IDENTITY: FILL IN THIS BLANK

I keep coming back to this issue of self definition. In an earlier post of my own I questioned the label of disability and wondered if I qualified and what that would mean. Elizabeth at Screw Bronze contemplates the same issue and wonders where she fits into the "disability world". In my last post I ruminated about names and what they mean to us and how much of our self-definition is tied up in the oldest label we, as individuals, have. In her blog, Wheelchair Dancer writes about fitness and our views of what being fit is both for able bodied and disabled people; read the comments left to her post, I found them very interesting.

Here in Toronto they are going ahead with the creation of the province's (and I think the country's) first "Afrocentric" school. This is a complex issue and I have no desire to really delve into the details of whether this concept is going to be effective in addressing the issue of the high drop-out rate of black students in the city. Still, Collette works for this board, she has worked with kids for over twenty years, so obviously this is an issue that floats around this house quite often. What interests me is the viewpoint expressed by some of the people behind this endeavour, that too many black youth do not have a strong sense of their identity, of their heritage, that they are lost in a society that does not reflect them. I can't speak personally to this issue; I have never really been a part of a racial minority (though I remember when living in Quebec, before my language skills improved of often feeling "left out" even when I knew it was not intentional, the people around me did not share my language and I did not share theirs, it was a linguistic impasse) so I can't really say if these feelings are legitimate.

I have, however, felt like a minority in my life, like an outsider. I grew up in a large single parent family and we were poor. I mean, at some points, really poor. When we lived in Odessa Ontario I remember going with my mother to some neighbour's water pump, filling a bucket up, and carrying it back to our house. I remember, later, in Kingston, living in a house when we could not afford heat. Ma and I once again were fetching back a pail (this time filled with furnace oil) and also huddling under blankets with my sibs because we had no oil at all. As a kid in school I wore hand me downs or clothes donated by the Children's Aid Society. I vividly recall getting a coat for Christmas from some charity that was a girl's coat; wearing that to school was like a badge of my poverty and it left no doubt that I belonged to a different social strata from other kids, that I was an outsider.

As time went on, the financial lode lessened a little (other sibs got older and moved out so it meant there was a bit more money to spread around) but the division that money created between myself and others never went away. School trips, school supplies, clothing ... I always lagged behind everyone else; as I got older I could rationalize this, I knew my mother was doing all she could and I could feel good about it but my badge was often recognized by others and pointed out to me, so there was no escaping it. So that was my label: The Poor Kid. I could see everyone else's label as well: The Gay Kid, The Fat Kid, The Black Kid, The Weak Kid, The Stupid Kid ... Where do these labels come from? Who is handing out the badges?

In school, there is no doubt that kids labels to other kids. Kids crave acceptance and it seems the easiest way to achieve that, is to apply categories .. I'm a jock, you're a nerd, she's a Barbie, he's a Goth, she's black, he's Muslim .... Some of these labels are ones we carry from day one, from our birth, from our families and backgrounds. You are black (or Jewish, or Muslim, or Native or Italian, or Irish ...) that's it, its what you are but that only seems to become important when you are among others who are not. In reading about the Afrocentric school I came across a story by a now mature black woman who, as a recently immigrated child, went to her new Toronto school and found herself surrounded by white faces; she wrote about being "frightened" in this situation. Where did this fear come from? From the white kids? From herself? From the uniqueness of the situation; coming from a place where everyone was the same, where everyone is like you, to a world where you are now different from those around you.

These labels of race and religion and culture, these badges we are born with, are given to us by our history, our geographical location, by our parents and our ancestry. And they are often reinforced by the same. Toronto has a Catholic school board and it has private schools for Jews and Muslims and now a public school for Afro Canadians ... so people learn about their labels, they are clearly encouraged to wear their badge for all the world to see. You could call this cultural pride, you could also call this self imposed segregation. In designing an Afrocentric school, are you reinforcing a culture, or are you just separating yourself?

Honestly, these issues of culture and race and religion, though important, do not hold a personal interest for me. What I think more about is the issue of self-labelling, of self actualization I guess. Who are we? How do we view ourselves? When I questioned whether I was disabled it was because I don't see myself that way but do others. And if so, does this exterior viewpoint alter my own personal reality. The woman who came here as a child from the West Indies may never have thought of herself as black until she was surrounded by white people, then it became an issue.

The TD Bank are running a couple of TV spots that have me thinking. The ads feature a couple of old timers, sitting outside the bank, bemoaning the fact that everything has become too convenient and how banks never catered to our needs before; whatever. What interests me about these ads is the background. There are a couple versions of the spot and in each of them, as the old dudes are bitching, we see a woman in a wheelchair whizzing by. Different woman in each ad. What I found interesting was, when we see a close up of the bank, there is no ramp ... there is clearly a steep concrete step. So now we know why the women are zipping past the bank .. they can't get inside it.

So, the woman in the wheelchair may want to label herself as "just a woman" but every time she hits that stair or that tiny bathroom, she is given back the label of "woman in a wheelchair" or "disabled". The black kid in school may want to be "the kid in school" but then he is given the label of "Afro Canadian" or "student of the black school" and he becomes something else.

I am a guy, into my fifth decade, married for 25 years, owner of my own tiny business, never in any serious trouble with the law ... but I have long hair, a beard, ear ring and a tattoo. I really don't think much about these attributes. I've had the hair most of my life (think about the name of the blog, let the light bulb come on [I have a hairy dog too]) and the ear ring and tatt have been around for a while too. And it surprises me when they get a reaction, both from individuals and institutions. I had a problem with my bank card a few years back, it got eaten by the machine or something so I went to a local branch of the Royal Bank up in Vaughn where I was working at the time. It was summer, edit suites are hot, so I was wearing shorts and a tank top and the people at that branch were treating me as if they had just seen me on America's Most Wanted. I have been a customer of the Royal Bank for over 30 years, I've paid off two student loans with them but because of my physical appearance I was given a label: Scruffy Dude Not To Be Trusted. Now, I often describe myself as an old hippie, but I never associated that label with something negative; my label conflicted with their badge.

To be human is to have an identity. As we go on, that identity morphs, evolves, changes. Very often there is a conflict between our own sense of identity, and the labels that others places upon us. It gets tricky when you are trying to figure out who you are, you may want a label, to sort of fix it in your own mind; but our inner monologues may be written in a language that others cannot easily read. So our label is misinterpreted and when we look down and see all the various labels we wear we often see a bunch we never put there ourselves. That is our challenge, identifying the labels, no matter from whence they came, polishing them, changing them, positioning them so the "right" ones are more prominently displayed.

For me, what I coming to see, is that what we really need is some readily available blank labels, placed high, for all to see. Have your pen handy, to scribble in the definition that suits you at the moment but understand that others have access to your labels as well; so carry a spare Sharpie and don't be afraid to lend it out. Let them scribble, read their label, try to understand what it means.

Just make sure yours is written in a bolder hand.

AM I DISABLED?

A simple question isn't it? A yes/no kind of deal. You are, or you are not disabled.

I've been thinking of this lately. National Disabled Blogging Day has come and gone and while I had no intention of participating it got me to thinking. Also, reading blogs like and Screw Bronze and The Mouth On Wheels have had me pondering this question. But note, the question is not "what is being disabled" it is "am I disabled" Yes, there is a personal component here.

Several years ago I did something stupid. I fell sixteen feet down from a tree and landed directly on my left ankle. Crack. Ouch. Mutherfucker. Yeh, like that. I shattered basically all the bones in my ankle. Shattered, not broke. Not a break but pieces, lots of little pieces. So this means that I now have two, eight inch steel plates in the ankle, bound together buy seven screws and eight pins ... or it may be eight pins and seven screws. Or it could be paper clips and baling wire, it really doesn't matter. Its metal. Lots of steel, so much so that ankle is noticeably thicker than the other ... damn, there goes my shot at being a world famous ...er .. um. .. sock model (or something). So it was surgery, a couple days in the hospital, three months in a non weight bearing cast and a couple months of physio.

So where does that leave me? Well, I am self employed. At the time I was still working exclusively for Videopulse Studios but I did not draw a salary, I was paid per project on a freelance basis. Which means no health care whatsoever. Now, Collette works for the Toronto Board of Ed and I am covered under her policy. Still, any day lost work meant no money for me. All the time in that cast I could not drive and although I came to be pretty proficient with the crutches, I certainly was limited. Here's the good part. I'm a video editor. I work with computers. I work on my bum. We brought the edit suite to the house and I was working within a couple of days. Lucky I do the job I do; if I was still cooking or in some other occupation I would not be able to work. If I was a freelance camerman I would have been screwed.

Time went on, the cast(s) came off, physio terrorism was endured. Where am I now? Am I abled, disabled? I can walk; sometimes I have a limp and the walking is limited. Most times you would notice nothing. If I'm wearing sandals you can see the scars and the distorted ankle but just walking around, I am fine. I can walk for long distances on pavement or other firm surfaces; Hayley and I still do our two hour walks on the weekends. I can go and down stairs. If the stairs are steep I would need a rail but no big issue. Walking long long distances on soft surfaces is an issue; I went golfing with my brother in law (something I've never done before) and my ankle was wrecked halfway thru. Wrecked. Swollen, very painful and I was just not feeling good. My balance is shot. I was never a big athlete but I always had a great sense of balance; I did gymnastics as a kid and a little bit of fencing. I taught myself to skate at age 40 and while the Olympics would never call me, I could pass. Skating is down now, both for the balance and for the fact that the ankle is still weak, no matter what I do. Running is out. I was a jogger for a period of my life and although I had fallen out of that habit, it is never coming back. I don't run, I basically do a fast hobble. Its not pretty, turn away.

So, am I disabled? I can't do all the things I used to do. I am certainly limited in some ways. But I function and I function nicely. Again, I sit on bum for a living so that has not changed. The amount of camera work I do is not affected; I could never be a full time camera op anyways because of a bad back. So, professionally, it really has not affected me. I can drive now, no issues, get on subways, buses etc. I am quite mobile. I could probably ride a bike but that is another thing I stopped doing in this city. So, limited, yes; disabled?

Well, here we go, this is what we come down to: How do we define disability. Governments have their definitions, insurance companies do, medical communities do. Often, it seems, these definitions are self serving and self defining and may have little to do with any individual. As I began asking this question I started to realize that I had my own definition of disability: Limitation. Scroll up (I'll wait) its right there. I may not feel disabled because I don't feel "limited". I think a lot of society shares this definition; he can't walk, she can't see, they can't hear ... they "can't" do things and this makes them limited. We look at what people "can't" instead of what people "can."

He can't walk but if we give him a wheelchair, he is mobile. She can't see but if we give her a dog and braille and audio transcribing technology, she can be mobile and read and use a computer. They can't hear but if we teach the sign language they can communicate. Are they limited? Sure, in some ways, no doubt. Are they able? Part of my defining myself was if I could work, well I could with no adaptation; what if I had those other jobs? Could I find a way to cook, to be a full time camera op? Probably. Maybe I would need some assistance, but I could do it.

If can be productive but need some form of assistance are you limited? Are you able? I am a work oriented guy so if you can work or pursue your passion, no matter how, you are able. But what of other disabilities like chronic pain or respiratory issues or neurological disorders; there are ways to aid these situations but some, unfortunately, are still limited. Are they disabled? They may be limited but with help, with aid, with medicine, with support .. almost anyone can be able.

What do we do about that? People battle with insurance companies (companies they pay, thank you very much) to get the tools they need, like the right kind of wheelchair or Dragon Speak, tools that would clearly make them more able. People fight with our governments to provide them with the healthcare, the medicine, the homecare (again, we are paying for this) that could change their lives and lift some of their limitations.

Too often "disabled" people struggle to get the aid they need to make them more "able". For too many people I know there is no magic bullet but there is always something that can be done to make some kind of change, and even a small change, some small measure of relief can affect a life in a meaningful way. Just being pain free for a period of time can turn a brain back on and return some one's energy. They could become more able; denying them this certainly disables them. Not considering the needs of people, the needs of all people, all the needs of all people maybe a disability of our society.

So, here we are, back to the question of the moment. Am I, Victor Kellar, disabled? Fuck no. I am able. I have my spouse, my dog, my family, my job, my passions. Am I limited? Hell yes. But everyone is, to some degree or another. The question should be Am I disabled, the question should be Am I able? Able to live, to love, to work, to feel, to think. That is what I need to look at, and it is what society needs to look at. Don't think about what is disabled. Think about what we are able to do, and how we go about that.