P-6 I AM BLIND YET I SEE…

Helen Keller
declared the politics
of being disabled in America.
She saw herself victimized by myths:
"childlike," "dependent," disabled.
She knew discrimination firsthand.
And she broke its hold on her.
Helen Keller emerged
as a forerunner of the disability rights movement.
Today the goals of this social movement include:
an end to segregating
and institutionalizing people with disabilities;
a shift from human services founded upon charity
to services as a matter of public right;
the rooting out of prejudice;
barrier-free architectural design;
an end to discrimination in hiring--
64% of disabled people are jobless;
rethinking devaluing images of the disabled
in literature, art, film, and the mass media;
and self-determination.
Helen Keller gave us this legacy.


P-13 DON'T THINK THAT WE DON'T THINK

People labelled mentally retarded have been the targets of prejudice, discrimination, and stereotyping.

Times are changing. People with mental retardation and other disabilities are demanding equal rights and human dignity. Join us in this movement. Support self-advocacy.

Printed with permission from REINFORCE, Union for Intellectually Disadvantaged Citizens, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.


P-14 OUR VOICE IS NEW

We must learn to speak
And we ask everyone
to learn to understand our voices.
We need people who teach us to speak.
People who believe in us.
Mentally retarded persons do not
want to live in terrible institutions.
We want to live in the community.

Statement
made by people in
Austria who are
mentally retarded--
at the United Nations
Center on Social
Development and
Humanitarian Affairs

P-15 WE MUST EVACUATE THE INSTITUTIONS

We must evacuate the institutions
        for the mentally retarded.
We need to empty the institutions.
The quicker we accomplish this goal
        the quicker we will be able to repair
        the damage done to generations of innocent inmates.
The quicker we get about converting
        our ideologies and resources to a community model,
the quicker we will learn how to forget
        what we perpetuated in the name of humanity.
--Burton Blatt

(from THE FAMILY PAPERS: A RETURN TO PURGATORY by Burton Blatt et al., Copyright 1979 by Longman, Inc. Reprinted by permission.)


P-16 NOT BEING ABLE TO SPEAK…

Originated by Rosemary Crossley, educator and founder of the DEAL Communication Centre in Melbourne, Australia, facilitated communication is a means of "facilitating" expression by people who either do not talk or do not talk clearly. For people with autism and other communication disabilities, the problem of communication may not be essentially cognitive or receptive, but is rather a difficulty with expression. With facilitation, many of these people can point to letters and thus construct words, phrases and sentences.

The poster was developed by: The Facilitated Communication Project at the School of Education, Division of Special Education and Rehabilitation, 805 South Crouse Avenue, Syracuse, NY 13244-2280. Published by: Human Policy Press, P.O. Box 127, University Station, Syracuse, NY 13210.