cripchick's blog

Disability Identity: What Do You Think??

The Disability Activist Collective, a group of disability activists working to create change within the disability community by shifting focus towards culture and identity, is currently collecting pieces (poetry, art, essays, videos, blog posts) on disability culture, community and identity in hopes of creating a website or hub on disability culture. This carnival is your chance to participate in the building of it!

This edition will focus on disability identity and culture in all its forms (i.e. radical disability pride, understanding disability through various frameworks, disability intersecting [coming together] with other identities, dealing with pain, etc.).

The deadline to submit something is officially May 4th though I will keep adding people in through a rolling basis. The blog carnival will go on air May 8th. You can submit things by leaving a link in a comment to this post, emailing me it at consciouslycrip [at] gmail [dot] com, or using the blogcarnival.com tech.

Here are some topic ideas!:
• What is disability identity? If you are disabled, do you feel disability is a part of you and your experience?
• What is disability culture to you? How do you put it out there or live it every day?
• Does disability intersect with your other identities (i.e. queer person, person of color, person of faith, etc.)?
• Is pride, community, or the Disability Rights Movement important to you? Why or why not?
• How do you feel about the word disabled? Is it a political term with power to you or do you despise it?
• Do you see disability outside of a rights framework (i.e. is disability something that is more than advocacy to you?)
• If you identify with the autistic acceptance movement, the deaf community, or other groups, how do you feel about disability? Many people do not want to associate with the disability community— how do you feel about this?
• Have you felt alienated [left out] from the disability community because of racism, exclusion because of your disability, the media or other factors? How has this affected your identity as a disabled person?

And some topic ideas for allies:
• Why is disability important to your work or politics?
• How do you feel about the Disability Rights Movement and what would you say to activists who downplay this movement or even disability as an important social justice issue?
• How do you see disability intersecting with feminism, reproductive justice [movement that focuses on ALL people having ALL control of their bodies], and other movements that work to end oppression?
• What do you see in your role as an ally?

Resources (if you have others that will be helpful, please leave a link!!):
• Help the Handicapped! (Great funny site to help you understand models of disability. Here the term handicapped is used sarcastically of course)
• Disabled and Proud website (TONS of interesting articles to read through)
• Oh Don’t You Envy Our Privileged Lives? (article by Steven Brown)
• The Wrong Message (article on disability awareness simulations)
• Disability Social History Project
(great timeline)
• Mouth Magazine (pretty radical, great perspective)

—Thank you to Wheelchair Dancer, ThinkFreestyle, Veralidaine for ideas and inspiration—

i love this womyn, her last comment is a entry in itself:

Pride is something that I’ve been working on all my life. It’s like a friend whom I’d like to get to know better. It’s hard to be proud of being Black when nine-tenths of what you hear and see depicted about your people is negative. It’s hard to be proud to be disabled when you’re routinely treated like trash, made to feel as if you must apologize for your very existence, and must fight for the most basic things and rights. It’s hard to be proud to be queer when you can’t even hold your partner’s hand in public without worrying about getting beat up. Pride comes even harder when the groups and people that you count yourself a part of, won’t accept you because you also belong to a group or people that they look down on, or who are not of the dominant culture. Still, I search for Pride, and sometimes, manage to find her in the wierdest places. She pops up often when I least expect her. I still want to know her better. It’s hard to admit that pride doesn’t come easy to me, especially since I’m a somewhat radical disability rights activist. Maybe it’s that there is more pride in me than I realize. Maybe it’s pride and love that has kept me in the disability rights movement for 21 years, with 114 arrests with ADAPT during that time. Maybe it’s pride, love, amd hope that makes me work hard to be the first Black in management at work. Maybe it’s pride after all, that has me smile at my partner and hold her hand in public.

…but if i put it here it’ll feel like it.

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