cripchick's blog

in one month, i will be taking a hiatus from organizing*. as i organize my last event with the disabled young people’s collective, i am thinking about all of the things i plan to do once this (important) (massive headache) event is over.

in this next year, i plan to:
take my time with everything.
focus on building relationships.
go on southern crip camping trips.
go to corea with other disabled and queer corean americans.
make media.
write for anthologies and zines.
buy a house.
have a mortgage.
find more queer PAs.
learn to cook.
maybe take some classes at the local community college to build skills i want.
tell all the stories and histories i don’t even tell myself.

having a list feels really important… a few months ago, i could not even imagine what my life might look like if i wasn’t a Community Organizer (c). i have carved a life/identity/purpose out of this work. now i am noticing all the ways that my life has become about creating a response, logistics, event planning. there are so many events i can’t even be good at what i’m organizing at anymore: everything is a rushed, half-said logistical nightmare. intergenerational frictions come up at events but there is not enough energy post-event to address them in a direct, loving way so relationships with mentors break. everything with comrades feels like drama because we are too busy to really be thorough with our processes so the issues stay there, never going away, just sitting at the bottom of every interaction. the timeline does not allow for people to be held accountable or skills to be really be shared so the same people end up doing everything. half of the low income/poor people of color drop off because they aren’t supported in way that allows them to really contribute. soon, most people with developmental disabilities have left too.

while in detroit last week, i lived with the creating collective access crew, a group of disability justice-hearted people taking care of each other during the amc and social forum. the way we came together felt like something i haven’t experienced in a long time. access looks like such a different thing from a disability justice model. part of my readiness to hang up my organizer hat is wanting the time to build deep, intentional relationships. this is rooted in disability justice.

these are the things i’m really feelin’ right now:

disability rights:
+ access gets simplified into a pre- approved accommodation check-list 1-2 people bottomline. checklist is good because this is often the first time people have basic access needs met.
+ general understanding is that people are entitled to access. it is a right. there are good things about this but it also often means we are only doing shallow/absolute basic access for each other.
+ people come from a place of wanting to change something concrete.
+ focus is in changing the minds of able-bodied people, whether that is awareness, laws, acknowledgment.
+ even if every goal of the disability rights movement was achieved, most of us still wouldn’t be free. the disability rights movement’s refusal to name ableism as a system of power has also been a way to maintain white supremacy, classism, heterosexism as what is right…

disability justice:
+ access is something that is a collective responsibility. it is a constant process. it is rooted in the multiplicity of our selves.
+ access is love. access is believing we need each other and interdependence is how we will survive.
+ people come from a place of longing for each other. each time we reach towards each other, we are cutting across isolation.
+ the work is in building relationships and changing ourselves. we know we will never find solution in the system.
+ DJ rests on the leadership of disabled people who have been pushed out to the margins of what is “right” “good” “clean” “acceptable” by mainstream society.

i am so excited to make room in my life to live disability justice.

* there are a lot of definitions for “community organizer”. here i mean organizer as a person who brings people together in one place for a specific purpose. i am referring to work i do unpaid and outside of my 40+ hour job.

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

growing up mixed always made me the person who swam between worlds, taking artifacts from each to prove the other existed, negotiating misunderstandings and building relationships that by their nature created coalition among very different people.

activists friends and i talk a lot about balance and energy. about how to work the system and how to do what we love (organize, create) but come to think about it, no, not everyone faces that problem. people who grow up as translators and bridge builders—folks who live in multiple communities, folks who had some privilege and were favored in some way by the system, mixed folks— are the ones who travel back and forth never knowing where they fit, what safe space looks like, when to switch up tongues. people say that both the reformist and the radical has to exist but no one feels the obligation to be both, to carry everything, like we do.

our communities fought so hard to be at the table, how could we not respect that & politely say no thank you to sitting there?…honestly our communities that we are working with don’t have the privilege for us to disengage, they need the resources, the funding, the connections that come w/ sitting at the table. (especially with disability and the daily things we need being so tied up in government). …we could spend a month with all our energy going to trying to fund something ourselves or we could use the dominant culture language skills we have to spend a day writing a grant application. …or these folks aren’t members of our communities but could be amazing allies if we put some time into it.

it is selfish not to work the system for your community, to get the money, when you have the skills to do so, right? but at the same time, sitting at the table, constantly working the system from the inside is tiring. representing your community at some board meeting may be a part of the work but it is nothing like doing what you love or being in home community. i feel most free when being me is a fundamental part of my organizing/creating. spaces where poetry, hip hop/pop culture, & our experiences leads to deep conversations and analysis building. where what i wear and what i listen to is seen as part of the media i make. where i am working with folks who “get it” with blood– blood stolen, blood flowing through their veins— not their pretty heads. people who organize out of necessity not because of a cause, charity, or to have something sparkly on their resume. that’s when i feel most at use or accomplished— when we are building with each other to find words & build movements that speak to being us. when we are doing and being us.

everything ultimately comes down to the question of where to put energy: balance of doing what you need to do to work the system or doing what you love & what makes you free. but maybe that is just the saga of a mixed girl…

—
artifact is another word for an object made by a person.

reform and radical are words used to describe how people see social change. reformists work to get society to recognize their community by doing things like getting in political office, writing for a big newspaper, etc. radicals believe the system will never help their communities and work to answer their own problems.

“sitting at the table” is phrase used to talk about being a part of a decision being made. people work hard to get their communities a “seat at the table”, which means being represented or recognized.