When Anna Berry hosted the public conference Disability Arts: Slaughtering the Sacred Cows, she set out to kill the sense that we all have to think the same - "we have to accept that our world view is simply that: ours".
... I have always been someone who has fought for social justice. I want to see diversity, I want to see equality of opportunity. I understand that if we don’t actively challenge unconscious biases, no matter how well-meaning, we end up with a homogenous and unrepresentative workplace. I’m literally part of this DASH programme about trying to represent disabled people more in the arts. I’ve curated a whole show to advocate for it!
So, I get it. The left has a long and inglorious track record of being crap at representing anybody but straight white blokes, without the vigorous lobbying of identity groups. So, we do need some kind of identity politics, whereby people who are getting a raw deal can band together and campaign for a better one. But there has to be some place between that and where we find ourselves now – suffocated by a kind of identity politics on steroids, which to me is the bastard lovechild of the original ‘Political is Personal’ with the individualism of pure Thatcherism. It is the neoliberal wet dream.
The left I joined as a young person feels a long way away from this hard granular sectarian place, most notably in its extreme lack of kindness... Keep reading on Disability Arts Online
... I have always been someone who has fought for social justice. I want to see diversity, I want to see equality of opportunity. I understand that if we don’t actively challenge unconscious biases, no matter how well-meaning, we end up with a homogenous and unrepresentative workplace. I’m literally part of this DASH programme about trying to represent disabled people more in the arts. I’ve curated a whole show to advocate for it!
So, I get it. The left has a long and inglorious track record of being crap at representing anybody but straight white blokes, without the vigorous lobbying of identity groups. So, we do need some kind of identity politics, whereby people who are getting a raw deal can band together and campaign for a better one. But there has to be some place between that and where we find ourselves now – suffocated by a kind of identity politics on steroids, which to me is the bastard lovechild of the original ‘Political is Personal’ with the individualism of pure Thatcherism. It is the neoliberal wet dream.
The left I joined as a young person feels a long way away from this hard granular sectarian place, most notably in its extreme lack of kindness... Keep reading on Disability Arts Online