{"id":7203,"date":"2017-02-24T17:31:24","date_gmt":"2017-02-24T17:31:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs-dev.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/?p=7203"},"modified":"2017-02-24T17:36:46","modified_gmt":"2017-02-24T17:36:46","slug":"vulnerability-empowering-advocacy-the-phyllis-zlotnick-papers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs-dev.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/2017\/02\/24\/vulnerability-empowering-advocacy-the-phyllis-zlotnick-papers\/","title":{"rendered":"Vulnerability Empowering Advocacy: The Phyllis Zlotnick Papers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The current political climate has re-invigorated discussions regarding advocacy as well as boosted interest in the affairs of both local and state government.\u00a0 It is fortuitous, then, to be working on the collected papers of Phyllis Zlotnick (b.1942-d.2011), who was a pioneering advocate for the civil rights of disabled people in Connecticut.\u00a0 Her collection of personal papers centers primarily on her work as a lobbyist for legislation pertaining to disabled populations.\u00a0 Reading through transcripts of her speeches, correspondences, and publications reveals a rich life of political activism, intellectual engagement and staggering patience.<\/p>\n

Born with muscular dystrophy, Zlotnick used a wheelchair for most of her life.\u00a0 In defiance of the convention at the time, Zlotnick\u2019s parents Sidney and Marion refused to institutionalize her because of her disability.\u00a0 Zlotnick\u2019s education was an uphill battle for Sidney and Marion as well, having to picket the Hartford Board of Education for enrollment into a special education class, and needing to participate in her Portland High School classes via speaker phone.\u00a0 Despite these isolated experiences, she graduated with honors from Portland High School in 1960.\u00a0 Six years after her high school graduation Zlotnick would be hired as a receptionist at the Hartford Easter Seal Rehabilitation Center, a job that would prove to be a formative time for her developing acumen in advocacy.<\/p>\n

Zlotnick\u2019s work with the Hartford Easter Seal Rehabilitation Center and \"\"<\/a>The Easter Seal Society of Connecticut brought her in contact with June Sokolov, a trailblazer for increasing access to occupation therapy within Connecticut.\u00a0 Sokolov\u2019s work proved to be a powerful influence and inspiration for Zlotnick throughout her life.\u00a0 The Zlotnick papers include a large collection of Sokolov\u2019s work, papers written, as well as speeches given, and correspondences made to cultivate awareness on the effectiveness of occupational therapy as a discipline.\u00a0 The commitment to advocacy and empathy within Sokolov\u2019s works has a clear influence on the directions and writings of Zlotnick herself.<\/p>\n

At the start of the nineteen seventies, Zlotnick began to be an active presence for increasing awareness about architectural barriers to disabled populations in Connecticut.\u00a0 This start to advocacy work would see her contribute repeated testimony before the Connecticut General Assembly, work as an aide to House Speaker Earnest Abate, and eventually be called upon for her input in the Americans with Disabilities Act in the nineteen nineties.\u00a0 The Zlotnick papers offer an insight into the process of struggling to be heard in legislative and civic meetings, getting laws passed, and then fighting to have those laws enforced and implemented.\u00a0 The struggles that took place to have the Connecticut legislature pass laws for disabled individuals to have access to buildings and sidewalks involved long struggles for implementation as well as for enforcement.\u00a0 Zlotnick summarizes the challenges of advocating for equality in her talk entitled \u201cVictory in Pursuit of Patience\u201d,<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a seemingly never ending task for recognition of rights; of demonstrating the inappropriateness of exclusionary policies.\u00a0 There will always be those who are trying to undo or dilute the progress, people who repeatedly have to be educated and reminded of man\u2019s inhumanity to man.\u00a0 We must keep going until we achieve full equality and integration.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(\u201cVictory in Pursuit of Patience\u201d c. 1992).
\n\"\"<\/a>One of the most striking features of Zlotnick\u2019s writing is the vulnerability within it. \u00a0In her writing one reads not just how architectural and attitudinal barriers (to borrow one of Zlotnick\u2019s own phrases) impact her on a physical and emotional level, but how the legibility of vulnerabilities in disabled populations reminds many with able bodies of the precarious nature of their own mobility, cognition, and autonomy.\u00a0 In a transcript of Zlotnick\u2019s speech to the United Cerebral Palsy Association of Connecticut in 1974 she writes, \u201cWe [disabled people] represent a psychological threat \u2013 the average person is afraid of illness and by accepting us he must also accept his own potential for disability.\u201d\u00a0 Zlotnick engages with these overlapping vulnerabilities in her testimony before the State and Urban Development Committee in 1978,<\/p>\n

Many of you know that great numbers of handicapped people can appear to testify or otherwise show support.\u00a0 You will not see that kind of demonstration today because I am taking a gamble, the biggest one of my life.\u00a0 Rather than trying to persuade you by intimidation through a sea of wheelchairs, I am going to rely on your intelligence and my personal credibility.\u00a0 Should pressure tactics by more powerful lobbies who oppose the handicapped, for whatever reasons, break down the members of this committee or another committee should these bills be given a change of reference then I will have led thousands of handicapped people to the slaughter by not having a demonstration today.\u00a0 I\u2019ve opted for intelligence and wisdom rather than fear and intimidation \u2013 please don\u2019t prove I overestimated you.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Testimony Before the State and Urban Development Committee 1978).
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

My instinct is to want to push back against the characterization of a group of people advocating for civil rights as intimidating, but in her acknowledgements Zlontick addresses the apprehension of her audience before offering a connection of her own.\u00a0 This acknowledgement is not an act of apologetics, it recognizes the tacit agreement behind the circumstances of Zlotnick acting as an advocate alone.\u00a0 Both sides of the conversations should start a discussion with an awareness of what renders them vulnerable to one another.\u00a0 It is a penetrating insight that sees traction in all vulnerable populations, not just those with disabilities, and exhorts us to conceive of vulnerability as a commonplace to draw communities and identities together rather than build barriers between them.<\/p>\n

Patrick Butler is a Ph.D. Candidate in Medieval Studies at the University of Connecticut; his areas of interest are in Middle English romance and depictions of violence and vulnerability.\u00a0 In addition to his graduate studies and work in Archives and Special Collections, he is a Modern Language Association Connected Academic Proseminar Fellow for the 2016-2017 academic year.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The current political climate has re-invigorated discussions regarding advocacy as well as boosted interest in the affairs of both local and state government.\u00a0 It is fortuitous, then, to be working on the collected papers of Phyllis Zlotnick (b.1942-d.2011), who was … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[351,253,3,9],"tags":[410,28,127,409,408],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-dev.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7203"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-dev.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-dev.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-dev.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-dev.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7203"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-dev.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7206,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-dev.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7203\/revisions\/7206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-dev.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-dev.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-dev.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}