gingerautie:

la-laurondo:

cripples-r-us-swag:

fullyarticulatedgoldskeleton:

The obvious conclusion that “many disabled people are rejected for benefits and end up dying without any basic income for food, shelter, and medicine”

Is not “it’s because of fakers. Fakers gaming the system are to blame”

It’s:

The people who are in charge of determining who’s disabled enough to need benefits are very, very bad at figuring out who’s disabled and who isn’t.

And from repeated reports from people who have gone through the process, and people who used to work in these capacities, for the most part, they don’t even bother to try to figure out who’s disabled or not. They fulfill a minimum quota and then reject everyone else indiscriminately. They use superficial details about the applicant’s appearance or speech. They use incredibly stupid and unscientific tests like making you recite “car, balloon, flag,” after a five minute conversation to determine if you have “real” memory issues, instead of devising tests that demonstrate how your memory issues would affect you in a work setting.

Blaming fakers isn’t doing anything for me. Stricter and undiscerning measures to keep fakers out is hurting disabled people, not fakers themselves. Punishing fakers is not making my life better. People who are actually trained to understand disability would make my life better.

I keep trying to explain to friends and family, the process of applying is like hearing the phrase “dance cripple DANCE!!” over and over and over..

I was rejected for “not being disabled enough” when I have cerebral palsy AND spina bifida. I had a doctors note that SAID THIS, too. But it wasn’t until I got my records from Shriner’s and sent in the damn big ass manila envelope that they accepted my application. 

I remember having to do an interview and they asked me why I couldn’t work so I explained to them why I can’t just go and get a job at McDonald’s or a restaurant like everyone else. The guy literally said to me, “Well, that isn’t really our problem…” 

And lots of these tests are really, really easy to get past if you’re a faker.

I mean, take the memory one. Someone who’s faking disability can just pretend not to remember the words. Someone who can remember the words and is honest about this, but has real memory difficulties gets put in the “faking disability” box, while the actual faker doesn’t. 

That’s literally all the tests do.