THE CITRUS AFFAIR DEBATE

trAce was recently invited to host an Online Writing Competition with a difference - it is open to disabled people only. Our immediate response was to ask, "But how do we know the entrants are bona fide disabled, and what does ‘disabled’ mean anyway?" After all, one of the reasons many of us enjoy working in cyberspace is because we believe it goes some way towards transcending the kind of definition which is driven by our physical existence. We feel it gives us a chance to meet others on our own terms and without attracting prejudice or discrimination. We thought about the project long and hard, and in the end we decided to host it. But we’d like to hear your views. Check out The Citrus Affair and let us know what you think.

Silvie at NDAF replied:
A writing competition open to disabled people only?

There have been complaints about this restriction. May we ask these people: would you also raise your voices in anger if this was a competition for "women only", for "children only" or for "black people only"?"

Let's have a look at the background:
The idea for this project and with it the main responsibility including rules and regulations came from the National Disability Arts Forum.

Read: "Disability Arts".
Not "Arts and Disability".

Disabled people themselves have coined this term to identify the arts produced by disabled people that fill a yawning void - the arts that are informed by the experience of disability and which validate this experience.

Disability Arts is inextricably linked with the wider political and social movement of disabled people and as such can be broadly identified as art that is ultimately for change - change in the untenable way disabled people are treated by society.

The first sentence of NDAF's mission statement says that it is our objective "to create equality of opportunity for disabled people in all aspects of the arts". We are trying to create opportunities within all sectors of the arts world for disabled artists whose prime concern is not a longing for assimilation into mainstream arts, but who want to explore their own experience and find an audience that is receptive and able to appreciate what they are doing.

Luckily enough there are now mainstream arts organisations like trAce who have, not just on paper, real respect for cultural diversity and don't try to squeeze minorities into places they think would be right for them.

There are plenty of other arts (and disability) organisations that disabled and nondisabled people can join if they feel disability arts is not for them. The same applies to competitions they can take part in.

Email trace@ntu.ac.uk with your comments. We'll put them online - so you can take this chance to air your views.

13 October 1999
From: Alan Sondheim
I'm not sure why there should be a debate; I feel very strongly that disability is not well understood in this country (United States) and probably not all that well in the UK. On the other hand, separatist sites can also create a sense of alienation and for the fully-abled the perception of self-ghettoization. But it does focus attention on the issue, and that's critical. I'm also thinking of the disabilities of things like CFS, fibro-myalgia, depression, and all those areas that don't have medically well-defined symptoms, i.e. syndromic... Alan

15 October 1999
From: veedma
Fresh funny good and and pulpy fiction. More please.

16 October 1999
From: Margot
What have disabled people got that others want so badly?? .... a chance to enter a competition... and why does everyone else want a share? .....because the prize is a quarter of a million? No, because others feel excluded..... tough... try being excluded from everything everyday and in pain on top of it then, you can shout... meanwhile get your own competition together and stop whinging.....

23 October 1999
From: ginny hill
My first thought was, "Why a separate competition? It's yet another form of discrimination." But having read the first four chapters, I don't think anyone who isn't disabled would dare write like that! It's great fun. Looking forward to reading the next installments.

28 October 1999
From: iandonaghue
I think the citrus affair is a very worthy and much needed project. I suffer from a psychotic mental illness. Not only have I got to cope with my illness, but also the missconceptions, ignorance, stigma and alienation that comes with something which usually is a simple chemical imbalance, like a blood disorder. People with a blood disorder are not discriminated against, suffer abuse, have no human rights under the Mental health Act, have poor healthcare and social care, lose friends, tortured by electocution, forced to take toxic medication with unpleasent side effects, become osteracised, become marginalised in society.

Anything that disabled people/mentally ill, have the opportunity to, such as a internet writing competition or any thing else that is restricted solely to them is a great thing. It makes a change from all the myriad of problems and restrictions that disabled people have in there lifes.

Therapeuticly, creative writing is a great thing for mentally ill people.

Personally I feel the Internet is a great place for mentally ill people also. Schizophrenics, Manic Depressives, etc are usually intelligent, interesting, articulate people. But because of their bouts of illness, periods in hospital, being sectioned, answering back at voices, breakdowns, etc, many have little or no friends, no job, are isolated and frequently attempt and succeed in comitting suicide. On the Internet mentally ill people and people with physical disabilities are on a even playing field. Mentally ill people can talk to people on the other side of the world, who have no predudice, missconceptions or fear them, unlike the people in the home town of the mentally ill person.

Not everyone is predudiced against mentally ill people. But in my opinion and experience, the majority of people in the UK are , and that needs to change.

I could probably go on for days about the inequalities and societal problems and missconceptions surrounding mental illness, but I won't. Keep up the good work trAce.

In The Lexikon Newsletter, Issue 28
Frances Anderson writes:

Early this year, Trace Online Writing Community were asked by the National Disability Arts Forum, (NDAF) to host an online writing competition. Nothing could be wrong with that, surely. Then came the bombshell, it is only open to disabled writers. As a disabled person myself, (well, blind actually), I find this utterly distasteful. We want to move forward for God sake, not backwards! 'Integrate, integrate,' seems to be the way of the future, but here's a competition which discourages such a move.

Disabled, (whatever that means) people want equal rights like everyone else and have full and equal access to all aspects of culture and media.

Trace said: "One of the reasons many of us enjoy working in cyberspace is because we believe it goes some way towards transcending the kind of definition which is driven by our physical existence. We feel it gives us a chance to meet others on our own terms and without attracting prejudice or discrimination. We thought about the project long and hard, and in the end we decided to host it. But we'd like to hear your views."

While I respect the work of NDAf, I believe they should have given more thought to the competition and left it open to all. Besides, how do we know the entrants are disabled?

1 November 1999
From: Danny Start, North West Disability Arts Forum

There is a plethora (yes, I do know what it means!) of writing competitions and opportunities out there - so I am bemused, not to say amused, by the kerfuffle over the Citrus Affair being for Disabled writers only. Could it be that the prospect of getting is print is the only reason such criticism has reared it's green-eyed head? To be published:the Holy Grail of all writers. Do some writers see this as an outlet for their, as yet, unrecognised talent? And if so, why haven't they been recognised YET? Talent will out. It's just a pity that, under the banner of integration, certain scribes seek to undermine a project that (in my eyes) seeks to bring Disabled artists in from the cold. Sad, eh?

DANNY START
NORTH WEST DISABILITY ARTS FORUM