Jane Campbell: A Crumb of the Cake

Transcript

There is still a distinct class war, or shall I say impairment war, going on now in the disability world and you will find most people at the top of the tree have either a spinal injury, have – well, have no problems speaking, there’s very few people with CP who have communication difficulties, and are white probably, you know. So all that oppression is still working itself out in the disability world.

I think it comes from being segregated away from that that you so desire. It comes from being left out because you’re disabled. It comes from, you know, not being given – you know, being given a crumb of the cake instead of a slice of the cake. It comes from the same place that racism comes from, like homophobia comes from, like, you know, like women’s oppression comes from. It’s all the same ingredient, it’s all the ingredients of being left out and society thinking that you are – your value is pretty low or nothing, you know, exactly. They’re the connections between racism and disablism and, you know, homophobia, ageism, you know. It all comes from that feeling of other, of having no value.

I hate anything that even hints at segregation because I know what it does to the individual. I mean, it could have destroyed me. You know, I could have gone two ways; I could have become a victim and a dependent kind of static person or I could have rebelled, and thank God, you know, I’m one of the most bloody minded people that I’ve ever met.

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