a lot of times disability pride gets watered down into this happy-go-lucky accepting who you are/gaining self esteem bit. though self-acceptance is so important, nondisabled people understanding disability pride in this way disregards the power of disability pride and critiques of ableism. disability itself redefines normal, redefines what is considered dependence, and if included in social justice analyses, can be extremely useful in understanding how the world works. living and practicing disability pride is so much bigger than self acceptance.
i credit a lot of what i know about the revolutionary nature of disability to the frameworks utilized by the reproductive justice movement, queer liberation movement, and the autistic self advocacy movement. in the same way understanding heteronormativity helps me understand institutions, gender, and the importance of queer liberation for society in general, neurodiversity has taken my understanding of disability to a new level. this is why i am so energized by work autistic self advocates and advocates of neurodiversity are doing— the potential for transformation is endless. truly a new frontier.
on that note, the canadian broadcasting company aired a documentary this week on neurodiversity the autistic self advocacy movement that, well, everyone needs to check out. you can watch this 19-minute video and read the transcripts of interviews at: http://www.cbc.ca/national/blog/special_feature/positively_autistic/
there are so many amazing things going on that i’ve been meaning to link. this is a what-inspires-cripchick post. lately i feel exhausted and like i’m barely hanging on but then i see revolutionary ideas, projects, ways people can come together that are being envisioned and created by radical women of color and i am energized again. below are some projects friends are working on. This is just the beginning!—
An excerpt from the new Combahee Survival website:
This booklet moves survival to revival, like grounded growth, where seeds seek sun remembering how the people could fly. We are invoking the Combahee River Collective Statement and asking how it lives in our movement now… Black feminism lives, but the last of the originally organized black feminist organizations in the United States were defunct by 1981. Here we offer and practice a model of survival that is spiritual and impossible and miraculous and everywhere, sometimes pronounced revival. Like it says on the yellow button that came included in the Kitchen Table Press pamphlet version of The Combahee River Collective Statement in 1986 “Black Feminism LIVES!” And therefore all those who were never meant to survive blaze open into a badass future anyway. Meaning something unpredictable and whole. We were. Never meant. To Survive.
ii.
Then we also have the Cyber-Quilting Experiment, a rwoc-led project examining how the internet can be used as a resource for social justice work and movement building activities. You can find the Cyber-Quilting Experiment at cyberquilt.wordpress.com
As cyberquilters, we believe that what we need is bigger than our individual calendars and our possible days. What we need is bridging of movements. Whole, ready and connected. Where we can see, hear and feel each other. Where we know how to help meet each others’ needs. Where we can unite at important political moments and make a difference. Where we remember, with every heartbeat, that our work does not start and begin in our individual bodies. Where we realize that our work is expansive because it resonates in the working blood of women of color organized, mobilizing everywhere in tune.
Because Audre Lorde looks different in every picture ever taken of her. Because Octavia Butler didn’t care. Because Erykah Badu is a patternmaster. Because Macy Gray pimped it and Janelle Monae was ready. Resolved. Quirky black girls wake up ready to wear a tattered society new on our bodies, to hold fragments of art, culture and trend in our hands like weapons against conformity, to walk on cracks instead of breaking our backs to fit in the mold.
iv.
mamita mala, a radical nuyorican mami, activist, and an amaaazing poet, spoke at the This Is What We Want speakout this week.
Here is a delicious excerpt (full transcript below the cut:
We cannot just vote with our hands. We need to vote with our feet hitting the streets. We need to vote with our mouths yelling and spitting truths and that can happen around our kitchen tables and in our kalles. Mujeres latinas, we need to vote with our lips, tits, and hips and the history they carry, from forced operaciones that left our women sterile to attempts to take away all of our choices about our bodies.
i especially like what she says in the comment section:
“frankly an intersectional ” analysis” sells thinsg moves things makes you look good
Intersectional activity really
often results in you shutting up
Myself included
if I am really class intersectional offering forth and takinga bout
Ihave to sit down and listen
and for real folks arenta t all excited about that”
-black amazon
Tropic Thunder is a big-budget film to be released next week. The synopsis on the promotional website describes the film as
“an action comedy about a group of self-absorbed actors who set out to make the most expensive war film. After ballooning costs force the studio to cancel the movie, the frustrated director refuses to stop shooting, leading his cast into the jungles of Southeast Asia, where they encounter real bad guys.”
In the movie, Ben Stiller plays an actor who is upset for not winning an award for his [wretched, offensive] portrayal of a man with developmental disabilities in a movie titled Simple Jack. Robert Downey Jr. plays a white man in blackface. Jack Black plays another actor, one who wore a body suit and starred in a picture called The Fatties.
It upsets me when I hear people let things go in the name of humor. Movies, television, and all forms of media play a huge role in how people perceive things, even when the themes are less obvious. Two weeks ago, Angie Zapata, a young trans woman of color, was murdered (and called “it”) just for being a trans woman. Only a few months before Angie’s death, Dorothy Dixon, a disabled woman, was abused, beaten, and murdered in Illinois. The New Jersey 4 are still in jail for defending themselves against a homophobic attacker (in which the media called them things like a “wolf pack of lesbians”). There are so many more that we’ve lost. We cannot afford to let movies rooted— or quietly lined— in mischaracterization and dehumanization pass by. If it was just comedy, it wouldn’t cost us so much.
Patricia Bauer, a disability rights blogger who has been following the movie, wrote that disability organizations will be meeting with Dreamworks this Wednesday. Be prepared to take action.
Under the cut, you’ll find a R-rated preview and a dialogue between two of the characters that will show you why this is unacceptable. [trigger warning— many violent scenes, language, and all-out offensive stereotyping]
the more i study history, the more i seem to find/
that in every generation there are times just like that time/
when folks like you and me who thought that we were all alone/
within this honored movement found a home.
- si kahn
about me
just your everyday queer disabled corean girl living in the south... i admit to being a disability culture nerd who loves making buttons, writing poetry, and exploring intersections between communities, particularly within a radical women of color feminist framework. and baking. my new love consists of pastries and pies.
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