for queer disabled people of color craving community with each other:

the azolla is a southeast asian plant used in growing rice. azolla plants carry the ability to grow quickly, suppress weeds, and give nutrients to other plants in a symbiotic fashion. the azolla has millions of small, overlapping leaves and lives on the surface of water with its roots hanging under the surface.

we, as disabled queer people of color, are the azolla. we are everywhere. we have the power to grow and build community (the azolla can double its biomass in 2 days!) we are beautiful. we give nutrient to those around us but either are invisible or called weeds. although we sustain community, the focus is never on us. we are working on creating a space, the Azolla Story, that changes this.

we want this online home to be a space where we can connect with each other; build knowledge and community; share stories and histories; reflect, support and transform our love for and with each other. we are a part of many communities and seek to build a community where we can claim our whole selves. we recognize that queerness, gender expression and identity, trans politics and sexuality are an important part of our lives because of the many ways that queer disabled people of color’s gender, sexuality and relationships are policed, deamonized, ignored, exterminated and exploited.

we hope you will grow with us and join us in the telling of our transformation(s). this is the azolla story.

if you are interested in joining the azolla story online community, pls leave a comment and i will send you a link.

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

in 2009 i got to be involved in some really awesome skill shares organized by the cyberquilting crew, a group of genderqueer and women of color who are using technology to thread movements together. i fell in love with both cyberquilters and skills shares.

["skill shares" or "skill sharing" is when people teach other people things that they know. they do it for free or in a trade for being taught a skill. to me this is more than just telling someone how to do something because it is like a transfer of power or knowledge. think superheroes joining forces.]

photo taken at the cyberquilting skills share in detroit at the allied media conference. credit to quirky black girls photography.

every day we are told that a.) we do not have skills and b.) that the things we know are not valuable. this lie exists so that we will try to hoard our skills from others and so that the the system can dangle our need for skill development over our head and sell it back to us.

there are a lot of things i am interested in learning in 2010. i have skills that i can exchange, too, mostly in the area of organizing and media making. i can teach these via webcam, email, or conference call. if you are interested in skill sharing w/ me and others, leave a comment with what you’d like to learn and what you could teach.

things i can teach:

how activists and organizations can use google wave to make the work they have to do together much easier. (some examples: how to use google wave to work with others to host an event, throw a party, write a document, create a plan, etc.)

how to make your event, blog, organization, or space more accessible in terms of disability.

basic html skills or how to create and maintain a website.

basic video editing

how to do mass mailings, webinars, web meetings or conference calls on the cheap/free

how to make your writing 8th grade level

graphic design (photoshop)

how to make your workshop interactive

tshirt reconstruction (cutting up a tee and making a new outfit out of it)

(will add to this list as i think of more)

things i would like to learn:

a vegan dish or two that is easy to cook, cheap, and can be done without special food stores. okay… better eating in general. not only for myself but in hosting events on the cheap. (e.g. there has to be healthier (again, cheap!) food option than beanies and weanies at our youth events)

mediation/energy work techniques that are accessible to me as someone with a physical disability and chronic lung issues. (most ones i see people doing don’t do anything for me).

zine layouts. i’ve worked on 3 zines now but have a hard time wrapping my head around the layout part.

general facilitation skill development

more popular education techniques

how to mix music with opensource technology

budget stuff. i do okay with organizational budgets (aka money that ain’t mine) but don’t have personal budgeting down. see myself drowning in debt if things don’t change soon.

let’s see if we can do some skill sharing with each other.

xo,
cripchick

Human rights activists have long called out aversives [shock therapy and similar tools], restraint [physically immobilizing someone] and seclusion [keeping someone away from everyone else, also known as involuntary confinement] as human rights abuses.

These are practices that are rightfully considered torture if done to prisoners but ones that still happen in our public schools. disabled youth are targeted every day for things like hand flapping and speaking out. When these abuse tactics are used, the media says nothing, schools try to hide it, and parents often do not find out this has happened until their children are showing signs of PTSD [post traumatic stress disorder], bruising and broken bones.

Here is a video by annam20 that describes this silent abuse [trigger warning]:

You may also remember advocates fighting for the closing of the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center in recent years. JRC is one school that continues to use shock therapy and other “treatments” on children.

Recently, a bill has been introduced in Congress that addresses restraint and seclusion.

The bill, the Preventing Harmful Restraint and Seclusion in Schools Act (H.R. 4247/S. 2860), includes:

* A prohibition on the use of restraint and seclusion in schools unless a student’s behavior poses an immediate danger of physical injury and less restrictive interventions would be ineffective.
* A prohibition on the use of any mechanical restraint, chemical restraint, or physical restraint that restricts air flow to the lungs, and any other aversive behavioral intervention that compromises health and safety.
* A requirement for adequate training for school personnel imposing restraint and seclusion.
* A requirement for immediate parental notification and a school debriefing following each incident of restraint or seclusion.
* A requirement for states to create a state plan that incorporates the minimum standards and report annually on the number of incidents of restraint and seclusion.

[To sum that up--- stopping use of r & s unless student is physically attacking someone ---also know as "immanent danger"---, stopping anything that restricts air flow and other potentially life-threatening moves, better training for school personnel, letting parents know right away, school addressing each incident, and each state being required to make a plan for carrying it out and reporting.]

Right now this bill is in need of sponsors… Please use this form to contact your congressman or via congress.org asap and let them know that you will not stand for human right abuses in our schools.

ADAPT is in Georgia this week! To find out more, follow them on twitter or check out their daily Action Report page. The information below is a recap of their rally yesterday. Free our people!

-

Atlanta, GA— Today, for the first time in 43 years, Delores Bates celebrated her birthday outside institutional walls. She turned 60 years old by speaking at the King Center surrounded by 500 ADAPT activists from Georgia and across the country who all sang Happy Birthday and celebrated her freedom with her. The fact that Georgia kept Delores institutionalized most of her life, in violation of her civil rights, is one of the reasons ADAPT is in Atlanta this week.

“Bodie” is another reason ADAPT has returned to the city where it first launched the fight to give people a choice to live in the community instead of being forced into nursing facilities and institutions. Bodie loves the outdoors and he has been waiting 52 years, since he was ten years old, to be able to go outdoors without having to ask permission. He has been moved from one institution to another without anyone ever so much as consulting him. People keep promising him he will move to a house in the community, yet 52 years later, Bodie still lives in an institution.

More than 500 people marched today from the CNN Center, past historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, to the King Center for a civil rights rally. Invited speaker Attorney General Eric Holder didn’t show, but Delores and Bodie did, and so did Lois Curtis and Sue Jamieson. Curtis is the surviving named plaintiff in the historic Olmstead lawsuit where she and Elaine Wilson sued the state of Georgia for the right to move from a state hospital to live in the community. Sue Jamieson is the attorney who represented Curtis and Wilson and won the landmark decision before the U.S. Supreme Court where the court found that Georgia’s practice of inappropriately institutionalizing people with disabilities who could live in the community represented illegal segregation and discrimination.

“Ten years after the Olmstead decision, and twenty years after ADAPT first launched the fight for older and disabled Americans to have a real choice in where they receive their long-term services and supports, the state of Georgia continues to thumb its nose at the law, “ Said Mark Johnson of Georgia ADAPT. “The state has never adequately funded community services, and is now cutting them, despite the promises made by Gov. Sonny Perdue when he first took office. In fact, since the Governor first made those promises, nursing home admissions of people under 65 have grown, not decreased.”

Like other states across the country, Georgia’s failure to develop and implement an action oriented Olmstead plan with goals and timelines to reduce unnecessary segregation of older and disabled Georgians has left it seriously out of compliance with both the Olmstead Supreme Court decision, and the Americans with Disabilities Act. State differences in compliance have presented the best argument for national legislation like the Community Choice Act which would guarantee residents in every state the right to choose to receive long-term services and supports in their own homes and communities.

Startlingly, the King Center, an undeniable symbol of freedom, sits next door to a nursing facility, a concrete reminder of lost years and lost lives. At the conclusion of the rally, Lois Curtis led the crowd in a chant as people gazed at the adjoining property, “Free our brothers, free our sisters, free our people, now!” ADAPT will spend the coming week in Atlanta working on exactly that.

With Autism Speaks founder Bob Wright also serving as NBC’s CEO having served as NBC leadership (CEO) for more than 20 years, Autism Speaks has a lot of mainstream media influence. Many people rock puzzle piece gear without realizing that Autism Speaks is an organization that denies the voice of autistic people (they do not have a single autistic person on its board of directors or leadership), uses scare tactics to make the autism narrative one to be pitied and hated (see latest PSA below), and supports an eugenic cure-based agenda that focuses on eradicating autism (instead of viewing autism and nuerodiversity as a natural part of human diversity).

(Transcript available here)

By saying things like “I [autism] will plot to rob you of your children and your dreams” and “and if you are happily married, I will make sure that your marriage fails”, Autism Speaks’ latest PSA, “I Am Autism” is unacceptable. The autistic self advocate community has had enough of this organization that claims to speak for them.  If you are in Portland this weekend, please contact Elesia at elesia.ashkenaz@gmail.com to find out how you can support autistic people in their fight for self-determination. The time is now, folks!

from the Autistic Self Advocacy Network:

Hello,

As many of you are aware, Autism Speaks sunk to a new low this week – even for them! The “I am Autism” campaign repeats the same tired old lies as the NYU Child Study Center’s Ransom Notes ads, which our community successfully stopped in 2007, and goes even further, presenting Autistic people as useless burdens on society, on our families and on the world at large. ” “I am autism. I have no interest in right or wrong. I will plot to rob you of your children and your dreams….And if you’re happily married, I will make sure that your marriage fails. Your money will fall into my hands, and I will bankrupt you for my own self-gain,” says the video campaign. Full text is available here. As we did in response to the “Ransom Notes” ads, we are preparing a joint letter from the disability community in response to these horrific statements, which we hope to have available early next week. If you are connected to an organization that might be interested in signing on to such a letter, please e-mailinfo@autisticadvocacy.org immediately.

In addition, we are encouraging people to act immediately by joining ASAN in writing singer Bruce Springsteen, scheduled to participate in an Autism Speaks fundraiser in November, to end his newfound association with this organization that devalues our lives and speaks about us without us. You can contact Springsteen’s publicist at mlaverty@shorefire.com or by phone at 718….

Finally, as we mentioned in our initial press release this morning, ASAN Activists and allies are preparing to confront Autism Speaks fundraising in their own communities. If you would be willing to organize a protest in your community, whether you are a self advocate, family member or other ally, please e-mail us at info@autisticadvocacy.org. There has never been a more important time for our community to assert our voice. Please help distribute this message.

Thank you and, as always, Nothing About Us, Without Us!

Regards,
Ari Ne’eman
President
The Autistic Self Advocacy Network
http://www.autisticadvocacy.org
info@autisticadvocacy.org
732.763.5530

NOTE: ASAN’s Portland chapter is preparing a protest of Autism Speaks’ walk in Portland will be held this Saturday. To participate, please contact elesia.ashkenaz@gmail.com. ASAN’s Columbus chapter has been granted a permit to protest Autism Speaks’ October 11th walk. To participate, please contact myergeau@gmail.com. More protests are being planned. To plan a protest in your local community, please contact info@autisticadvocacy.org