An open letter to Labour from the Autistic brother of a severely disabled woman

The following article is a comment piece from an anonymous reader

An open letter to Keir Starmer, Wes Streeting, Rachel Reeves, and the Labour Party, from the Autistic brother of a severely disabled woman living in the north.

Last night, on my bus home from a self-enforced jaunt out for St. Patrick’s Day I heard the word “mong” used as a casual insult for the first time in years.

I am sure that this shortening of “mongoloid”, an archaic, mean-spirited (and racist) way of referring to Down’s Syndrome people is still often used as a casual insult here in the northwest, but I haven’t heard it recently.

In normal circumstances, I would grit my teeth and bear the use of such a word by uninformed young people. Or maybe ask if they knew the origins of the word that they so readily use as an insult.

In this instance, in the context of your recent political attack and scapegoating of those who are unable to work, I could not sit on my hands.

I lashed out (rhetorically, and uncharacteristically), and let the person who casually used the slur know that my sibling is what would (far too frequently) be called a “mong” or a “retard”, and that I love them to bits. I also made it plain that I would defend my sister from imminent threats to her person should they occur. Your government, in its rhetoric, has made it such that people are quick to forget that people love, cherish, and are more than willing to protect disabled people.

(If not to let someone willing to use such words that disabled people are not yet completely socially isolated).

An ableist slur on the eve before DWP benefit cuts announcement

I was confronted by other bus-goers, accused (ironically) of bullying, and remained seated/physically non-confrontational through the whole ordeal.

The young man who used the word was defiant throughout the process, and I felt very much that I was the only one on the bus who saw an issue in the use of the word.

I may have been the only person on the bus aware of the extent of your scapegoating of disabled people within the last two weeks. I may have been the only person on the bus aware of the alarmingly rapid rise in overtly fascist policies coming out of the USA (nice kowtowing, Keir).

I may have seemed, in a contextual bubble, to be inappropriately lashing out at a young man and “language-policing” a word. The fact remains, however, that I heard an ableist slur for the first time in years on the eve of your assault on the funding of the disability arm of the welfare state.

I am not able to work myself due to health issues (yes, including but not limited to anxiety, Wes). Several of my diagnoses were made by an NHS panel (ADHD, Asperger’s) when I was a child, before such diagnoses were as commonplace as they are now.

I spent the best part of the 2010s working low-level customer service jobs. I can’t work now. My health issues are not imagined or “over-diagnosed”. If my sibling was not part of my life, I may well have felt ostracised to the point where I would not be able to speak out for the rights of the neurodiverse or disabled. However, the stakes are greater than my own wellbeing.

Labour Party scapegoating disabled people: for shame

That said, my sibling can not speak for themself and the Labour Party’s scapegoating of the neurodiverse pales in comparison to the Labour Party’s scapegoating of those who will never be medically fit to work.

You’ve chosen the wrong easy target guys. Plenty of disabled people have loved ones who are willing to pick up the slack as best as they can, and in targeting the most vulnerable, you are also targeting those surrounding the most vulnerable.

People like myself don’t want to be angry, or confrontational, or desperate, or backed into a corner. We’d love the opportunity to thrive. Making a political football of us will not achieve this.

Us and our loved ones have far less economic leeway than those who could contribute massively via a wealth tax and higher marginal income tax.

If you’re too politically cowardly to consider said taxes, please at least have the common decency not to target the disabled. The people affected by your recent decisions are already so fatigued.

The Nazis rounded up the disabled first for a reason.

Maybe I over-reacted last night. Maybe I’d had too much Guinness. Or maybe I was the only one on the bus who read the political room. We are not your scapegoat. Why on earth would you choose to victimise the vulnerable?

I don’t leave my home much, and on a rare occasion where I did, I contended with outright ableism. My beautiful sibling aside, do you want to force me to go and contribute to this society that you’re creating to the detriment of my own health? Every time I see a doctor I ask for specialist (Autism, ADHD) mental health treatment that doesn’t exist.

The way to defeat the far right electorally is not to co-opt their rhetoric and policy.

For shame.

A concerned citizen.

Featured image via the Canary