Wednesday 10 April 2024

Day 23 - Palmerston North - Take Back Control

Take Back Control. 

Speech given by Kylee Maloney at the Palmerston North Community Led Forum Monday, 6th April 2024

Kylee Maloney

027 412 6733 silvercords@icloud.com

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s customary to say how delighted one is to be here, but that would be being disingenuous; I’m not delighted. Every fibre of my being wants to be in my quiet, comfortable home — preferably inside my own head where I have built a safe place over which no one but me has dominion or control. But I can’t stay in my safe place because it’s control about which I must speak: the control which humans can exact over one another. 

Where I grew up, every aspect of our lives was under someone’s control: when we rose and retired, what we wore, when and what we ate. Even when choices were presented they were carefully controlled. You could have peanut butter, marmite, golden syrup or honey on your toast (no plain butter allowed); but don’t choose the same one too often else that choice will be taken from you. Even down to bodily functions: you can’t be allowed to go to school until you have done number twos. “Please can someone check my duty.” 

Do everything without question or complaint or be branded a troublemaker — forced to comply by any and all physical, psychological and emotional means necessary including force feeding, physical restraint, medical neglect, psychological abuse and physical isolation.

If you think those days are past, if you think I’m being overly-dramatic, if you think this is irrelevant, consider this. The faces may have changed but the minds, the attitudes, the bigotry behind them, have not. The institutions have mostly closed, but the kind of people who once assured desperate parents that ‘experts’ could take better care of their defective offspring than they could, who herded those offspring into cages of compliance and cruelty and who then had the gall to parade themselves as pillars of their communities are still around. They’re currently in power. As I said, they wear different faces, they use different tools and they’re forced to be a bit more creative now, but they still seek to exercise the kind of control over our lives which they themselves would neither countenance nor tolerate. 

Why? Because they can — because they have built a society in which our divergent brains, senses and bodies have to work harder to survive, because it suits them that we are made small, insignificant, vulnerable. They foolishly believe that by doing this we are rendered helpless, less able, less human. 

And if you still aren’t convinced? Remember 18 March? Until that time we had been asked to trust, just as thousands of parents had been asked to trust that their children would be cared for. We were reassured that a brighter day was coming, just as those same parents were reassured that they were doing the right thing — no, the best thing — for their children and families. Then we were deliberately failed — just as those parents, their children and families were failed. Oh, you can talk of faulty ministries, blown budgets and suspect strategies; you can share all the feedback you wish but you will never convince me that this was an honest mistake made by innocent ignoramuses who failed to anticipate the impact of their decisions. This was a well-planned and deliberate move by a group of people who are currently wielding their power against us — as they always have. The rest is only window dressing.

These people are in the same mould as those who sold our parents a bill of goods, who then thought it appropriate to separate us from our families and from society. They are in the same mould as those who denied women the vote, who stole Māori lands, who segregated black people, who refused to sign laws which allowed disabled people equity; and who are now trying to teleport us back to a time which many of you (thankfully) have never been. The rest of us can never forget and we cannot — and must not — let this continue. 

They may have the power to run our country, but we have the power of our deviant bodies, our divergent minds and senses, spiky skill sets, creativity and strength. We also have our families and allies who — unlike those who’d rather we didn’t exist — are not morally bankrupt but who know that we are all whole human beings which include all those above descriptors. 

Yes, we have fewer spoons (fewer units of energy) to put towards the inevitable fight for our full and rightful places as citizens of this country, but there is no marginalised group in any country or throughout any history for whom this is or has been an easy journey; and it will be neither easy nor short for us. 

So you have a choice. I am asking you, whether you’re disabled or only disadvantaged by association for being our families and allies — or all of the above, to now decide whether you wish to continue being treated as lesser beings or whether you wish to make a change. If you know that you are a unique, worthwhile and valuable human being which includes all those above qualities which help make you what you are, if you want to take back the power from those who have sought to steal it, if you’ve decided that enough is enough, fill in your name and details and sign up to the movement which is already growing through Aotearoa. We need organisers, creatives, campaigners, marketers, coordinators, spokespeople, writers. We need you. Even one teaspoon of your time and energy will do; the more people, the fewer spoons each of us needs to contribute. United, we can reverse the regression for our good, for our families, allies and fellow New Zealanders. It’s time to raise your voice, stand in your own power and take control. Oh, and to paraphrase Tracy Peters, one of the movement’s founders, if you’re worried about rocking the boat, let me assure you. We won’t be rocking the boat; we’ll be scuttling it. So, grab your life-jackets, swim-fins and snorkels and join us in the long swim towards the shore of true equity, self-determination and control which is the right of every human being!

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