“Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good.”
- Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi

During a recent Texas Advocates conference, Mike Bright of The ARC of Texas presented an award to Addie Horn of the Texas Department of Aging and Disability Services.

A little background on these organizations:

The Texas Advocates is a group of self-advocates from across the state. The Texas Advocates, whose website is part of The ARC of Texas site, receive grant money through the Texas Council for Developmental Disabilities. That grant money is administered through The ARC of Texas.

The ARC of Texas is a group that is supposed to advocate for people with disabilities.

The Arc of Texas is the oldest and largest nonprofit, volunteer organization in the state committed to creating opportunities for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities to be included in their communities and to make the choices which affect their lives. The Arc supports families, advances public policies, provides training programs, and builds a statewide network of advocates.

Mike Bright is executive director of The ARC of Texas.

Addie Horn is the head honcho at DADS, the Texas Department of Aging and Disabilities Services. DADS is responsible for oversight of the state schools.

During Addie’s reign, 53 people died in Texas state schools of abuse or neglect.

In that same time, the Justice Department was at every single state school in Texas and found multiple violations.

The Corpus Christie Fight Clubs occurred under Addie Horn’s watch.

So here’s how it went down. During this Texas Advocates conference, Mike Bright of The ARC of Texas was selected to throw accolades at Addie Horn of DADS. Supposedly this award was from Texas Advocates, so why Mike Bright was chosen to actually give it to Addie Horn is beyond me – unless The ARC of Texas and Texas Advocates have the kind of tight relationship that almost makes them one and the same. Why didn’t someone from Texas Advocates give Addie her award?

Remember, The ARC of Texas is a group that is supposed to exist to make improvements to a broken, abusive, neglectful system to help the people with disabilities they supposedly represent.

An award honoring Addie Horn, the head of DADS, which oversees the state school horrors, is exactly the type of thing from which Mike Bright and The ARC of Texas should be furiously distancing themselves. DADS is a problem if you are actually advocating for people with disabilities. This is the system, and fighting for improvements to the system is theoretically why Mike Bright and ARC of Texas exist.

So why did Mike Bright give Addie Horn this award? You tell me. Better yet, ask him yourself: mbright@thearcoftexas.org

If the Texas Advocates had asked Jeff Garrison-Tate of Community NOW to give this award to Addie Horn, he would have said hell no.

This award should have come from the self-advocates who actually came up with this idea.

Several years ago, Mike Bright (ARC of Texas) sent a letter to the Texas Council for Developmental Disabilities stating that they no longer wish to participate in an organization known as the Texas Disability Policy Consortium. This is a type of umbrella organization for disability advocacy groups. Mr. Bright states that the ARC of Texas doesn’t like activism. The ARC of Texas doesn’t like folks in wheelchairs chaining themselves to buildings and participating in civil disobedience. The ARC of Texas says this is offensive. The ARC of Texas distances itself from self-advocates who are doing anything they can to make their lives better.

Some member organizations of the DPC have engaged in strident and, at times, offensive advocacy strategies to bring media and policy maker attention to issues. While such strategies may be considered appropriate by those organizations, we believe them to alienate the very policy makers whose support is critical and to work against common interests. The Arc does not want to be publicly identified as being in coalition with the organizations that engage in such advocacy activities.

they find self-advocates who are doing anything they can to make their lives better, the arc distances t

The ARC of Texas receives federal and state money to advocate for people with disabilities, yet the ARC of Texas does not want to associate with activists and self-advocates. And the ARC of Texas is perfectly happy to slobber all over Addie Horn.

If you support and applaud and honor a failing and harmful system, you are throwing the people you claim to represent under the bus. What does that make you?

Answer: part of the problem.

The ARC of Texas recently sent out a letter begging for money. Due to the hard economic times we are in financial trouble, etc.

Good luck with that, ARC of TX. The advocacy world is changing, and people are getting tired of waiting around for ARC of Texas to do something beyond saying “Boo hoo, this is terrible” to the press. This isn’t the first time the ARC of Texas has had credibility problems, but for the love of this state I sure hope this is the last of it.