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Today the membership of @PWDAustralia vote on whether to remove two board members.
How we got to this position is absolutely mind-blowing and it will make a great screenplay.
This is my understanding of events
Thread
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How we got to this position is absolutely mind-blowing and it will make a great screenplay.
This is my understanding of events
Thread
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It all started with a badly constructed Facebook post by @MadFckingWitch es.
The circumstances of Ann Marie Smith's shocking death was (and still is) very fresh in the mind of the Australian disabled community.
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The circumstances of Ann Marie Smith's shocking death was (and still is) very fresh in the mind of the Australian disabled community.
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MFW had written a FB post about Ann Marie's death. 2 days later they wrote another post that tried to draw together the death of Ann Marie and some email bullying that disabled author @carlyfindlay had received.
Not a good move
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Not a good move
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Even Carly said she wished it had not happened.
The disabled community were very upset and word went around the internet, and outraged disabled people told MFW just what they thought of the post.
MFW chose rather than to list and apologise to community - to block and delete
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The disabled community were very upset and word went around the internet, and outraged disabled people told MFW just what they thought of the post.
MFW chose rather than to list and apologise to community - to block and delete
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And block and delete they did. Many many times.
MFW also took umbrage to posts made by @criprights, a disability activist you have probably seen on @ABCthedrum.
This is where it gets murky.
@criprights and @carlyfindlay have very different activism methods
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MFW also took umbrage to posts made by @criprights, a disability activist you have probably seen on @ABCthedrum.
This is where it gets murky.
@criprights and @carlyfindlay have very different activism methods
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Sam ( @criprights) has said she doesn't particularly like Carly's activism methods . That's cool we are all allowed not to like people and things.
But then word gets back to Sam that Carly is suddenly contacting people in private and warning them off Sam
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But then word gets back to Sam that Carly is suddenly contacting people in private and warning them off Sam
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Oh we have to make mention that Sam had a period of mental illness early in the year and was on leave-of-absence from the PWDA board for health reasons and so was not logging into work emails. As you do, when you are on sick leave (or should do)
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Anyway after the Ann Marie/Carly Findlay bruhaha MFW decides that Sam and @crippleologist (Kelly Cox) deserve to be punished for raising a rabble and writes up a bunch of complaints to PWDA
The complaints do not match the list of claims MFW publicly made mind you
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The complaints do not match the list of claims MFW publicly made mind you
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Anywayyy at this stage we need to introduce you to another player who entered the fray. One Sarah Langston.
Humans like to look for connections and speculation has been made to whether Sarah is Carly's puppet or MFW's - but let's assume lone wolf for the moment.
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Humans like to look for connections and speculation has been made to whether Sarah is Carly's puppet or MFW's - but let's assume lone wolf for the moment.
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Sarah is a disabled mother of a disabled child. Sarah was also so affronted by Sam's online behaviour that she completely changed from gushing praise in the one comment interaction they had - to publicly soliciting for people's negative interactions with Sam for a spreadsheet
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Sarah stirs the anti-Sam crowd into a pitchforking mob. Every word that Sam has ever written publicly is scrutinised and attributed to anti-Carly sentiment. Even a post about leadership styles that mentions Hitler was, in Sarah's mind, an attack on Carly
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Meanwhile back at PWDA some unrelated (oh god why did I start this I am so tired) issues have been rolled into the complaints - as there's more to this that the board is making public it is unclear what the eff is going on
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Sam and Kelly's very curtailed (1000 word maximum?) responses to the extraordinary general meeting (EGM) indicate all was above board and very business as usual for board member behaviour.
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Apart from the distracting Sarah/Carly/MFW drama, the more important thing is in my mind the incredible ableism and classism of PWDA
The whole process of even understanding what the voting is about is pegged at a high level of literacy and cognition.
Shame PWDA shame
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The whole process of even understanding what the voting is about is pegged at a high level of literacy and cognition.
Shame PWDA shame
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OK so what needs to be known (where are the journalists? Did Carly warn them off this too?)
- Why did the PWDA think some complaints from a Facebook group worthy of spending what must be thousands of dollars to remove two board members who were voted in by members of PWDA
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- Why did the PWDA think some complaints from a Facebook group worthy of spending what must be thousands of dollars to remove two board members who were voted in by members of PWDA
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- Why is MFW going after the peak body for disabled people in Australia
- What connection does Sarah Langston, Carly Findlay and MFW have with each other
- Why do they believe it's OK to remove member-elected effective disability activists from a peak body that represents us?
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- What connection does Sarah Langston, Carly Findlay and MFW have with each other
- Why do they believe it's OK to remove member-elected effective disability activists from a peak body that represents us?
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There were other incidental issues that also happened along the way - like spurious claims of racism - but I will leave them be as they further muddy the waters.
This is a terrible waste of disabled people's time and money.
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This is a terrible waste of disabled people's time and money.
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