Re: Pacifica board member fought against disablity rights

[Marta Russell <ap888@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Unfortunately, the feedback from disability activists in New York
about WBAI isn't so great.  This is from an activist in Queens:

Robin
New York disability advocates have rarely had that experience and
have not received a warm reception to requests for WBAI to
acknowledge disability
rights issues as civil rights issues and to provide more coverage around
crucial issues such as Supreme Court decisions. They have not covered
protests in NY (caveat: I am not listening all the time) or
announced them in advance when so requested--even tho they do
that for a myriad
of other issues.  They did do an interview with a few of us about
ADA 2000
and what it meant (an intern who is now one of the banned
non-persons)--but would not make any announcements about
associated events.

Therefore, in response
I would  request that people writing Pacifica be specific about
the reason (opposition to ADA by Board members), about their role as
disability rights advocates, and anything that would encourage
BAI to more
seriously consider consistent and frequent coverage of our civil
rights issues.
--

Marta

Louis Proyect wrote:
>
> >From "THE STRUGGLE FOR THE SOUL OF LISTENER SPONSORED RADIO" by Elombe Brath
>
> (full article at www.savewbai.tao.ca)
>
> Ken Ford, PNB Vice-Chairman, Executive Committee term is supposed to expire
> this month and his board term actually was supposed to expire last June, is
> a lobbyist for the National Association of Home Builders, "the third
> largest trade association political action committee in the U.S. [which]
> raises more than $2 million each election cycle", according to Josie Byzek
> in an article entitled "Living in the Past"which appeared in the May/June
> 1998 edition of the Ragged Edge. Based in Washington, D.C., the NAHB boasts
> that it is expanding its headquarters, projecting the doubling of the
> building to nine stories, while covertly, as attorney Rosenberg points out,
> "is spending big bucks to prevent any legislation on the state level that
> might mandate any access features for the disabled."
>
> Indeed, as Byzek has written, the "NAHB has used its sources to fight the
> Americans with Disabilities Act, the Fair Housing Act and its access
> guidelines - and fair housing compliance in general...successfully
> [defeating in 1998] access legislation sought by disability organizations,
> including Independent Living Centers, in Virginia, Georgia and Illinois."
>
> Ford and his friends at the NAHB have persistently fought against such
> "basic access standards, universal design, or a 'visitable' single family
> home provides for at least one no-step entrance, wider doorways and
> passageways through ground floor rooms so as to accommodate a wheelchair
> user, an accessible bathroom at ground level with bathroom walls that would
> support grab bars. Universal design permits all people, including people
> with disabilities, to enter and function. It permits people to age in
> place, live independently and avoid institutionalization."
>
> Having a sense of Mr. Ford and his associate's work-related past practice,
> it is both understandable and tremendously important to remember that the
> question of NAHB's disregard for the rights of the disabled having access
> to his or her domain, or the rights of all tenants to decent and affordable
> housing, would indeed be a target of a noncommercial radio station like
> WBAI - and vice versa.
>
> More directly to our concern about Ford's relation to WBAI is the fact that
> he was reported in the New York Times to having complained that WBAI
> loyalists are "mired in the 1960s", adding whose opinions are currently
> "not only insignificant but irrelevant" in today's media market. Not so
> insignificant but extremely relevant to us is that Ford's opinion seems to
> be based more on wishful thinking than on historical fact.
>
> Louis Proyect
> Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org

--
Marta Russell
author, Los Angeles, CA
http://disweb.org/
Beyond Ramps: Disability at the End of the Social Contract
http://www.commoncouragepress.com/russell_ramps.html