cripchick's blog

after conversations with fellow disability activists, i’ve been thinking a lot lately about what disability justice means. i’ve been trying to be more conscious about the way i talk about my move (i don’t want to co-opt DJ movement by saying things like “i didn’t seek consensus on this but, hey, THIS is disability justice.”).

but… any time people, like yolo, moya, aaminah, mai’a, china, bianca, teukie and our whole dream team, come together to throw down for their friends because they want to help build a world where their two queer disabled sisters of color can exist in beloved community with them… that’s disability justice if i’ve ever seen it.

this is such a gorgeous, sweet statement of support and solidarity from an able-bodied comrade (and best friend of mia’s).

happy birthday, mia. you are loved.

yes, yes, and more yes. this is exactly  why i believe so much in the work of creating beloved community. our liberation waits on us learning how to radically love one another.

for me, justice is what love looks like in public. when you love folk, you hate the fact that they’re been treated unjustly. you loathe the fact that they’re being treated unfairly. and if you don’t do something the rocks are going to cry out because when you talk about justice, you’re not talking about some abstract notion, you’re talking about something you feel deep in your soul — the way you would if you heard curtis mayfield play his guitar. you gotta feel.

- dr. cornel west

via colinresponse blog

today is national coming out day. as i think about what this means for me as someone who is so out, yet so so closeted, friends and i are on a conference call going over notes from a recent summit where self advocates with developmental disabilities worked to create policy recommendations on community living. (sadly this is needed because too many providers use gov’t dollars set aside for community living to do things that are really hurtful to disabled people).

we asked people to talk about what group homes and other residential facilities for disabled people often look like. this is what the notes reflected:

• “You have to share a room or home with someone you don’t want to or know”
• “No freedom to leave or have company over”
• “It is literally outside the community, without transportation, cut off, hidden away”
• “You are called a “consumer” instead of by your name”

we also asked what community living should look like. this is what folks said:

• “You have your own keys for home, access to a telephone, and the right to lock your door”
• “People are allowed to marry if they wish, or cohabitate with a partner or friend(s) if they wish, and there is private space for intimacy between someone in the program and that person’s mutually chosen partner(s) or even just to be completely alone”
• “Freedom to hang out with friends that I choose”
• “Freedom to make my own schedule”
• “People (at church or at the place you volunteer, etc) come to visit you if you are in the hospital.. because they care about you”
• “People support you in deciding what to do with money, instead of deciding for you”

reading these notes while sitting with all the recent suicides and hate crimes has me thinking about community visibility and coming out day. with violence taking place on the bodies of beautiful queer people every day, i understand the importance of community visibility. it’s why i wonder if there are better coming out strategies we could be using or what our work could look like if we acknowledged that so many people do not have the money, safety, access, and support to go to parades, bookstores, and clubs or wear rainbow stickers and leave facebook statuses about being out and proud, let alone come out to others.

i’m not against national coming out day or projects like it gets better – i just want us to talk about what we understand “out” and how this is shaped by privilege. for example, i want a “better” and an “out” that doesn’t require queer folks to leave their communities (which i am in the process of doing, to be out). i want a visibility that understands ice raids, the murder of transgender women of color, and state violence.  i want a queer movement that celebrates queer resiliency instead of insisting on a certain type of visibility that is impossible for so many of us.

most of all, i want a national coming out day that is relevant to the queer people in the room that came up with the recommendations above, and to all the other queers trapped in group homes, psychiatric hospitals, institutions, state guardianship, and the prison industrial complex. i want a national coming out day that means something to more of us.

dear nea,

we haven’t talked in months but i thought tickets to the upcoming j cole show might break the silence. i guess i am too late since you died on monday.

i can’t believe you are dead. ableism didn’t kill you but i wish it had loosened its grip on you so you could have experienced more of the world before you died. fuck everything that held you back.

together, we were our resilency strategies for so many years. we tried to relate to each other as two young physically disabled women of color in the south but didn’t know how to love each other. over and over again we told ourselves that it didn’t matter if we broke each others’ hearts: we needed each other. you never forgave me for my ability to finally end things and i never forgave myself for letting myself become your access bridge to community. resentment, abandonment, trying so hard to build something that is not there, and how thick isolation can sit in one’s throat — these are all things i am trying to remember as i start to create home with mia, another disabled woman of color.

we taught each other so much. you taught me about sex/uality and walked me through my first real romantic relationship. i taught you that you could still have a life in this new alien body you did not know. when i met you, you hadn’t left your room in years. i hadn’t much, either, so we started small: afternoon margaritas one day, a movie the next month, a concert much later. our adventures required so much waiting— waiting for the one nurse who would help you get out of bed and stick your ventilator on your wheelchair, waiting until paratransit van started serving your part of the county, waiting until your sis was safe to be home alone.

maybe we waited too long, i don’t know. i miss you and am trusting that you found the happiness you always said would come in the arms of the lord.

love,
cripchick