They say 20,000+ social justice activists will be traveling to Detroit this week for the Allied Media Conference (17-20), US Social Forum (22-26), and the Hip Hop Congress Conference (26-28). A lot of communities are using this time to organize and people are coming in on every mode of transportation possible: bikes, buses, caravans, planes… It will be the first time (that I know of) that a large number of disability justice folks will be gathering together to be in community with each other, build shared politic, and strategize about how to incorporate this new framework into our lives and our work. It has taken a year of finding resources and planning to make the events below happen, hope you can join us!

+ Beyond Access: An Introduction to Disability Justice (4 hour intensive Disability Justice training at US Social Forum)- you’ve heard the word disability justice used but maybe aren’t sure what it means, or maybe how it is different from disability rights. you want to learn more about how disability intersects with occupation, racism, reproductive justice, the way our bodies are policed, and all the conditions of our lives as poor disabled folk, disabled people of color, queer disabled people, disabled parents, disabled youth… join us on wednesday june 23rd 1- 5:30 pm to learn more about this framework and movement. workshop is led by mia mingus, sebastian margaret (bio near bottom) and myself. for more information, visit http://organize.ussf2010.org/ws/beyond-access-introduction-disability-justice

+ Allied Media Conference Disability Justice track! – this track is being co-coordinated by sins invalid and the national youth leadership network. a few teasers: the sins crew’s “Radicalizing the Message: Performance, Disability & the Revolutionary Body” workshop (everything you need to know about production and disability), the Azolla Story Meet Up (queer crips of color zine party!), the fefes’s “Let’s Talk About Sex: Disability Perspective” workshop (sex, gender, ableism, disability), nyln’s “Media Strategies to Expand Access for Disabled People” workshop (how popular education can work for disabled folks) and more ….  for more information, look at this schedule and find all the ones labeled “DJ”: http://alliedmedia.org/program/schedule

+ Disability Justice Historic Convening – join disability justice activists as we come together to map out where we are in our individual and collective lives, strategize, and share our work. this will be taking place monday, june 21st. to find out more, read the invitation posted in my last blog post, here: http://blog.cripchick.com/archives/6993

+ Mangos with Chili 4th Anniversary Show: qwo li driskill, leah lakshmi piepzna-samarasinha, and tons more amazing performers still being confirmed… this show will be HOT. taking place june 24th at 5 pm in the amphitheater, the mangos fam will be focus on bringing beautiful, potent testimony of queer and trans of color and two spirit love, resistance, survival, kitchen tables and dreams of freedom to this world-transforming gathering… you won’t want to miss this. to find out more, visit mangoswithchili.wordpress.com

+ Interdependent Care Circles (pod people!) – disability always forces access forward. this time, disabled folks will be creating a communal care network while we are in detroit. what this might look like concretely: 1.) people forming pods, both organically and being partnered with folks if they are coming alone. 2.) pods working together to make sure needs of people within their pods are met. 3.) on a larger scale, pods of people taking care of the group as a whole. e.g. DYP pod getting breakfast for folks, bay area pod making sure folks have a ride to the site, etc. to sign your crew up as a pod or find our more, visit creatingcollectiveaccess.wordpress.com

These are just a few things happening in the disability justice realm! (Hoping I can also dip my feet in API activism, youth popular educator circles, queer southern stuff.) If you will be in the D next week, let me know so we can meet up!!

Really excited about disability justice hearted people coming together in Detroit next week. Below is announcement about a convening we will be having to map out where we are in our individual and collective lives, flesh out what we mean by disability justice, and strategize. There will also be disability justice ongoings at the Allied Media Conference and a few workshops at the US Social Forum. . . check out creatingcollectiveaccess.wordpress.com or see our track info at http://alliedmedia.org/program/tracks. Woo!

So many thoughts in my head about the process to organize these things (have been especially wanting to write about what it means to demedicalize my care and have collective PA routines—something a friend and I have been expertimenting with and will take to the next level in the D.) Have a fancy new phone and will be trying to blog/tweet throughout that week as much as possible. Stay tuned. . .

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Hello!

On June 21st (the purple note and light blue light of the yellow moon) there will be a community-organized day (light) in Detroit. This day (light) is for disabled folks who do disability justice work. We see disability justice as creating a world where people are interdependent and disabled people get to be their whole selves. We want to come together, share, strategize, dream, have fun, and build community.

We want disabled people to join us! Join us: if you are working to create a more whole and deep understanding of disability.* Join us: if you dream about a world that understands disability beyond just access; that understands ableism; where disabled people feel connected to each other; where you can talk about what it means to be a person of color AND queer AND poor AND disabled, instead of choosing just one (light blue). You do not have to be in an organization.

The details: June 21, 2010 (the purple note and light blue light of the yellow moon) from 1pm – 7pm (light blue blob after the middle to black in the dark), on Wayne State University in Detroit, MI.

We will start with lunch and end with a dinner. After dinner, we will have an open mic group time from 7pm -8pm (black blobs after the middle to brown blobs after the middle). Bring stuff (chapbooks, buttons, crafts) you want to sell or share with others!

Let us know if you are interested in joining us! You can let us know by emailing Mia at miamingus@gmail.com or calling Stacey at 910-722-9552. We need to know if you are coming by Wednesday, June 16th (pink, the brown note and yellow light of the yellow moon).

We will be making sure the space is scent-free, flash-free, has vegan food options, wheelchair accessible and sign language interpreted.

Please include your contact info and let us know if you:
1.) need childcare

2.) have food you cannot eat

3.) have an access need that we need to know about. (an example might be needing a person to help you understand what the group is saying or a ride to the space).

We value what all disabled people can bring. This includes people with psychiatric [mental], developmental or cognitive [thinking], chronic illness, and learning disabilities. Just so folks with allergies know, there will be at least one (light blue) assistance dog present. If folks send us their RSVP late, we will try to meet people’s needs as best we can. We will send out location info to people that RSVP.

To find out more, visit creatingcollectiveaccess.wordpress.com

In community,
Stacey, Leroy, Leah, Sebastian, Patty, and Mia

* This may include doing work around disability and race, militarization [war and control], class, environmental justice [land and control], gender, sexuality, incarceration [prison and control], reproductive justice [our bodies and control], citizenship [belonging to one country], violence, care, parenting and family.

i recently came home from a whirlwind 12 day trip to portland and san francisco.

my time in portland felt much like a “tour” in that it was not a conference or gathering, it was about seeing me (think “come see cripchick speak here!” x 5 times… and people actually showing up). i kind of fell in love with the gratification of facilitating successful workshops, breaking ableism down and having ppl get it, and getting the respect of people i respect. there was a time where i was looking around the room in portland and was surprised that i could say i hadn’t met one straight person all day — i was completely immersed in queer crip community. (sad thing is i could also say that i hadn’t met one person of color, portland is WHITE yall).

and then i went to san francisco, right?

it was even more mind-blowing. here i was in community with artists, poets, organizers. the sins crew. azolla story fam.

carved out a routine rooted in crip interdependence.
slept in late and started my mornings writing poems under the shade of a lemon tree.
spent the days engaged in conversations with queer crips of color.
stayed in the home of the most generous person i’ve ever met.
spontaneously met up with two queer koreans, only to hear that there were more of us.
explored an accessible city.
ate delicious food.
got deliriously lost in a crush.

no matter where i travel to, every trip home always begins with a deep sigh of recognition. i love the south. can’t imagine living anywhere else. at the same time, coming home was really hard this time. although this is where i belong, it is also the place where my reality is one rooted in military chain of command culture, heteronormativity/hypermasculinity, and the fact that there is not much room for non-black folks in people of color organizing (very much a black/white dichotomy). i kind of don’t know what to do with my sadness. the “right” answer seems to be to move (whether that is another town/city in the south, like durham or atlanta, or another region) but this… is my home.

a friend/fellow organizer once said that this is the question every southern queer faces: “stay in your home of origin or [if even possible,] move to a place where you have more resources?”

wish i had an answer.

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…

this month i am spending a third of my days travelling and sleeping in hotels. all of this is taking a toll on my body and i find myself stepping back and wondering why movements i could do the day before are not possible. on monday, i was in raleigh going down a hill i’ve been down a million times before. the possibility of losing my balance and tumbling out of my chair was such a real danger that i had to call a friend nearby to come walk with me. (and it’s a good thing i called him, not only was my body draining but my chair died and he had to push me back to the hotel.)

i am thinking constantly about the contradiction and the space between wanting to live a disability justice lifestyle — desperately wanting to dismantle capitalist rules of productivity that leave out many of us and force us to give up our bodies and our labor for nothing that frees our communities— but also finding my life very rooted in a disability rights assimilationist model— i can do anything this other person can do, just need the right accomodations, just need more opportunities/laws/connections, just need to work harder… it took me 7 days of working in my first job to realize that no, i am not miraculously more productive than other disabled people in the organization, things were getting done because i had put in 80+ hours the first week to prove i was of value… funny thing is the only one in the org i ever needed to prove this to was myself.

and i have found that when i am at home, working part of the day from bed is the only thing that doesn’t tear apart my body. but feeling well is hard to exchange for the fact that i type much slower in bed, that it takes me twice as long to do what i can do sitting up. i hate how that feels but i am trying to challenge myself to not just to talk about disability justice but live it— self care, interdependent relationships, questioning a system that asks me to give up my body/labor and otherizes me if i cannot. but it is hard.

this tied in with a few other things also has me thinking about what i know intellectually, what i know with my heart, what i know with my body. where those 3 things meet and what they look like. where desire, safety, intimacy fits in. it is all really confusing and i get lost easily.

here is to us finding wellness and joy in 2010. here is to listening to your body.

hi all!

putting my need out into the internet since it has been working lately! (love to you all)

do any of yall have information on liberation schools organized by the black panthers, community-led classes, popular education programs, organizing schools, or anything of that nature?

i am in the process of organizing a “campus” locally for the school of our lorde. where i live, this will mean people of color coming together every saturday to study the poetry, pedagogy [study of teaching], and politics of audre lorde

and the youth crew i am is also sketching out the framework we want to use for the event we are holding this summer for disabled youth to come together for a week and return home as revolutionaries

if you have access to online libraries, books you can rec, stories you know, stuff you’ve seen in your communities, models you’ve used, please let me know. told a friend today i was excited to learn that things in my head and in the collective are not new— being accessible is called “popular education”, events where youth come together to learn power analysis, activism, poetry is called “liberation schools”… just have to do the homework!

excited for 2010!!!

cripchick