Disability Justice Study Group 2015

“Access intimacy is that elusive, hard to describe feeling when someone else “gets” your access needs. The kind of eerie comfort that your disabled self feels with someone on a purely access level.” – Mia Mingus in Access Intimacy, a favorite reading of our group

This material list was created for a 8 week study and supportive group that met during the fall of 2015. We got together to learn about disability justice, to unlearn ableism, to make connections between movements and to support each other and grow. The people who were present were all impacted quite personally by disability * – themselves or a close family member. Although it does not have to be that way – conversations and groups and events that are made to unlearn and relearn are very much needed for mixed ability settings and people who are in solidarity, who are more removed from disability on a more personal level for the time being.

To be in solidarity with the disabled community is to recognize: “Ableism works as a mechanism of white supremacy, capitalism and colonization by devaluing disabled bodies and minds as unnatural, invalid and unworthy across the lines of race, gender, poverty and citizenship.” And to “embrace disability justice in action and direction nurtures our capacity to reach a strong and vibrant base, teeming with the brilliant imperfection disability community brings to the table, bringing us all fabulously closer to a racial justice movement emboldened to leave no one behind in our struggle for collective liberation.” (Disability and Access Toolkit, SURJ).

This list is organized by topic. It is not exhaustive by any means, it’s just a beginning.

If anyone wants to know more about this group, how to organize your own, including more materials for leading groups and agendas, please email lizzie at em.and.sequins@gmail.com.

* when we speak of disability we are celebrating the brilliance and vitality of a vast community of peoples with imperfect bodies and minds whether a disability is visible or not. This includes, though is not limited to, folks who identify as disabled, chronically ill, Deaf, mad, sick and more. (Disability and Access Toolkit, SURJ)

Broad introduction to dis/ability, ableism, DJ, language and identity:

Words:

• Disability in an ableist world – Autistic Hoya
• Ableism – Wikipedia
• Ableist Words and Terms to Avoid – Autistic Hoya
• Feeling the Weight: Some Beginning Notes on Disability Access and Love – Mia Mingus
• So Much Time Spent In Bed: Gloria Anzaldua, chronic illness, Coatlicue and disability 
  – Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
• Changing the Framework: Disability Justice – Mia Mingus
• 10 Principles of Disability Justice – Sins Invalid

Video/Audio:

• People with ‘Invisible Disabilities’ Fight for Understanding – Naomi Gingold at NPR
• Inspiration Porn and the Objectification of Disability – Stella Young at TED
• The Disability Justice Collective

Video with ASL Interpretation:

• Patient No More: cripstory
  – leah lakshmi piepzna-samarasinha

History of Disability

Words:

• What is Ableism? Part Two – Stop Ableism
• Disability History Timeline  – Disability Social History Project
• A History of Disability: from 1050 to the Present Day  – Historic England

Videos:

• Stereotypes of PWD – Disability History Education Video
• Disability Rights Activist Movement Documentary
• Disability History Week
• It’s Our Story
• Disability History Video Exhibit Panel 1

Movements for justice and the American With Disabilities Act (ADA)

Words:

• The history of the ADA –  Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund
• This is Disability Justice – Nomy Lamm
• Interview w/Sins Invalid on Disability Justice Theory & Praxis – The Icarus Project
• The Right to Be Rescued: Disability Justice in an Age of Disaster – Adrien A. Weibgen, The Yale Law Journal
• What Disability Justice Has to Offer Social Justice – Theo Yang Copley

Viewing/listening:

• Beyond Disability Rights; Disability Justice – Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (captioned)
• Disability Justice – Mia Mingus and a longer video (both captioned) – Equitable Education
• Disability Law, Policy and Civil Rights Movement – module one
  – McBurney Disability Resource Center
• Disability Rights Movement– images and camera footage
• It’s Our Story– a national initiative to make disability history public and accessible
• A Passion for Freedom: The Birth of Independent Living
  – captioned and images described

Intersectionality! And pan disability, functioning

Words:

• Americans With Disabilities Are More Likely To Be Poor, Report Finds – Joy Resmovitz, The Huffington post
• Double Rainbow: Autism and Race – Caroline Narby on Bitch Media
• Spoons – Savannah Logsdon-Breakstone on Queer Mental Health
• Dear World: How I Got My Brain Injury Is None of Your Business by Cheryl Green on Adios Barbie
• Ranking Names Best Cities For People With Disabilities by Shaun Heasley on Disability Scoop
• Tales From The Crip: This is What Disability Looks Like by caitlin wood on Bitch Media
• Our Lives Matter: Toward An Intersectional Politics Of Disability – Eddie Ndopu on The Feminist Wire
• Intersectionality – Christina Emba, The Washington Post – other smart links at the bottom

Videos:

• WTF is Intersectional Feminism???
  – MTV Braless
• Singer and Cripp Activist Mindie Lind Debuts Music Video “RECLUSE” – Bitch Magazine
  
• Shit People Say to Sick and Disabled Queers

Policing and criminalization and abuse

Words:

• How They Hurt Us: Violence in the Academy – Lydia Brown/ Autistic Hoya, powerpoint and transcript
• Violence against adults and children with disabilities – World Health Organization
• Violence against women with disabilities – Womenshealth.gov
• Sins Invalid Statement on Police Violence – Sins Invalid
• People with disabilities half of people killed by cops; disability rights groups protest – Joyce Chediac, Workers World
  
• A Call for Solidarity with the Community of Ferguson, Missouri – Lead On Network
• Addressing the Criminalization of Disability from a Disability Justice Framework: Centring The Experiences of Disabled Queer Trans Indigenous and
  People of Colour – the feminist wire
• How Misunderstanding Disability Leads to Police Violence –
  David M. Perry and Lawrence Carter-Long, The Atlantic
• There Is No Police Exception to the Americans With Disabilities Act – Susan Mizner, ACLU
• Being stopped by the police is difficult for everyone. If you are deaf, the experience can be worse – ACLU

Love, Gender, Sexuality & Desire

Words:

• Access Intimacy – Mia Mingus
• Double Rainbow: Autism and Masculinity – Caroline Narby, Bitch Magazine
• Double Rainbow: Asperger’s and girls – Caroline Narby, Bitch Magazine
• Angry About The White Lesbians Suing For Having A Black Child? You’re Missing Something – Ki’tay Davidson, Black Girl Dangerous
• Caring for Ourselves as Political Warfare – Adrienne Maree Brown
  
• 26 Ways to be in the Struggle Beyond the Streets
• Alice Wong investigates interdependence between the disability and caregiver communities – Alice Wong, Making Contact
  
• Sexuality and Disability website
• Dating with Disabilities – Keith R. Murfee-DeConcini
• People with Disabilities and the Federal Marriage Penalties – B.J. Stasio
• “Marriage equality” for queers doesn’t mean shit when you are punished for it because you happen to be a disabled queer – Radical Access Mapping Project
• Disabled People Are Still Being Forcibly Sterilized—So Why Isn’t Anyone Talking About It? – s.e. Smith, Rewire
• People with disabilities experience domestic or sexual violence at a higher rate than people without disabilities – Washington Coalition of Sexual
  Assault Programs
• Illness & intimacy: how peer-to-peer conversations are identifying and filling gaps in whole-person health – Sarah E. Kucharski, Stanford

Videos:

• SEX WITH DISABILITIES? – Laci Green