disability justice
History of Disability Justice (Source)
The term disability justice was coined out of conversations between disabled queer women of color activists in 2005, including Patty Berne of Sins Invalid (and Mia Mingus & Stacy Milbern, who eventually united with Leroy Moore, Eli Clare, and Sebastian Margaret) seeking to challenge radical and progressive movements to more fully address ableism.
"Disability Justice was built because the Disability Rights Movement and Disability Studies do not inherently centralize the needs and experiences of folks experiencing intersectional oppression, such as disabled people of color, immigrants with disabilities, queers with disabilities, trans and gender non-conforming people with disabilities, people with disabilities who are houseless, people with disabilities who are incarcerated, people with disabilities who have had their ancestral lands stolen, amongst others." (Source)
Disability justice recognizes the intersecting legacies of white supremacy, colonial capitalism, gendered oppression and ableism in understanding how people's’ bodies and minds are labelled ‘deviant’, ‘unproductive’, ‘disposable’ and/or ‘invalid’.
Introductory Readings
Wherever You Are is Where I Want to Be: Crip Solidarity, Mia Mingus
A Babe-Licious Healing Justice Statement, BadAss Visionary Healers (BAVH)
Dialogue on Disability Justice Movement Building with Patty Berne
Disability Solidarity: Completing the “Vision for Black Lives”
Introductory Videos
Ableism is The Bane of My Motherfuckin’ Existence
“Is medicine about quality of life, or is it about social control? And perpetuating this idea that you have a good body?” - Stacey Milbern
My Body Doesn’t Oppress Me, Society Does: Barnard Center for Research on Women
Impairment: Physical or neurological manifestation vs. Disability: What society creates as barriers because of the impairment
“If I’m in a place where my access needs are being met, then my impairment isn’t so significant.” - Stacey Milbern
“It’s not easy to live with an impairment. There are time when it’s not convenient to have a body. But that’s not what oppresses us. What oppresses us is living in a system that disregards us, is violent towards us, essentially wants to subjugate our bodies or kill us -- that’s oppressive. My body doesn’t oppress me.” - Patty Berne
“There are always going to be people in pain. That’s just the nature of being in a body. But the social body we can change. And I think it requires a power analysis.” - Patty Berne
Disability Justice Curricula (Source)
CONTEXT
Claiming Disability: Knowledge and Identity by Simi Linton
Kindling: Writings On the Body by Aurora Levins Morales. Palabrera Press; First Thus Used edition (May 1, 2013)
The Culture of Pain by David B. Morris, University of California Press; Reprint edition (April 12, 1993)
The Body In Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World by Elaine Scarry, Oxford University Press; 1 edition (April 23, 1987)
Defining Impairment & Disability – University of Leeds, Centre for Disability Studies
Popaganda: Women and Pain (podcast)
Medical Industrial Complex (visual by activist Mia Mingus)
ABLEISM AND DISABILITY JUSTICE
Disability Justice – a working draft by Patty Berne
Forced Intimacy: An Ableist Norm by Mia Mingus
Time has Come to Embrace Disability Justice Movement by Janine Bertram Kemp
Identity-First Language by Lydia X. Z. Brown
Disability in an Ableist World by Lydia X. Z. Brown
10 Answers to Common Questions People Ask When Being Called Out for Using Ableist Language by Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg
Disability Identity and Language by Annie Elainey (video)
This is Disability Justice by Nomy Lamm
I am Disabled: On Identity-First Versus People-First Language by Cara Liebowitz
Becoming Disabled by Michael E. Weinstien
Stop Weaponizing Mental Health for your Anti-Blackness by Cameron Glover
I’m not your inspiration, thank you very much TEDxSydney talk by Stella Young
6 Ways Your Social Justice Activist Might Be Ableist by Carolyn Zaikowski
Disability Rights and Independent Living Movement Oral History Archives from the University of California
ACCESSIBILITY AND INCLUSION
I am NOT an Afterthought: The Dangers of Everyday Ableism in our Transportation Systems by Taylor Carmen
Lessons for our Future From the Disability Intersectionality Community by Carrie
How our communities can move beyond access to wholeness by Mia Mingus
Can You Tell The Difference Between Accommodation and Accessibility? by Katie Rose Guest Pryal
Disability and Access Toolkit by Showing Up for Racial Justice
STATE VIOLENCE AND DISABILITY JUSTICE
Police violence frequently targets disabled black people - and we hardly ever talk about it by Rachel Anspach
Punished Twice: Prisons basically ignore the Americans with Disabilities Act, leaving a third of inmates facing abuse and neglect by Erika Eichelberger
Locked Down: On Disability and Incarceration by Cheryl Green
Mother/Activist, Kerima Çevik, Tells Why Police Crisis/Disability Training Is Not The Answer by Leroy Moore
Making Hard Time Harder: Programmatic Accommodations for Inmates with Disabilities under the Americans with Disabilities Act by Rachael Seevers
Having the Option: Alissa Afonina/Sasha Mizaree On Her Case and Being a Disabled Sex Worker by Caty Simon
****How Misunderstanding Disability leads to Police Violence by David M. Perry and Lawrence Carter-Long**** [NOTE: This article is written by two unaffected white men who left out necessary background, history, and context, and did not credit Disabled/Deaf BIPOC for their incredible, path-breaking contributions to this field. Here is a link to the response [listed below] of people of color in the disability justice movement to this paper which fills in that context.
Accountable Reporting on Disability, Race, & Police Violence: A Community Response to the “Ruderman White Paper on the Media Coverage of Use of Force and Disability”: This letter was collectively drafted by Leroy F. Moore Jr., Talila A. Lewis, and Lydia X. Z. Brown, with the support of over twenty Disabled Black/Indigenous people, the vast majority of whom are part the Harriet Tubman Collective.
Locked Down: The Link Between Disability and Incarceration episode by Popaganda Podcast
DESIRABILITY AND SEXUALITY
Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness, and Liberation by Eli Clare. Duke University Press Books; Reissue edition (August 7, 2015)
The Complicated Dynamics of Disability and Desire by Lachrista Greco
Feminist, Queer, Crip by Alison Kafer, Indiana University Press; 1 edition (May 16, 2013)
Access Intimacy: The Missing Link by Mia Mingus
You could truly be yourself if you just weren’t you: sexuality, disabled body space, and the (neo)liberal politics of self-help by Matthew Sothern
Where's the Sex Ed for Disabled Kids? by s.e. Smith
Disabled and Fighting for a Sex Life by Katharine Quarmby
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Autism Wars - Blog by Mrs. Kermina Çevik
Disibility Visibility Project - An online project that amplifies stories of disabilities
Leaving Evidence - Blog by activist Mia Mingus
Monstering - A magazine for disabled women and non-binary people
Invisible Disability Project - An educational project focused on “unseen” disabilities
Sins Invalid - Performance art group that focuses on the stories and experiences of queer, disabled people of color
Other Resources:
Incarceration (Source)
About a third of prison and jail inmates reported a disability in 2011-2012, PR Newswire
‘Ban the Box’: Good for people with disabilities, U.S. Department of Labor blog
Supporting, not imprisoning, Aboriginal people with disabilities, could save millions, The Conversation,
Why are so many mentally ill people imprisoned in PA? The Pittsburgh Courier
A Psychologist as Warden? Jail and Mental Illness Intersect in Chicago, New York Times
In U.S. Prisons, Psychiatric Illness is Often Met with Brute Force, TruthOut
Breaking the School to Prison Pipeline for Students with Disabilities – National Council on Disability
Brave New Films Releases “Over-Criminalized” – film exploring use of prisons to treat mental illness
Deaf in Prison: Examining Social Exclusion within Systems – from Adler University blog
Mental Health Courts: Challenges, Questions, and Tensions – Center for Court Innovation
Callous and Cruel, Human Rights Watch Report
Mentally Ill Inmates are Routinely Physically Abused, Study Says, Timothy Williams for the New York Times
Solitary Confinement Makes Teenagers Depressed and Suicidal, Ian Kysel for Washington Post
Dealing with Dementia Among Aging Criminals, New York Times
Exploring what it means when police refuse to provide medical attention to their victims, Daily Kos
Jails Are No Substitute for a Mental Health System, The Hill
Cook County Jail a ‘mental health provider,’ says Sheriff Tom Dart, threatening lawsuit, The Huffington Post
Police Violence (Source)
Three bills in Florida on police and disability, David Perry (blog)
Black, Autistic, and Killed by Police, Chicago Reader
Risk of being killed by police is 16 times greater for people with mental illness, The Guardian
Is handcuffing special needs kids acceptable discipline? The Herald Times Online
Distraught People; Deadly Results, The Washington Post
Police Brutality, Mental Illness, and Race in the Age of Mass Incarceration, Austin McCoy for Nursing Clio (blog)
A Tribute to Tanisha Anderson: African American, Schizophrenic, and Lost on the Streets, Huffington Post (see also Cleveland –> Tanisha Anderson)
Man Tries to Inform Police Son is Autistic – Gets Assaulted, Tasered, Cassandra Fairbanks for The Free Thought Project
Race and Disability (Source)
Autism and Race (organization/website)
Kim Discusses Disability, Race, and Infrastructural Neglect, The Wesleyan Argus
What Racial, Disability, and LGBT Justice Have in Common, PBS News Hour
Public Schools’ Disturbing Conflation of Race and Disability, Al-Jazeera America
Race, Depression, and Sandra Bland, The Cavalier Daily
Disabled Black Lives Matter, Huffington Post
We Must Change the Ableist Language Surrounding Sandra Bland’s Death, For Harriet
Mental Illness and Jails: Race is Left Out of the Equation, TruthOut
Police Brutality, Mental Illness, and Race in the Age of Mass Incarceration, Austin McCoy for Nursing Clio (blog)
Shooters of color are called ‘terrorists’ and ‘thugs,’ why are white shooters called ‘mentally ill’? – Anthea Butler op-ed in the Washington Post
Care Under Conditions of Capitalism and White Supremacy: An Interview with Mia Mingus, Bluestockings