This makes me want to scream in rage from Every Mountain Top. But my voice is stilled by grief

[capri0mni]

Editorial: Remembering the importance of life 1 year after Sagamihara killings

Quote 1:

Uematsu, 27, has yet to go on trial over the killings, and central elements such as how he came to hold the irrational [sic]* motive for his crime -- that the disabled are not valuable enough to live -- have not yet been divulged.

Survivors of the attack are now living temporarily at a facility in Yokohama and elsewhere. Many of them are said to still suffer from the trauma of the horrendous incident.

(end quote)

Quote 2:

The prefectural government has now proposed opening new, smaller facilities in Sagamihara and Yokohama in four years' time. Building small, homely group facilities would open more options, officials say. Time will be spent on checking the opinions of disabled people to decide where they will live.

The group representing families has expressed firm resistance to this proposal**...

(end quote)

---

*Eugenics is morally wrong, but, given the bigotry we are all force-fed from birth, like a goose whose liver is destined to be pâté -- it can hardly be called "irrational."

**The government is not even proposing sending the survivors back to live with their families, only building new, smaller, group homes closer to their communities. ...And the residents' families are still protesting. What a nightmare to survive the horrors of that night, only to realize how much your own families do not want you.

...And next year, Tokyo will host the Paralympics.

...I feel slightly sick, right now.

Comments

[redsixwing]

... oof.

>>...I feel slightly sick, right now.<<

Yeah.

[capri0mni]

*hugs*

[redsixwing]

*hugs*

[capri0mni]

*leans in*

[igenlode]

I don't remember this ever being reported at the time -- it's the first I've heard of the event.

[redsixwing]

It was all over Japanese media. (I read for language practice, then back-check the English edition.)

A quick search indicates it did make some non-regional sources, but I don't know how long it stuck to the front page.

[capri0mni]

A quick search indicates it did make some non-regional sources, but I don't know how long it stuck to the front page.

I first heard about it on NPR, the day of, during the 5-minute news bulletin that's broadcast every 20 minutes during the mornings, and every hour in the afternoon. But nothing in-depth. And no mention in the evening bulletins.

Once I was up, and online, I found corroborating reports The Guardian and The New York Times.

But the very next day (other than online blogs dedicated to Disability Culture), the news media (at least, in America) was silent. After all, we were still obsessed with the shooting at the Pulse Nightclub (rightly so), and whether the shooter was acting on behalf of ISIS (wrongly so).

And today, when I did a search for commemorations of the anniversary, the top hits were those year-old reports in the Western Press, and editorials in the Japanese press.

Note: not all of them were quite so ableist as the one I linked to, here. But this one shows how deep ableism runs, and the long journey we still have to make.

[capri0mni]

It was reported at the time (I link to two articles about it, from the day, below), but the coverage was brief and shallow. If you didn't happen to have the news on during the five-minute bulletins, during (maybe) an 8-hour window, you definitely would have missed it.

[igenlode]

Looking at the date, I think we were sailing in Norfolk that week last year, so wouldn't have seen any newspapers at all...

Japan doesn't get reported much in this country; the only coverage I remember seeing recently is various follow-up articles on the current status of the Fukushima disaster (still not good, the last I heard) :-(

[capri0mni]

Yeah -- that would explain it. Now, if there had been more coverage of this, in general, as a major story (it was, after all, the largest mass murder in Japan since World War II), than maybe there'd be more recognition of this and less: "wait -- What?!

[jesse_the_k]

Ahhhh.

[capri0mni]

...yeah. :-(

[pebblerocker]

oh my god D:

[capri0mni]

Yeah.

Part of me wants to rail against the ugly ableism of Japanese culture.

...But it's not just Japanese culture. After all, all the rest of the world seems just as happy to forget about this, and hide it away, you know?

Anyway, it was this attack, last year, that finally inspired me to make this disability pride flag for real -- and to make it as black as a pirate's flag -- not white, for surrender.