cripchick's blog

(this post begins with a poem that may be triggering.) Read the rest of this entry »

arms legs hips thighs
feet hands neck nose
ankles.
ankles. always twisting.
falling, falling.
body betraying me,
one simple miscalculation of gravity
has always brought
this body
crashing
to
the
ground.

never letting my love for you slip out,
i tiptoe around us delicately
push/ pull back/ pretend
like i don’t care/ pretend like this is a seat
at the bus station/
a temporary reprieve —
not what we have chosen
for ourselves

forever fearing the eventual misstep
i know that one wrong move
is enough
to bring us
crashing
to
the
ground.

as someone who is a disability community builder (think potlucks, youth training programs, etc) a good chunk of my time is spent creating space and relationships where people are working through their disability identity for the first time. much of this is done by talking about our social positioning and the ways our lives are similarly shaped by ableism. pretty soon, it is easy enough to connect shared values, experiences, and history and point out that we share a culture of disability. i love the word disability culture because it describes the indescribable & recognizes that which is supposed to be left unspoken: the commonality you can only find among other outsiders, the sigh of relief that comes with realizing you don’t have to “pass” or make yourself least disabled as possible here, letting ourselves be loud, clanky, take up space, etc.

last night i had a 2 hour skype conversation with someone who not only has the same politic i do, but also has a similar disability to mine. in my disability organizing, it has somehow become common for me to be the only wheelchair user in a space and i forgot how goooooood it feels to be with someone that deals with the exact. same. shit. i. do.  my body is going through a lot of change right now and i am starting to recognize that my visually impaired, autistic, or Deaf guy friends will never be able to help me understand my changing body in that same way that a (queer) woman (of color) with a mobility impairment can. a little surprised that this is something i have let myself forget… it is the reason i believe in community and why i work so hard to find ways for other disabled people to have “OMG you have that experience too??” moments

i’m also realizing that not allowing space in cross-disability work to recognize that our experiences are *not* the same has been a great disservice to us all. i know when i am using the term “people of color”, i have to recognize that my experience as mixed asian woman is vastly different from that of a black or latino brother so it is strange to me that this understanding doesn’t transfer into my disability work. my friends and i have spent so much energy this year fighting/crying/being let down around accommodations and access that i am seeing the way that maybe this is connected to our inability to hold a space that says our experiences with disability are different and that what it takes for us to participate in a space is different.

it seems like with everything else about disability, this space is a balance, an art. i do not believe in coalition-based thinking (over community-based thinking) because i’ve seen the way that it has meant disabled people only caring about their individual disability issues and fighting for their piece of the pie instead of working for us all getting free. at the same time, i have to be able to recognize that our experiences are different and that multiple kind of spaces are necessary…