I probably should have blogged about this yesterday or on Friday, but I think it was on Thursday night that I watched a programme called ”Jeff Brazier: Me and My Brother”, concerning Brazier’s relationship with his disabled half-brother. I must say that this programme made me very angry, not so much at Brazier (whose only claim to fame, I should point out, is having once been married to Jade Goody) but at his brother Spencer. Spencer has cerebral palsy and lives with his mum. This programme showed him to be extremely lazy, using his mum to do everything, but that wasn’t my main qualm: Spencer refuses to define himself as disabled although he clearly is. That is to say, he saw himself as somehow better than the rest of ‘us’. For example, the dude uses sign language to communicate, but obviously could do with a communication aid, so his brother Jeff take him to meet Toby Hewson. I know Toby, and he is a wonderful spokesperson for VOCA users, but Spencer seemed to think he was somehow superior to Toby because Toby used a chair. This made me very angry indeed – it seemed to betray a type of bigotry that seemed to say ”I’m not like you because I can walk. I’m superior”. Not only did he insult a man whom I count as a friend, but he insulted me. It seemed that Spencer would rather just keep using sign language than admit to being disabled. Sign language is fine, but I’d like to see him try to order a beer in a pub using it. Moreover, the irony is Toby is, in a way, far less disabled than Spencer, as at least he actually goes out and does things for both himself and other, whereas Spencer seems to use his (milder) CP as an excuse to be a couch potato.

I suppose whether he uses a VOCA or not is his prerogative, but in this program Spencer Brazier struck me as a stuck-up, lazy good-for-nothing, in deep denial about who he is, demanding everything be done for him. His arrogance in not heeding the advice of his brother and in dismissing toby and the rest of ‘us’ lead me to think, as the programme ended, ”what an idiot”