‘You rude, overbearing disabled cow!!’
11 October, 2011
'You rude, overbearing disabled cow!!'
By Andrew McKenna
On the eve of the Maldon Folk Festival, a war of words and something far more serious has broken out. Bear with this, it’s good.
Robyn Perham is from Learmonth in western rural Victoria, and over the years she’s been a newspaper columnist and speaker at various events. She’s an active theatre-goer and an amateur actor. She works as a Director (Administration and Personnel) for MPMS P/L in Learmonth, and she’s also a bit of a folkie and gets around to folk festivals.
She visits the gigs on her own wheels – two big and two little, a wheelchair – not the easiest of wheels at some folkie venues, with their grass floors and step up dunnies and showers.
She approached the Maldon Folk Festival recently, and asked them, via email:
1.. why haven’t you embraced inclusivity and included access accommodation on your web site? If you need a hand with that, I’ll help.
2. where can I stay so we can come to the festival? I use a wheelchair. 1/4 of the population have disabilities – why aren’t you aware and addressing that need?
Fairly innocuous questions, you might assume. Nice touch that she even offered to do the work herself.
Festival management responded with:
For accommodation enquiries contact the Mount Alexander Shire Accommodation Booking Service (details on our website). All of our venues have disabled access, we have specific disabled toilet facilities at Mount Tarrangower Reserve (at a considerable cost to us), we have specific disabled parking at Mount Tarrangower Reserve.
~
OK, to the uninitiated this looks all right. But over the years the language around people with disabilities has shifted, and the response from MFF is lacking. No one’s in trouble here, it could be ironed out, and Ms Perham has even offered to do it.
Ms Perham pointed out the problems with the response, in a further email, reproduced in part below. The italics are Ms Perham’s additions to the MFF line:
Using the term “disabled” is akin to using the word “nigger” to a black man. Please take a look at the attachment I forwarded to learn how to address people with disabilities without causing offence?
All of our venues have disabled access (are accessible), we have specific disabled (broken?) toilet facilities at Mount Tarrangower (accessible toilets) Reserve (at a considerable cost to us well done), we have specific disabled parking (accessible parking) at Mount Tarrangower Reserve.
That’s all good news, and thank you for your feedback. As I’m sure I’ll be paying full price for my ticket, and you’ve obviously provided for my sector of the population (1/4), I’m looking forward to being able to equitably ACCESS AND ENJOY all that you have opened to the public there. Should be a terrific weekend.
~
All right, it’s a complex issue, and the average person may need a quarter of an hour or so to work this out. A bit longer to get the words to stick in your head. It can’t be that hard, though. We dropped the word ‘nigger’ because it was offensive.
It might take you a bit longer if you’re a festival organiser and you have to re-word some words on your website, even if a volunteer has offered to help.
Here, though, is the crunch. The clincher. The climax of the song.
The very ugly part:
MFF responded to Ms Perham with a two-sentence email:
‘And you have succeeded in causing great offence to me you rude, overbearing disabled cow!! Do not contact me again!’
Ms Perham has not received an apology and has referred the matter to the police and the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission.
Posted in Arts, Featured slide, Featured Story, Health, Local news, Social Justice
October 12th, 2011 at 11:46 am
I’m in deep shock at the comment by MFF to Ms. Perham that she is ‘a rude, overbearing disabled cow.’ I can’t really believe anyone in this day and age, particularly someone involved in the folk scene, could express such a crude, illiterate, ignorant, insulting comment to a disabled person. Bring back the ‘Year of the Disabled’ so that a new generation can be better educated to such issues.
October 12th, 2011 at 7:19 pm
While Gloria’s response is understandable, in the majority and rightfully so, there is one point she has still missed.
PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES are no longer called “disabled people”.
Best…
October 12th, 2011 at 8:30 pm
Google Attitude change, discrimination and human rights – And please find – A Way With Words.
Want to watch a good movie? Go to http://www.celebratingthejourney.org/talk-videos.asp/
and have a gander.
October 13th, 2011 at 9:09 am
This experience of Ms Perham in dealing with the Maldon Folk Festival organisers, I’m afraid to say, is not unique. Why do we see so few local artists on the program? Well in my case, I don’t ‘apply’ because of a general passive aggressive and unfriendly attitude I’ve experienced from the organisers. I know of other local musicians who find the same – that the ‘friendly’ spin of the MFF is not true of their dealings with us. So thanks to Ms. Perham for speaking up. And although I understand her circumstances are particular and more acute than the more general rudeness I speak of, I’d like to take this ‘emperor’s got no clothes’ moment to suggest that the Shire’s (and other sponsors) support of the MFF be conditional upon the MFF booking more local acts, and changing their rude behaviour. For a start, they could actually get out and attend some local shows, at least to see what’s available. Maybe that will take a change of leadership. (And I think I’ve just done myself out of a gig until that happens.)
Yours, Jan ‘Yarn’ Wositzky
October 13th, 2011 at 7:06 pm
Allow me to ask a question:-
Did the whole MFF committee sit down and write to Robyn, or was it just one bad egg?
Bottoms Up!
(It was an email from one person – Ed)
October 14th, 2011 at 4:01 pm
Going to a country music festival which does not showcase local musicians, and does not treat them with respect would not be on my agenda. Thanks Jan for letting us know how it feels from the inside how the MFF organisers treat their local acts. Would I go to Bendigo to buy seedlings raised in Mornington, to Mildura to eat grapes grown in the Yarra Valley?? I understand that music festivals think they need some famous acts to attract attention but . . . . if local musicians are treated with disdain or simply passed over then that sucks. I will re-schedule the Maldon weekend.
October 14th, 2011 at 5:09 pm
I would seriously suggest that unless an explanation and public apology is forthcoming from MFF organisers, that people give this festival a miss-I certainly will be.
October 14th, 2011 at 7:28 pm
Pippy,
As you can see from the comments, particularly from Jan Wositsky, one of our really popular local talents, it was not simply as case of ‘just one bad egg’.
October 15th, 2011 at 11:12 am
As a community, we are well aware that one does not smoke in public places or bother others with our second hand smoke. Today, we wouldn’t dream of defining someone by their colour, or use their religion as a slur. We’re readily aware of ageism and gay rights. Hell, we’re not even allowed to say fairy penguins or galas any more!
Why? Because those lobby groups have been mightily successful in educating us.
Our sector, however, although it covers 1/4 of the Oz populace -AND you have a good chance of joining our ranks if you live long enough – is still not cohesive enough to do the job.
You can help by quietly becoming a Disability Rights Defender.
Take notice of where is and where ISN’T disability accessible and ask a question or two. Raise the awareness of the need for all person access. Correct people when they use the term “disabled person” or “disabled” anything else. Its easy – its “People with…” and “Accessible…” Appreciated.
October 17th, 2011 at 2:35 pm
For those who aren’t sure of the subtle but important difference between saying he/she’s a disabled person and he/she’s a person with a disability, just imagine you have a disability that is obvious. Would you like someone to say about you ‘ he/she’s a disabled person’. Or would you rather ‘he/she has a disability.’ Its about whether you are defined by your disability, or by the person you are. This conscious change in language has been around for at least 20 years in the health /social services. It would be great to see it filter through the general community. And it gives everyone a greater repertoire of language to use when communicating with or discussing someone with a disability – instead of the old stereotyped language. It is easy and it does help to shape attitudes.
October 31st, 2011 at 10:33 am
I’m a little for both sides.
I commend Ms. Perham for her initial response by offering to help an I understand that disabled isn’t the correct term nowadays but I don’t think it deserves the response Ms. Perham rendered. I do believe she was rude. You can’t yell down someone’s throat because they don’t know any better. Address the problem and discuss it without dropping snide remarks. That goes for the both of them. A little school yard if you ask me.
November 1st, 2011 at 2:30 pm
Jan, are you the lady in the MFF office who greeted me, in my wheelchair, with the question: “Are you here to sign up for the Hill race?” and when I just looked at her, she went further by saying, “The best thing we could do with you is to take you up the top and just push you off!” Seems the rude attitude towards PWD’s in Maldon is wide-spread?
November 3rd, 2011 at 10:51 am
Has everyone lost the plot of the problem here?
Lynda has called Robyn a “disabled cow”. THAT is discrimination, what ever the circumstances it was said/written in does not matter.
Whether or not Robyn was considered to be being “rude” in her email is immaterial.
Lynda’s opinion of Robyn doesn’t matter a tot. BUT… she can NOT use Robyn’s disability as an insult. That is discrimination!
November 10th, 2011 at 4:12 pm
Bravely spoken Jan Wositzky. Do we get straight to the point here or what?
February 7th, 2012 at 12:20 pm
It is rather obvious to me that the ‘rude, overbearing able-bodied cow’ (Lynda?) should be banished from her paddock at Maldon OR the Folk Festival be blacklisted as a tribute to her. I am another wheelchair rider with similar thoughts and feelings to those of Robyn.