Disability Rights: Now is Labour’s chance!

By A Supporter

At the beginning of the year I saw Gus Van Sant’s excellent film Milk. In it, Harvey Milk (played by Oscar-winning actor Sean Penn) mobilises the gay community of San Francisco to fight Proposition 6, an “initiative” that sought to ban gays and lesbians (and those who supported gay rights) from teaching in California’s state schools. Aided by passion, momentum, and the words of a charismatic leader, the campaign to kill Proposition 6 was a triumph.

Fast-forward to March 2009. Another charismatic leader, Barak Obama, is sat on Jay Leno’s couch chatting comfortably about the economy, when the conversation turns to the White House bowling alley, where the President, a ten pin bowling novice, has been practising. Jay Leno sarcastically congratulates the President on his latest (and relatively feeble) score of 129. The President jokingly replies: “It’s like – it was like the Special Olympics, or something.” The audience laugh.

What brings these two moments together is a comment made by a friend of mine. He said: “What I loved about Milk was that it painted a portrait of the last great civil rights movement.” I think what he meant was; before Milk, there had not been a Hollywood film about the gay rights movement in America. In any case, my friend went on to list Hollywood films which, he said, “painted portraits of the other great civil rights movements”.

President Obama’s disparaging remark on the Jay Leno Show made me ask the question: “What Hollywood films have there been about the disability rights movement?” I couldn’t think of one. Indeed, there is, as far as I’m aware, only one Hollywood film about the Special Olympics; The Ringer (starring Johnny Knoxville). The film, which received positive reviews, sees a former track and field star (played by Knoxville) go “undercover” (as a young man with learning difficulties) to the Special Olympics, to win a bet. This film, like Obama’s remark, belittled not just those with a disability but also encouraged the notion that serious admiration, whether filmic or presidential, is reserved for those without a disability.

Unlike my friend, I don’t believe there is such a thing as a “last” civil rights movement because equality is always under threat and, accordingly, the fight for civil rights goes on. That said; my friend’s comment raised an interesting point: is the disability rights movement the only movement not to receive the Hollywood treatment? Furthermore, does the evident paucity of respect regarding disability rights in the mainstream media, which must include President Obama’s disparaging remark about the Special Olympics, reveal a type of “acceptable intolerance” that sees offensive and derogatory remarks about the disabled becoming more prevalent?

With these questions in mind, I would like to point readers of LabourList to a campaign that is current but, in some quarters, forgotten: to urge the Government to sign the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities without reservations by spring this year. When it comes to disability rights, there should be no reservations. Indeed, we cannot let the Government ratify the Convention until the reservations have been dropped. This could be yet another stride towards equality – the kind of equality the Labour Party, in my opinion, has always stood for.

The time to give disability rights our fullest attention and respect is now.