to cripchick.com!

i hope you will change your links and subscription—-definitely want to keep chatting with you over at my new place! hopefully having my own server will let me do more things

love you so much,
cripchick

if so, holler.

This article on cyberquilting! Adele was interviewed by bitch buzz. Love this part:

“For people who’ve been isolated in rural communities or other places where their ideas aren’t able to flourish, access to the Internet provides instant community and a way to develop your own activism that doesn’t necessarily need to be constrained to your own back yard.” -Adele 

Southerners On New Ground (SONG) introduces a LGBT map directory that you can download off the blog they keep. about it they say:

“We have learned that although queer-led social justice organizations in the South may be few in number, they are doing amazing work with limited resources. We created this directory to counter the isolation and burnout that organizers experience all too often in the South and hope that it will help bring people together to strategize, share resources, and support each other.”

And last, but not least, you can’t miss Sudy’s latest FemWatch video where she breaks down five things she is thankful for this year.

this reminds me of the time a friend and i sat in a queer—err excuse me, glbt with a q following it on the next line—disability caucus meeting this summer. the group invited a HRC person to speak and when we asked why HRC had been invited, we were stared at. then when we spoke up against the group simply focusing on marriage advocacy with so much work to be done, they thought we were stupid southerners who were against gay marriage because of ignorance or overexposure to too much homophobia. needless to say, i left the meeting early, never having been talked down to so much. 

kit yan, from the good asian drivers spoken word duo:

you’re a force with responsibility
so listen, think, then act
you’re an icon of equality
so remember the colors of the community you stand for
you’re the face that the devil trusts
but you’ve become its reflection
hear us, please.
unfortunately we can not wait for you
we’ll be here when you return,
but we cannot wait for you
in the meantime, we’ll fight for ourselves…
-kit yan at 2:10

i’m really really disappointed. and hurt. and feeling betrayed. i’m realizing that sitting in the bathroom of this coffeeshop crying is not productive and know i can’t get back to writing my paper (that’s due in a hour) until i write this letter. 

over the last year, one of our own, micah fialka- feldman, began to fight his university so that he could live on campus. the school accepted his money, gave him a move-in date, and then changed their minds because of an old housing policy that was created before people with cognitive disabilities were allowed to attend through the OPTIONS program. now they are saying they do not have enough space. as you know, students and activists have strongly voiced their support for micah. 

however, many of you have not. in fact, some of you have come out against micah. now i understand disagreeing if it is because you feel that the university is justified in their policy. we can just call that a difference of perspective and understand that while we enjoy bipartisanship, disagreement is a part that comes with it.  living in north carolina where the disability community can be surprisingly republican, i understand that we need each other to advance our people. 

what i do not agree with, and what i am strongly offended by, is when you use ableist rhetoric and take up an assimilationist politic. we, young folk in the disability rights movement, are called the ada generation because we grew up with rights older disabled people fought for. we, for the most part or at least a higher proportion, were allowed in schools and in public. many of us who are labelled as ada generation have also been given opportunities, like congressional internships, activist training, mentorship, and access to youth leadership development programs, to grow within the movement. what we do with these opportunities is going to define the future of our movement and community.

i think every young leader in the movement should read the INCITE! anthology, The Revolution Will Not Be Funded. the book speaks a lot about the professionalization of movements and what happens when the focus is shifted away from community. the conversations become about leadership skills and how to get business cards, not about ableism and what we need to do to mobilize. disability becomes a 9-5 career.

i feel like that is what is happening with micah. we are forgetting our community. instead of asking why shouldn’t he be allowed to live on campus, you instead ask “why can’t he live off campus like i had to?” and use words like “pulling heartstrings,” “asking for handouts,” “bending the rules” and “using his disability”. you then say “now… if X experience i had was happening to micah, then of course i would be outraged!” really? are we only saying we share support if we’ve experienced what they’ve experienced? this doesn’t sound good for cross-disability organizing. and have we really adopted tools and tactics that have been used against us instead of extending solidarity to micah? 

it’s so disgusting. i know this is not new— that the disability rights movement functions with people from all backgrounds contributing different things—but this ada generation scares me because we say we speak for young disabled people everywhere while simultaneously only caring about our careers. we are working from a network model instead of a community model without recognizing what both models offer (and constrict).

as leader of an organization that has bred many of us, i know i must sound like a contradiction. i think there are many cards stacked against us and we do need networks, mentorship and development opportunities to advance our community. i just hope that we can do these things, and grow into ourselves, without hurting our community. our people. folks like my friend and fellow activist, micah.

hanging on,
cripchick.

more info below the cut.

Media updates on Micah’s request to live in the dorm at Oakland
University:

Channel 4 TV Interview

Channel 2 -Fox TV Interview

Youtube video of Board of Trustees video

Oaklant Post: Micah’s Fight Continues

Oakland Press: Disabled Man Fights to Live in Dorm

Detroit News: Let Disabled Student Live in Dorm, Supporters Urge

last week we mourned the passing of duanna johnson. a few days later, another trans woman of color has been killed. this wednesday thursday is trangender day of remembrance, i hope you will remember our lost and speak out.

even after death
they stuff our bodies into boxes
ironing out the creases of our complexities
they use blades, fists
violence
institutions
and blood-tinged spit
to fold us into the faceless other
the soulless

even after death,
they refuse to recognize our names,
our genders, our loved ones.

even after death.
have you no respect?

no i don’t expect anything from you
i know better than that
but if not for who we are
if not for our communities
if not for the mourning families,
at least for the dead?

at least for the dead?
who, with your mocking
your open hatred
your silence,
have taken part in killing?

have you no damn respect?

the good folks with Sins Invalid, a show promoting unshamed beauty in the face of invisibility, has put clips of their performances online. hot hot hot.

first one doesn’t have any verbal narration, second one is captioned (click the arrow pointing upward and then CC), and the third has terps in the right hand corner. amaaaazing, disability culture at its finest. not completely work safe.

rodney bell:

seeley quest:

rodney and seeley together (trigger warning):

]]> http://misscripchick.wordpress.com/2008/11/16/hot-sins-invalid-2008-online/feed/ 1 cripchick http://misscripchick.wordpress.com/2008/11/16/forgotten-tongues/ http://misscripchick.wordpress.com/2008/11/16/forgotten-tongues/#comments Sun, 16 Nov 2008 20:48:36 +0000 cripchick http://misscripchick.wordpress.com/?p=738 ]]>

while transferring from my wheelchair, i look at the ceiling and scream dramatically
“i have forgotten p!!”
“blood? pi???” my mom asks worriedly in corean
“no umma! the letter p! p-ubt!”
i am quiet for a moment then ask
“…what does it look like?”

disregarding the grave nature of this situation, she shakes her head at me and leaves the room, telling me i need to spend less time on the computer.
(i love that she equates any lack of knowledge on my part to too much time in front of the computer.)
does she not know what losing language, letter by letter,
script by script, means to me?

i think back to middle school where i won an international writing contest sponsored by south korea’s national tourism agency
the local k-times newspaper interviewed me and put my picture on the front page
unraveling and ragged, my mom carried that folded, faded yellow picture with her for years

the writing prompt was something simple like “why do you <3 korea?”
and while older americans australians and europeans wrote about delicious food, a culture of respect, and hiking geumgangsan, eighth grade me submitted an essay about king sejong’s work
the theme of the essay focused on hangul as the language of the people
now of course i didn’t know about globalization colonization assimilation
the struggle of people of color in this world
or resistance back then
but the power of language
as generator
for maintaining community
was obvious
to even my middle school half corean
broken-tongue self
sejong’s refusal to let language belong to the aristocracy brought writing and literature to the people
creating a new era for the joseon people

now i am left flailing my arms with a sense of loss
will future generations of my family
only know korea
through margaret cho comedy sound bytes?
mentions of the eradication of the dmz in history books
and store-bought kimchi they eat at their halmoni’s house?
has it really been 8 years since i have traveled to see my family?
did i really encourage my mother’s students to change their names from hankyul hanbyul youngkwang and myunghan
to heather ellen danny and kevin?

no. yes. no. yes. yes.
what to do with this,
where to go with this,
i don’t know.
for now i will start with the letter p.

i am lucky enough to have a video recording of little light reading her piece, the seam of skin and scales, during our SPEAK retreat in detroit. i can’t describe how powerful it was to play her recording this morning in the silence of my house, except that it was so needed, so haunting, so disquieting, so intimate. so beautiful, just like her.:

“It is time to look the monstrous in the eye. It is time. It is time to say that we are beautiful in our fierceness, and that we are our own. We are not the rejected of what we can never be. We are what we were meant to be. We are not pieces of wholes thrown together incorrectly. We are not mistakes.
We are not inferior knockoffs of someone else. If our monstrousness is frightening, then it is time we bare our teeth and draw that fear close to us and stop being so afraid of our fearsomeness that we fear everyone and everything else right back.

I am throwing my head back, here, and saying it: no more being afraid. Hell no. My monstrousness is not a place of shame. It is a strength. It is the power to say I am mine, and I will tell you what I mean. Not you. I am not any thing trapped in anyone’s body. I am tougher than that, and I have plenty of blood to spare in this body of mine, and plenty more miles to go before any of you can bring me to my knees, and I dare you to try.”

Dear Wheelchair Dancer,

Hey sister— thanks for your blog post on the elections, racism, prop 8. I’ve been in such a funny place lately after all of this and your writing really helped me in naming why.

Sylvia posted a tweet the other day about wanting to wrap Obama in bubble wrap, Teflon, a condom, Fort Knox— anything— to keep him safe until January 20th. That’s kind of how I feel about my emotions. And I hate to sound cliché here, but also my hope. My head knows what this election means and what this election does not mean but I still want scream Yes We Can!, rock my Obama shirt in classes full of Republicans, and, well, just bask in the symbolism of it. I want to believe in what everyone else believes in for more than one night, even if a lot of it is compartmentalizing what I know and not thinking about things folks like Moya and so many others are sayin’. So I close my door, download all the free mixtapes people are producing for Obama, and bullshit around happily.

But then it changes, right? At least it did for me, couldn’t even last a week. I read a message from VivirLatino about another mass ICE raid where over 100 people are rounded up in Florida and separated from their families. I hear white racist gay folks getting time on the tv and then blame Prop 8 on communities of color! I get an email from someone I really care about saying someone she knows was being beaten to death from what seems like a hate crime. With tears in my eyes I read of Duanna Johnson’s death and then see talk show radio hosts trying to leave comments on my blog saying they’re advocates while simultaneously disrespecting who she was. All these things tear me right from that cloudy good place. These things come at me like a million lightening bolts, reminding me of all the work that needs to be done and more importantly, who will be the ones doing this work.

It will be us. We will do it cause there isn’t anyone else but us, the people, la gente. So like our dear friend asks in her blog— as organizers, as artists, as community-builders, as dreamers, how can we learn from his campaign? How can we get the folks on the ground, many who weren’t believers in power of people before, to keep dreaming and ready to pick up other tools? How do we stay focused? Clear-headed? How do we build this bigger than non-profits, projects, campaigning?

And what about when the evil, the hate, the bondage is internal— How do we combat these things when they come in the form of our communities, people we love? I mean I didn’t truly understand what racism and white privilege really meant until I got involved in social movements, you know? Is it possible to take these conversations happening post-Prop 8 and turn them into something that lasts? Will there be room to sew close our open wounds, our mistrust? And is it even worth it, trying to work it out with gays and lesbians who will always choose marriage, gentrification, assimilation and capital building as priorities, when so many fellow queers are homeless, forgotten, oppressed, closeted, beaten, denied their humanity?

I’m really hoping you have some answers, that someone has answers. In the meantime, thanks for being who you are, for our gchats, for the love…

In solidarity and w/ love,
cripchick