KPFK Disarming Itself Against Trump’s Fascist Playbook
by Michael Novick, Anti-Racist Action-Los Angeles/People Against Racist Terror (ARA-LA/PART)
Trump and RFK Jr. are coming after people with disabilities, rejecting the applicability of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Unfortunately, KPFK no longer airs the Access Unlimited program focusing on disability rights and resources that I had restored to the air, and thus has lost the capacity to be a platform for that community in organizing to resist and to educate the public.
DISCLAIMER: This is not an official Pacifica Foundation, Inc. website nor an official website of any of the five Pacifica Foundation, Inc. Radio Stations (KPFA Radio, KPFK Radio, KPFT Radio, WBAI Radio, WPFW Radio). Opinions and facts alleged on this site belong to the author(s) of the website only and should NOT be assumed to be true or to reflect the editorial stance or policy of the Pacifica Foundation, Inc., or any of the five Radio Stations (KPFA Radio, KPFK Radio, KPFT Radio, WBAI Radio, WPFW Radio), or the opinions of its management, Pacifica National Board, station staff, or other listener members.
According to reports in the LA Times, “For decades, disabled people have fought for their rights to go to school and live alongside peers without disabilities — rights that some fear could be losing ground under the Trump administration. Last month, the Department of Education announced it would shift oversight of special education to the Department of Health and Human Services, led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose comments on the limits of disabilities such as autism have drawn sharp rebukes from advocates and lawmakers. Meanwhile, after a White House push to police homelessness, the Department of Justice released guidance that lowered the barrier to institutionalizing any person with a disability.”
Taken together, the actions signal a worrying return to a reality where differently-abled people are pushed to the margins of society, advocates said. “It’s a direct, frontal assault on the rights of people with disabilities to live their lives the way that people who are nondisabled live their lives,” said Selene Almazan, legal director for the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates. “I can’t imagine that as a country, that would be something that we would agree we should go back to.”
People may be aware that one of the targets of Hitler’s exterminationist policies, adopted from and modeled after US ‘eugenicists’ and forced sterilization programs, was people with disabilities. You may be less aware that people with disabilities in the US have been targets of right wing hate crimes.
At a program I worked on in the early 1990s with People Against Racist Terror (PART) and the San Fernando Valley Interfaith Council Human Relations Committee, we had a disability rights activist as one of the speakers, who talked about both government disregard for people with disabilities and violent right wing attacks against differently-abled people. She cited among others cases, an arson attack on the home of a person who used a wheelchair for mobility, in which the ramp to the housing was set ablaze.
On another occasion, we ran an article in “Turning The Tide,” the publication of ARA-LA/PART, from a founder of Not Dead Yet, describing the threats of euthanasia directed against people with paralysis from spinal cord injuries, and a culture that promoted the idea that such a life was not worth living, as exemplified in a Clint Eastwood film, “Million Dollar Baby”.
As Ibram X. Kendi wrote recently in Chain of Ideas: The Origins of Our Authoritarian Age, before James Alex Fields, Jr. killed Heather Heyer and injured 32 other anti-racists in Charlottesville Virginia, he had physically abused his mother, who uses a wheelchair.
People have also forgotten the militant movement of people with disabilities, with acts of civil disobedience like blocking the street in front of buses, that resulted in the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the adoption of measures like curb cuts or “kneeling buses,” locations on public transit vehicles for secure placement of wheelchairs, and the requirements that employers make reasonable accommodations for employees with differing abilities, a fundamental right for working people.
When I was an adult education teacher at LAUSD, one of my students was an activist with IDEPSCA, an immigrants rights group. She focused on helping immigrant Latino parents like herself of children with autism or developmental disabilities to navigate the school district’s system for obtaining IEPs, individualized educational and instructional plans, for their children.
Yet somehow KPFK decided that these and important related issues, concerns and resources related to people with hearing, vision, mobility and other impairments, or with ailments and conditions affecting how they could work, study or interact with neighbors and governmental, corporate or community institutions, were not worthy of air-time on the station. This despite the fact, as the programmers reminded us, that disabilities of one kind or another will most likely directly impact the lives and families of the vast majority of people over their lifetimes.
This is yet another reason it is crucial to elect candidates in the current Pacifica elections for national and local board positions who support restoring the democratic rights of listeners, programmers and other staff members to participate in the governance of their stations, and who defend community-oriented local programming, news and cultural coverage that informs listeners about the struggles AND SOLUTIONS that activists are addressing.
The same shortsighted thinking now in control led to the elimination of the environmental-oriented programming I had restored or introduced to KPFK, like XR Now! from Extinction Rebellion LA, shortly before the environmentally-disastrous urban wildfires in the Palisades and Altadena. Such programming is mostly still unavailable to KPFK listeners, along with any local news, as the city faced the toxic soot from the Boyle Heights cold-storage facility fire. KPFK and Pacifica can and MUST do better, and this election may be the last chance to restore, rebuild and fortify the commitment to the Pacifica mission of radio for all.
See https://www.pacificamissioncoalition.com for the full list of PMC candidates and their platform and qualifications, including Julianne Malveaux for PNB chair, Perri McCary for vice-chair, Kamau Harris for treasurer (removed from ballot), Donna Carter for Secretary (removed from ballot), Ninel Centeno of KPFK for PNB staff and volunteer team rep, and your author, Michael Novick, for listener rep on the PNB from KPFK. Local Station Board candidates include Jack Neff for LSB chair, Rick Cooper for vice-chair, Doug Barnett for Scretary, Cliff Olin for Membership/Fundraising coordinator and Bella De Soto of Change Links for Outreach Coordinator. Canek Huerta-MArtinez and Oscar Ulloa are running for staff reps on the KPFK LSB.
DISCLAIMER: This is not an official Pacifica Foundation, Inc. communication nor an official communication of any of the five Pacifica Foundation, Inc. Radio Stations (KPFA, KPFK, KPFT, WBAI, WPFW). Opinions and facts alleged belong to the author(s) only and should NOT be assumed to be true or to reflect the editorial stance or policy of the Pacifica Foundation, Inc., or any of the five Pacifica Foundation, Inc. Radio Stations, or the opinions of its management, Pacifica National Board, station staff or other listener members.
