed and stewards clear the crowd so that we can line the route of the March and watch and listen to the rest of the parade marching. My P.A. gets her describing mouth out and I stand for a good half hour cheering and waving and bellowing hello to friends who are marching further down in the parade. There are loads of other visibly disabled people marching with their union, with the Older LGBT contingent, with their religious group, their clubs and even more that are none aligned. I lose count of the numbers of obviously disabled people who pass and wonder about all the ones whose impairments are not obvious. Disabled people are everywhere all the way through the parade. It is fabulous!
But it’s time to get into Trafalgar Square. WE follow the Regard banner bearers to the safe space on the upper level of the square. This year, we have the whole right side! It must be at least 20 feet by about 50 feet long! There are two accessible toilets on each side and the Western side has a pink frilly awning over it, offering some cool shade for those who are not sun-worshippers. I settle down happily on a chair, glad to rest my feet. My P.A. describes what she sees before her. The stage in front of us is adorned with two huge screens, one on each side. Half of the screen shows the sign language interpreter, the other half, the performers on the stage. Right now, there’s a massed choir of LGBT singers on stage and their giving us a rather soulful and moving rendition of “Something inside so strong”. The whole of the safe space joins in, and yet again, I feel tears pricking at my eyes.
Part of me wishes I was up on the stage with the choir, for I love to sing but part of me is glad I decided to march instead, because it has been such a good march. For once, I can actually hear the performers, the wind has dropped and there are booster speakers at the front of the safe area. All around me, friends and allies are pouring into the safe space. There’s plenty of room. There’s a dog rest area on one side, enough stewards to support any of us here and RUTH, who has just run over my foot again, tells me that there’s an induction loop and it works.
I listen to the speeches, sing along with the music, chat with friends and generally relax.
A dance troop comes on. Now if there’s one thing that doesn’t float my boat, it’s dance. I mutter and harrumph for a while until someone taps me on the shoulder and shoves one of those listening things they have in museums, into my hand.
“Quit moaning and shove these on your ears, we’ve got audio description today!”, says the unknown person. . Mildly castigating myself for a grumpy old blind dyke, I settle down to enjoy the show.
I’m dying for a pee. I don’t fancy the portaloos and decide to go down to the toilets in the square below. Hurrah! The lift is working! In no time, I’m back, but I don’t stay long, it’s time to check out the stalls. It’s crowded about the stalls, but they’ve been laid out with enough space to be able to get through safely. It’s nice to be offered accessible information and soon my daypack is stuffed with Braille, audio discs and memory sticks. Excitedly, I rush back to the safe space to tell the hoard of visually impaired comrades what I’ve found.
“The drag stage has sign language interpreters, a safe space and even a dog watering point!” a happy deaf older guy in a rather fetching ball gown tells me with the aid of one of the interpreters who have been supporting deaf people all afternoon in the safe space. I wonder if the women’s stage has the same, as I fancy going down there when the main stage closes. My P.A. consults the guide to Pride she picks up from a pile in the corner of the safe space. She turns to the access pages., apparently, all stages guarantee minimum access standards of safe space, seats, sign language and dog watering points! Idly I wander if dog facilities are the new sexy access provision formerly reserved for Sign language interpreters! I don’t dare voice this thought as Jeanie is sitting on her mistress’s lap not too far away from me right now.
Briefly chastising myself for excessive cynicism, I fall to discussing with Ruth what we’re going to do next, when she’s finished charging up her electric wheelchair from one of the charging points conveniently placed at the front of the safe space. We could head for the women’s space, go find something to eat or check out some of the after Pride parties. My p.a. flicks through the Pride guide and tells us which of the after parties have access. Tempting as it is to test the verity of the guide, my tummy is growling and I have no difficulty in persuading RUTH that food is what we should find. But we’ll wait till the end of the show here before setting off in pursuit of one of the accessible restaurants recommended by the guide.
It’s been a great afternoon of entertainment and speeches. The sun is slipping behind the buildings. The air has cooled. I say goodbye to Ju and Julie who are setting off with an access steward in tow to find their van back on Waterloo Place. The Deaf MC announces that it’s the end of the show, but not before we all join in a resounding sung and signed rendition of “Somewhere”.
There’s not a dry eye in the house. But these are happy, heartfelt tears. “There’s a place for us?” yes I think we’ve finally found it. It’s been the greatest Pride ever. Disabled LGBT people have been included at all points. I think we’ve finally come home!
My head aches. My neck is stiff. I seem to be half hanging out of my bed. My alarm clock is insistently tugging at my consciousness. Slowly I swim up to wakefulness and then I remember where I am and what happened yesterday. July 2, 2011, my greatest Pride? No it was my worst nightmare. All this sunshine and love and inclusion are just a dream.
“Where is that place where dreams come true?” I ask as I drag myself heavily from my rumpled bed and make for the bathroom. “The land of make-believe?”

And they say “we’re all in it together”?

And they say “Were all in it together”?
(Speech made at the Hardest Hit rally and march of Deaf and Disabled people, Wednesday May 11, 2011, Westminster)
The government says that there’s no choice, that there’s no money, and we have to take action now! Were all in it together, they say. Theyre making £81B of public spending cuts, £18B of Welfare Benefit cuts, of which £9B are disability related benefit cuts.
Individual cuts are bad enough, but when you add cuts in service provision, to major job cuts, to cuts in benefits, then add rising inflation and high unemployment, and we just don’t stand a chance.
And they say we’re all in it together?
The effect of cuts is compounded further by the fact of poverty and other barriers that face Deaf and Disabled people from different communities. For example, young Pakistani Londoner’s are twice as likely to be disabled as their Peers, reflecting the compound impact of disability discrimination, racism and poverty.
And they say we’re all in it together?
Disabled Benefit scroungers are a Daily Mail myth! Employment Support Allowance is frightening Deaf and disabled people off benefits. If claimants can’t meet their work-related activities plan their benefits are cut. The work Capability test doesn’t measure the true barriers to employment, and again we lose our benefits.
People are so desperate they are suicidal. But DWP has guidance on that so that’s ok then isn’t it?
And they say we’re all in it together?
Discrimination, inaccessible work places, inaccessible transport and inflexible work conditions are some of the barriers that stop Deaf and Disabled people getting jobs. Oh and there’s the small matter of the lack of jobs meaning yet again we stand no chance.
Access to Work funds adjustments that support many deaf and disabled people to be in employment. It pays for itself in increased tax revenue. I asked the ODI today if ATW was being cut. They said no, so how come Deaf and Disabled peoples provision is being reduced, threatening jobs? And they say we’re all in it together?
In London deaf and disabled people with jobs earn on average fifty pounds less a week than non disabled people. We are more likely to be employed in the public sector, especially in local government. Local government cuts mean many of us will lose our jobs. I know 5 Deaf and Disabled people who worked in local government who have lost their jobs already since March. And they say we’re all in it together?
And what about DLA? It is vital to help independent living. The planned twenty percent cuts will see 32,000 Londoners lose out. The closure of the Independent Living Fund also threatens Deaf and Disabled people’s independence further.
And they say we’re all in it together?
Axing equality legislation will put the nail in the coffin of any protection we might have under the law. The coalition turns its back on promoting an equal society in favour of the survival of the fittest, a competition in which Deaf and Disabled people will be the losers. The government will provide handouts to the deserving afflicted only, driving us into residential homes because we can no longer afford TO live independently. What kind of economics is that, then?
Disability inequity is the result!
And they say we’re all in it together? No, some of us are more in it than others!

Tribute to Vijayatara

This is the original obituary I wrote which appears in today’s guardian in an edited form.
Vijayatara (Dr Sharon Elizabeth Smith) 1 July 1961 – 13 March 2011 by Kirsten Hearn
“Pray silence for the deceased!” booms Vijayatara as a carnivorous dining companion’s meaty meal appears. Even when on a diet, Vijayatara, a committed vegetarian, deeply appreciated food: she would declare “I’m glad I know you” to the cook as she sat, roundly replete, at the end of a meal. Born in London, of African-Caribbean descent, Vijayatara gained a 2.1 BSc honours degree in Chemistry at Durham (1982) and a PGTC at Goldsmiths (1983). She then taught science in Croydon for two years before escaping to the unsafe haven of paid Black feminist activism.
Vijayatara always engaged her powerful analytical mind to shaping cogent arguments to defeat discrimination wherever it reared its ugly head. Her work in the voluntary sector (1985 – 1990) and her lived experience as a black lesbian, caused her to begin to examine the intersectionality of race, gender, sexual orientation, disability, faith and class, which was to inform everything she would do from here on in.
In the late 1980s she became a Buddhist, bringing her enquiring mind increasingly to the study of the Dharma. Seeking to live ethically, she always retained a generous attitude to other faiths. She was ordained into the Triratna Buddhist Order in 2003, and was given the name Vijayatara. Vijayatara had a rich deep contralto singing voice. Whether chanting to Tara or extolling dykedom with the Pre-Madonnas, London’s “mainly feminist choir”, she wrapped listeners in the richness of her resonant tunefulness. Always loud, her laugh warmed the hearts of all who heard it. In 1990, she embarked upon a local government equality career and completed a part-time MSc (Econ) at LSE in health planning and finance (1994). Despite the day job, Vijayatara’s fierce intellect needed further stimulation. She enrolled in a PhD in sociology of religion at Goldsmiths College, completing her thesis on “Buddhism, Diversity and ‘Race’” in 2008.
Vijayatara developed serious mental health issues in 1999 which necessitated her giving up full-time work. She was deeply affected by the death of her younger sister Wendy in 2000. But no matter what life threw at her, Vijayatara was sustained through everything by the strength of the life partnership she formed with Savitri Hensman in 1986.
In January 2011, Vijayatara was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She died surrounded by the love of her partner, sister and friends. She is survived by her partner of 24 years, Savitri, and sister Sonia.

Telling it like it is – tribute to a friend

Telling it like it is – tribute to a friend
Death has robbed you of your animation, but not your dignity. I stroke your cool forehead. They’ve placed a red rose amongst the riot that is your dark hair, o princess, what a picture you are?
They say that Blood is thicker than water.
I say, love conquers all.
Do you remember the first time we met? You interviewed me for a job. Along with two others, you were masquerading as a GLC stereotype, you know, black, lesbian, disabled, working class. Funny that, you were pretty much the stereotype all by yourself! Thanks. You gave me the job!
They say that Blood is thicker than water.
I say, love conquers all.
Restless now, you shift in your hard uncomfortable hospital bed. You kick the sheets from your sore feet. You’re breathing harsh and fractured. I sit beside you, willing the pain killers to kick in, hoping you’ll catch the rhythm of my breath and somehow be soothed. It’s all that I can do. They say that Blood is thicker than water.
I say, love conquers all.
DO you remember Debbie Blind Dyke and the Token’s first gig? Jackson’s Lane 1989. I’d broken my leg. You were being my carer. The trouble is, your spacial awareness was rubbish and my broken leg plastered to the thigh was rather long and sticking right out of the wheelchair. Somehow you got me onto the stage, more or less in one piece. Thank you.
They say that Blood is thicker than water.
I say, love conquers all.
In the moments rest offered by the pain killers, you are sleeping. All is quiet. I hold your hand, big, warm and strong. So capable.
They say that Blood is thicker than water.
I say, love conquers all.
Do you remembered your de-luxe pink plastic electric foot spa? Decadently Essex, whirring and rumbling, frothing all over the carpet! You gave such fab foot massages, your big strong square hands, thumbs probing for the sore points, drawing from them all the tension and pain. Ah thank you! They say that Blood is thicker than water.
I say, love conquers all.
“I love it when you snore, dear”, I say, stroking your round warm arm. You drift deeper and deeper into sleep. I talk of all that I have learned from you, of all that we have shared. I sing to you the songs that sustained us in troubled times.
They say that Blood is thicker than water.
I say, love conquers all.
Do you remember us sitting on my flowery sofa putting the world to rights? I shared with you my experience of impairment, you talked about racism. Together we explored what united and what divided us. I never forgot those conversations and I know you didn’t either. Thank you for allowing me to clumsily explore that which we couldn’t speak of in public.
They say that Blood is thicker than water.
I say, love conquers all.
On a cold cloudy March Sunday morning you leave us.
Suddenly, the peace of your room is violated. Your estranged relatives, their backs to you, demand to know about your will: Holding aloft the twisted morals of their cruel god, they stand in judgement of your lover, because she is not a man. They kiss their teeth in disgust because you are a Buddhist.
They say, “Blood is thicker than water”.
I say, love conquers all.
for It is we who have walked along life’s difficult path with you, It is we who have loved you through the darkest of your pain, we who have witnessed you rise victorious from that bitter betrayal once hidden by the bricks and mortar of the nuclear family. It is we with whom you have laughed, sung, and danced and we with whom you have plotted and planned. Together we have changed the world. I am different because you were in my life. Death can never take that away from me. I carry you always in my memory and my heart. Thank you, thank you, thank you
They say that Blood is thicker than water.
I say It’s Love, yes love that conquers all.
Kirsten Hearn (09 04 11)
(Written for the Drill Hall Darlings show “Telling it Like It Is”, Sunday April 10, 2011.