Sukhjeen Kaur is the Founder/Director of Chronically Brown, an organisation that works towards tackling the stigma towards disabled people in the South Asian community. Recently she came across a study from the University of Surrey that identified that South Asians were 4 times more likely than white-British people to live with a physical disability.
In an exclusive chat with Asian Voice, she spoke about disability within the South Asian community.
Q - Please briefly tell us about the work that Chronically Brown does.
We do many things to work towards tackling the stigma of disability in the South Asian community including; workshops teaching South Asians about disability, starting the #desiabled campaign and creating discussion groups for disabled South Asians. We also have a new ambassador scheme to further the representation of disabled South Asians.
Q - What is the major point of concern among South Asians who have any kind of disabilities?
South Asians are extremely concerned with reputation, the family reputation must be upheld which means many disabled South Asians have to hide their disabilities. This creates exclusion for disabled South Asians and also increases the likelihood of internalised ableism. The lack of discussion on disabilities has further widened the gap between South Asians and disabled South Asians that we can no longer communicate to each other effectively. We hope to close this gap with our work
Q - What is the level of acceptance and help towards disabled people within the brown community?
The acceptance and help towards disabled people from South Asians are little to none. Unless there is first-hand experience of disability from South Asia, there is no understanding of the challenges disabled people face. This lack of understanding contributes to the unhelpful attitudes of South Asians.
Q - How challenging was the pandemic and especially the lockdown for disabled people?
The pandemic created multiple issues for disabled people, each individual to the disabled person and the conditions they live with. On this International Day of Persons with Disabilities (3rd December), the theme was fighting for rights in the post-Covid era which required us to evaluate what needs were not met during the lockdowns. We concluded that there was the following; Little to no access to health professionals, discrimination to those Hard of Hearing or Deaf due to face masks, discrimination to those who were unable to wear masks/social distance due to their disabilities which included many non-disabled people taking advantage of these accommodations, being socially isolated from the world due to shielding, shops using disabled parking for social distancing measures, multiple accessible entrances closed off and little to no support when leaving lockdown/shielding.
Q - What kind of reforms and help do we need from both the community and the government to help organisations like yours?
The community needs to approach conversations like these with openness and understanding alongside the willingness to listen and learn from those experiencing these injustices every day. We would also benefit from the government understanding the importance of intersectionality in social justice and how vital our work is to not only disabled South Asians but South Asians who do not understand disability. We feel this work is especially important when studies have shown that physical disability is four times more likely in our community.
Q - What according to you is the right time/phase for people to address and identify disability and what do you think must be the immediate steps that must be followed?
We believe if you are coming to terms with your own disability, there is no time frame on this. Accepting a disability can be difficult and we encourage you to be gentle with yourself during this process. As well as this, the process for accepting can be different for everyone and can differ due to the condition but some general tips would be to talk to those closest to you, look for therapy regarding this and reach out to online platforms like ourselves.
Q - As Britain continues to have news and incidents of racism in the BAME community at every level and in most sectors, do you think brown people with disabilities are given equal treatment as compared to their white counterparts?
The simple answer is no. There are many reasons for this and the biggest being intersectionality. Being minoritised in multiple identities can put us at more risk of being discriminated against. The disabled community, in particular, has not recognised this extra discrimination we have faced due to being part of multiple communities. Alongside this, the white privilege in the disabled community has not been properly addressed as we continue seeing white faces when discussing disability.
