Email #11

Dear Harriet

I've told you a bit about my eldest son now, so you know that he has problems with rage meltdowns. Today he was prevoked on the way home from school and ended up retaliating.  As much as I try to explain that this is not how he should react he cannot help but act out on his frustrations when he feels intimidated or frightened and this is what happened today.

This isnt the first time he has been targeted for abuse because he is different or because others get "kicks" out of seeing how he will react to their provokation.  Im sad to say it probably wont be the last.  And he isnt the only person to experience this or worse on a daily basis.

Hate crimes against the disabled are on the increase.  Frances Ryan, writing for the Guardian summed it up best:

In a culture that dehumanises disabled people by portraying them as benefit fraudsters, liars and leeches, it’s little wonder they are targets of abuse" (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/10/lee-irving-murder-disability-hate-crime-increase)

The rise is a stagering 213% since 2007.

And it is, as Frances Ryan says, no small wonder that this is the increase when the incumbent Government have set out to demonise this vulnerable group of society.  The media has become a tool of the state with their culture of "poverty porn programming" that sends the message to the rest of society that the majority of claimants are simply fat lazy scroungers who are faking their illnesses.  And if you have an invisible disability like  ASD then it is even more likely you are faking.

From this comes the suggestion that depression is a made up illness, or to paraphrase Katie Hopkins (the less said about her the better) the "Holy Grail" for the benefit claimant.  Mental health issues are complex and should not be viewed with scorn.

But so many do.  And thats why you end up in a society where someone working for a rail company thinks nothing of stating over a tanoy that someone who felt suicide was their only option had decided they "couldnt be bothered to live" anymore.

This disgusts me.  That my children, who I raise to be kind, considerate, compassionate and polite, are growing up in a society who thinks it is acceptable to attack the disabled, to sit in judgement over claimants and to have such little regard for its fellow man that it lacks compassion when someone can no longer cope with the challenges they face.

This should disgust anyone but it should certainly disgust anyone who is in any way a part of the Labour party.  The bottom line is that whether your beliefs are in the center ground or more over to the left, the one thing that should unite people in the Labour party is compassion for other people.

Labour needs to show compassion.  Labour needs to speak up and speak out for people who are attacked or abused in any way for being different.  But above all Labour needs to speak up and speak out against the media culture that encourages this.  And Labour MUST stop repeating the same rhetoric against vulnerable people.

This is overwhelmingly the feeling amongst the "grassroots" members of the Labour party and Labour supporters.  This is why Labour needs to return to the socialism that it was founded upon, that shows compassion not judgement.  This is what the members want.

You promised to listen so please listen,

Constituent, Labour Party member, Union member, sleep deprived carer, concerned citizen, self employed mother, mother of a teenager with ASD, socialist, environmentalist, Disabled Rights supporter, Jeremy Corbyn supporter, mother feeding her children with nectar points, defender of the vulnerable