Disability Justice - some resources
plus maybe a book club?
You may already know July is Disability Pride Month.
You may know that it was established in honor of the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. (For a great story about the passage of the ADA, you should listen to the episode of my podcast “Their Wildest Dreams? A podcast on ancestors and activism” featuring disability activist and organizer Rebecca Cokley, about who gets credit and who doesn’t…plus some amazing content about her relationship with disability justice leader Congressman John Lewis. You might also be interested in the newsletter issue that went with it…because it’s about cake. You might also want to subscribe to the podcast, because Monday’s episode is with disability justice organizer and gifted artist Leroy Moore, whose journey to grad school later in adulthood inspired my own.)
You might know (as I was reminded by an 18MR newsletter written by disability justice leader Leah Lakshmi Piepzna Samarasinha) that the broad array of strategies to move the ADA forward in 1990 included the “Capitol Crawl,” a direct action that was exactly what it sounds like. WOW.
Some of the people who follow this newsletter are among the people who have taught me about disability justice. They (or possibly you) have nudged me to claim that identity myself, because of remitting recurring issues with my back, or because I’m fat and the solidarity between fat acceptance and disability rights has deepened so much, or more recently because of my ADHD diagnosis. And yet I’m reticent, for the same reason so many of us who benefit from other types of “passing” privilege are reticent…because we don’t want to take space away from people dealing with greater marginalization and oppression.
And yet when I don’t claim my space alongside my friends in this work, I might be leaving them with all the work. And I need to ask whether I’m also hesitant to claim that part of my identity because of the costs people bear for being honest about the challenges they face.
I don’t have any solutions on this issue. I just wanted to share my own reflections as I continue to navigate my place in a movement that has always been critical given that 1 in 5 Americans lives with a disability, and might be becoming more critical as we reckon with the realities of long covid in the US and around the world. This is particularly important because our handling of the pandemic offered a chilling insight into how willing we were to sacrifice seniors and people with disabilities in our personal choices but even more chillingly in some of our state and even federal policies.
I don’t have any answers and don’t pretend to be an expert. I thought that I would share some potential resources as a co-learner and also test the temperature around maybe a book club on this subject. (More on that below. Keep reading!)
Since the focus on this newsletter is helpful tips, tricks, and strategies for cultivating diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace, here are some resources you might find helpful for yourself or your team:
This article from Nonprofit Quarterly highlights wisdom from a disability justice panel, with three major areas they encourage us to focus on in the workplace: 1) education about disability justice principles, 2) equitable hiring practices and removing ableist thinking from hiring processes, and 3) listening to and partnering with people with disabilities. It also lists the ten disability justice principles I’ll share below. It would be a great article to discuss with your staff or team, including “how are we listening to and partnering with people with disabilities within our workplace and beyond,” and “what could we do to implement some of these recommendations?”
Disability Lead’s article “How to bring disability justice to work” includes some content on “inspiration porn,” the role of allies, our individual work in dismantling ableism, and more. It’s helpful for personal reflection and maybe some ideas to bring to the team or staff.
The Century Foundation shares this article about the labor movement and disability justice. It talks about ableism in historic labor activism, who gets left out, and what a disability future in labor could look like. This is a chance to reflect on labor justice in general and how it intersects with disability justice, plus get inspired.
This article by the Disability and Philanthropy Forum includes five concrete actions to address accessibility issues in the workplace. It is technically useful and very clear and concise.
Patty Berne from Sins Invalid provides the ten principles of Disability Justice on the Sins Invalid Webpage. (Here’s another version without Patty’s intro but with some good graphics and PDF versions.) These principles are ubiquitous and not always attributed to her, but she notes many people who contributed to shaping them. If you haven’t read the disability justice principles, this is a must read. Better yet, read it with your team or staff and discuss what it would mean for your organization to implement them, and why each of them would be important in the work of dismantling ableism as well as other -isms.
The Arc provides this article about disability pride month. It includes some helpful tips about addressing issues of access and inclusion. A lot of disability rights content skips over workplace disability justice that includes people with intellectual disabilities. This article includes that framework. Plus, the theme of this publication is “Joy In Justice,” and the Arc invites us to CELEBRATE!
A book I’m looking forward to reading and just bought (again thanks to a reference in Leah’s article for 18MR, which I wish I could link here) is Shira Hassan’s Saving Our Own Lives: A Liberatory Practice of Harm Reduction. It discusses mutual aid and how we effect change when institutions won’t work for us. It has inspiring stories from recent movement history. And ALL BOOKS FROM HAYMARKET ARE 40% OFF THROUGH THE END OF THE MONTH!
It’s weird for me to recommend an article from the Harvard Business Review, but this transcript from Christine v. Work is excellent in terms of illustrating ableism in the workplace not only interpersonally but in terms of workplace policies. This would be a great article to discuss with your team, plus there’s a youtube version for folks who do better with audio than with writing.
I’d LOVE to hear if something in one of these articles clicked for you or if you happen to make use of it for discussion or even implementation of some sort!
AND NOW THE BOOK GROUP POSSIBILITY. I didn’t forget. I hope you didn’t, either.
As you know, I head to Philly soon to start my PhD. The students at the school I’m attending (the School of Policy and Practice, also known as “SP2”) have chosen Disability Visibility: First Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century edited by Alice Wong as their “One Book, One School” book club read. I’m super excited about this because Alice Wong spoke on a panel at the Oakland Peace Center for our second anniversary 9 years ago, along with Leroy Moore and Jessica Lehman, one of the most powerhouse trios I could possibly imagine.
So. I’ll be reading it!
I’d like to take the temperature of this group. At some point in mid-September, I might be willing to host a 90-minute book discussion, if at least ten people want to be a part of it with me.
SO, if you’re interested, fill in this googleform. I’ll keep you in the loop! We’ll decide whether we’re moving forward by next Thursday.
I want to conclude by connecting all this back to “joy in justice.”
I mentioned the notion of “inspiration porn” earlier – the paternalistic way some people will talk about people with (generally visible) disabilities as inspiring for managing to exist in public. Not a fun thing to be on the receiving end of.
Disabled joy, as many of my friends and disability activists note, is something very different. In a world that tries to erase, to minimize, to infantilize people with disabilities, the experience of community or the experience of accomplishment or simply the experience of play can and does still evoke joy. As one writer noted in an essay on the subject, “To acknowledge our struggles, our issues, and our progress is important — but to witness our joy is spectacular.”
Amen.
with solidarity in the struggle and the play,
Sandhya