THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 2, 1995 TAG: 9504010176
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MIKE KNEPLER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 136 lines
To Becky Dugger, advocacy used to mean ``fighting for something and fighting against others.'' Now, it may mean doing less fighting and more connecting.
That, she says, includes looking for ways to work with other people usually not associated with her cause.
Dugger, a professional in the disabilities field, isn't alone in exploring broader - and sometimes softer - strategies for social and civic causes.
Recently, she was among 225 participants in a ``Beyond Advocacy'' conference sponsored by the Hope House Foundation, a Norfolk-based agency that helps people with mental retardation live independently in the community.
The gathering in Virginia Beach included human-services providers, educators and activists on issues concerning people with disabilities. But it also drew advocates for the rights of African Americans, homosexuals and women.
``One of the things we want to do is to stop segregating civil rights movements. We want to stop segregating disability movements,'' said C. Lynne Seagle of Hope House.
``We want to stop meeting separately and having the same conversations over and over again, and then wondering why we're not very effective.''
The conference was part of a national trend of ``diverse groups trying to find common ground,'' said Harry C. Boyte, a former community organizer who is now with the University of Minnesota's Project Public Life.
``It's partly out of the need these groups feel to be larger, to have more power than a single-interest group can achieve,'' Boyte said in a telephone interview.
Social-cause interest groups are among the most frustrated by the frenzy to reduce government.
It's not just money issues. There's an overload of interest groups asking government or society to fix their problems, Boyte said.
``When everybody is feeling like a client or consumer,'' he said, ``nobody is listening to anybody else. They're all wanting to be heard.''
Participants in the Virginia Beach conference said they found common ground when talking about living and working inside institutions and prisons, finding work or keeping jobs, demanding equal pay for equal work, seeking access to buildings, lobbying politicians.
Kate Gainer, disability affairs coordinator for Atlanta, underscored the importance of collaboration as she recalled her excitement over the civil rights gains of fellow blacks in the 1950s and 1960s.
``With that kind of history behind us,'' she said, ``I am continually amazed that I have to explain. . . to another black person what the disability movement is all about.''
In addition to activists in disability issues, speakers included Lt. j.g. Dirk Selland, one of the few openly gay officers in the Navy; John Artis, who was wrongly jailed on murder charges for 15 years and now works with inner-city Portsmouth kids; and Eldridge Cleaver, a former Black Panther and author of ``Soul on Ice.'' He's also the father of a child with Down syndrome, which, he admitted, made him aware of disability issues.
For Cleaver, the challenge was basic: ``Our task is to bring this out in a way that you don't have to wait until everybody has a personal experience with disabilities.''
He could have added: or experience being a member of a racial minority or facing sex discrimination.
Thus, while conferees were pleased about ``connecting'' with each other, some wondered whether the coalition was broad enough - or ever could be. After all, the strategy is not unique.
``There's always someone more powerful,'' Seagle said.
David Pitonyak, a Lynchburg consultant, advised ``telling personal stories'' through which people relate their experiences to social causes. He said spinal-cord cancer forced his mother into a nursing home where she feels powerless on many decisions.
Richard DiPeppe of the Endependence Center, an organization that promotes independent living for people with disabilities, urged learning how government decides its allocations. ``Follow the money,'' he advised. ``Ask who benefits.''
He also said that advocates often become too entwined with government bureaucrats. ``We go to them, we work with them, we go to their meetings, we sit on their advisory committees . . . and that does nothing but confirm their being. The best you're going to get is incremental change,'' DiPeppe said.
Others questioned the effectiveness of any lobbying.
Lucy Gwin, editor of the magazine Mouth: the Voice of Disability Rights, said her strategy is to expose ``family secrets'' in programs that are supposed to provide care.
She said health institutions are riddled with inhumane treatments, such as using shock collars and isolation rooms to control behavior, and paying subminimum wages to people with disabilities.
``Tear down the walls of euphemisms, and behind that wall will come flooding out the truths, and people will start seeing that people with disabilities are not being cared for in this country,'' Gwin said.
Cyndi Pitonyak, a teacher, recommended a softer approach. The disability-rights movement, she said, needs to be seen as an effort to create places where people of diverse backgrounds come together for common purposes, such as working or learning.
Kate Gainer of Atlanta suggested that people with disabilities can help change public attitudes by becoming more involved in community affairs that have no relationship to disability issues.
``The word `consumer' says a lot about what society expects about people with disabilities. It implies that we are users,'' said Gainer, who has cerebral palsy. ``Most people think we're one-dimensional, totally absorbed by our disabilities.
``I've always found society more willing to accept me the more that they see me living day to day. It's a matter of familiarity.''
But ``it's a two-fold process'' with society having to do its part, too, she said, noting: ``We have always been the ones to knock on doors.''
Professional service providers who attended the conference questioned whether their traditional roles might be overprotective of people with disabilities.
David Hingsburger, a Canadian expert on sexual issues, told how he and his colleagues tried to develop a strategy for getting a disability group home accepted by a hostile neighborhood.
There was no progress, he said, until a resident of the group home insisted on her idea: baking a pie for the neighborhood festival.
That gave Janis Alberti a new insight about group-home residents she works with in Florida.
``I know a woman who has been accepted as part of her church community,'' Alberti said. ``She just started going. They welcomed her as a member, and she participates in a singles group, the choir and various extracurricular activities.''
To see opportunities, some professionals say they, too, must get more involved in the lives of their communities.
``I need to participate more in being a citizen,'' said Seagle of Hope House. She plans to join her neighborhood civic league and attend forums on a greater variety of issues.
To Boyte of Project Public Life, the strategy plays on strengths - citizens as producers - instead of the weaker client or consumer roles based on needs or deficiencies.
``When citizen groups not only say what they ask for but what they produce, it's much more effective,'' he said. ``You get a much better hearing.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photos
Eldridge Cleaver, father of a child with Down syndrome
C. Lynne Seagle, Hope House
by CNB