Words of Wood

A note about commenting, since this is the sort of subject this is relevant to: my journal does have anon comments enabled, but they're screened because I keep getting spam. I let non-spam ones through, obviously!

Today is Blogging Against Disablism Day. So I've decided to write a post, after thinking about it for a while. I haven't decided yet whether I dare to submit it to the masterlist of posts, which you can find here. I do encourage you to read at least some of them.

What I'm writing about are attitudes to evidence of self-harm. Since it's May Day, and summer started when we heard the singers from Magdalen Tower, this becomes especially relevant.

( Trigger warning: Discussion of depression and self-harm )

Hello! This is mainly of use to people currently in Oxford. But I shall spam everyone with it anyway. Since I spend most of my LJ time spamming Ox-friends with fandom, it seems only fair :P

To copy the blurb I wrote for the Facebook event:

"On the week beginning 25th March, Exeter College is hosting the group Christian Concern to hold a conference. Christian Concern (http://www.christianconcern.com/) is anti-lgbtq rights, anti-Islam, and anti-choice.

We believe that these values have no place in Oxford and should not be implicitly supported by allowing the group to hold a conference here. Therefore we will be protesting on Turl Street, outside the conference, to make it clear that Oxford, and the student body, is absolutely opposed."

An article written for the Guardian about the situation is here.

So! I'm pretty sure I invited nearly all of you via FB, but this is another plug in case you'd forgotten. Come and join us, from 11 by the Missing Bean. We've not been allowed to know exactly when the people are arriving, so we'll potentially be there all afternoon, come and join us any time. Bring banners and stuff! (Don't bring glitterbombs, it's bad for the environment and we promised Exeter we wouldn't. Also we really don't want to be in trouble with the police.)

Also, in case it's unclear: This is in no way an anti-Christianity protest, many of the protesters identify as Christians. This is a protest against the hosting (and therefore implicit/implied support or at least lack-of-problem-with) a group with political pull which in the UK is one of the main campaigners against gay marriage, against abortion, against people who are non-Christian.

The LGBTQ campaign had a banner-painting picnic this afternoon in the parks, some photos are below the cut for your entertainment. I'm the one with the dinosaur t-shirt and the extremely frizzy hair, if you wanted to know. Also the one who's signs look like they were made by a 10-yr-old XD (I like rainbows, okay :P)

( Permission was given to use these photos as publicity. )

Expect a photo-heavy post tomorrow evening of how it goes! :D

On Monday I'm planning to go to a protest in London. If you're free then you might be interested in coming along too.

(I hate to beg, but: relevant friends in Oxford/London, please may I crash on someone's floor afterwards for the night, if it's not too much bother? The train connections I need to get all the way home in the evening are mostly absent, and it would be a massive help. I can compensate you!)

The protest is against the, quite frankly, evil cuts this government is making to Welfare for people with disabilities - among other things, stating that they have a target of reducing the people who are paid Disability Living Allowance (which is paid regardless of working status, and designed to reflect the additional costs to living associated with having a disability) by 20%. To stop paying Employment Maintainance Allowance after a year (because disabilities totally vanish when there's no money!). To remove mobility payments to people in care homes, meaning that many will become virtual prisioners - these payments are often used by care homes to, eg, fund an accesable minibus, and to provide wheelchairs. Cutting the respite care hours for families, including those where a child takes care of a parent.

None of these measures are going to solve the deficit. They are penny-pinching, and they are going completly against promises made by Cameron during his election campaining, and they are downright evil. They are going to kill people. (I'm not joking.)

You can read an article at The Guardian, here, which sums up the key points pretty neatly, and if you want more details on what specifically is affected, and how, you might like to read some of the posts on Where's The Benefit?, a blog set up in response. Or personal stories on how these cuts are going to have huge and horrible impacts on people on another related blog, One Month Before Heartbreak.

Here is the page with the information about Monday,. I'm nervous about going on my own (outside! in a big city! with strangers!), but to me, after having been following these blogs and reading about the planned cuts for months, I think I have to. This is important.