#disabilityjustice — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #disabilityjustice, aggregated by home.social.
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I stand in my kitchen wanting to use an appliance I have already paid for. Its smooth touchscreen gives me no tactile information. I use a camera app to find the controls, place markers where I think buttons may appear, and hope the layout has not changed. One accidental tap can take me somewhere I cannot identify or exit without sighted help. A task that should take moments becomes a process requiring concentration, technology, and luck.
Many disabled people know this experience. We become skilled at adapting. We label buttons, memorise layouts, ask friends or family to help with setup, search for accessible workarounds, and learn to make do with only part of what a product offers. Those strategies can be useful, and they can protect our independence in the moment.
Yet the effort is rarely recognised as work. It takes time, money, energy, confidence, and sometimes privacy. Products then appear “accessible” because a disabled person has managed to force a way through, even where the design itself has excluded us from using the product fully and reliably.
The barriers differ across disability experiences. A device that communicates only through sound can leave Deaf and hard of hearing users without vital information. Controls requiring fine precision, force, or repeated physical effort can be inaccessible for people living with pain, fatigue, mobility limitations, or reduced dexterity. Busy, inflexible interfaces can overwhelm or exclude people with cognitive disabilities and neurodivergent people. Voice assistants cannot serve everyone, especially people whose speech is not reliably recognised.
Manufacturers have choices. A touchscreen appliance can include tactile controls and meaningful feedback. Digital instructions can be made accessible. Settings can be simplified and personalised. Disabled people can be included while products are being researched, designed, tested, and supported. These approaches recognise that disabled people are customers, experts in our own access needs, and members of every household.
Sharing adaptations with each other remains important because people need solutions today. We also need to expect more from society, from businesses, and from the institutions responsible for consumer access. When access barriers are treated as individual problems for disabled people to solve, exclusion becomes routine. Naming the barrier, reporting it, supporting disability led advocacy, and insisting on inclusive design can help shift that expectation.
#AccessibleDesign #DisabilityJustice #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs
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Today's recommended read that I could not pick a single pull quote from because it's all so 🎯 :
https://www.vanityfair.com/story/healthcare-cancer-treatment-essay
#healthcare #medicine #bodies #healthAdvocacy #disabilityJustice
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🇵🇸 Interview with Moaz Mansour of Gaza Online
DIY meets Infrastructure: A conversation with Moaz Mansour of Gaza Online Jane Shi On June 12th, 2025, Israel cut off
https://disabilityvisibilityproject.com/2025/08/24/interview-with-moab-mansour-of-gaza-online/
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🕊️ Interview with Moaz Mansour of Gaza Online
DIY meets Infrastructure: A conversation with Moaz Mansour of Gaza Online Jane Shi On June 12th, 2025, Israel cut off
https://disabilityvisibilityproject.com/2025/08/24/interview-with-moab-mansour-of-gaza-online/
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I’ve just signed this open letter calling on Higher Education to strengthen systems of care for Black, global majority and neurodivergent staff and students, following the death of Professor Jason Arday.
It sets out three specific demands for action, alongside calls for urgent inquiry into the circumstances leading to his death.
You don’t have to work in academia to sign it - please sign or share if you can.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfz8pSxrx8h4iZiw6pywyuW0XxaJpxUj19P5zkPi2dxObymMQ/viewform
#Neurodivergent #BlackLivesMatter #Autism #DisabilityJustice #Ableism
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📢 “Still A Locked Door”: Mental Health Peer Advocates Remember Those Living in Disability Institutions
Jess Whatcott For the staff at the Peer Self-Advocacy Program of Disability Rights California, experiences with …
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🏗️ When coercion in care makes Kilmeade’s “just kill ’em” thinkable
Shannon Pagdon Content warnings: coercion, forced treatment, incarceration, institutionalization, eugenics, death,
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DWP is letting a private company use AI to help decide disabled people's benefits - with barely any oversight. I've signed to get it stopped. Takes 30 seconds: https://the.organise.network/campaigns/network-ban-ai-pip-assessments-remove-ingeus-contracts-06e372b810577d0b
#PIP #Disabilityjustice #LLM #AI #inequality -
Thousands of us are asking DWP to stop replacing nurses with untrained staff in PIP decisions. Will you add your name? 👉 https://the.organise.network/campaigns/network-don-t-let-untrained-staff-decide-our-pip-claims-6f6a3ebfb860fa3e
#PIP #inequality #UKpolitics #disabilityjustice -
"Sami Schalk, Washieka Torres, Subini Annamma, Lawrence-Minh Bùi Davis, Anna Hinton, Jina B."
🔗 The State of Critical Race Disability Studies A White Paper Report from the Disabled Scholars of Color Collective
https://disabilityvisibilityproject.com/2025/10/15/graphic-with-a-white-background-with-text-that-reads-the-state-of-critical-race-disability-studies-a-white-paper-report-from-the-disabled-scholars-of-color-collective/ -
Wenn mir das nächste Mal alte Menschen beim Flaschensammeln begegnen oder eine alleinerziehende Person um ein paar Euro für eine Brezel fürs Kind bittet, sage ich einfach: Reißt euch zusammen, ihr lebt schließlich im Paradies.⬇️
#HartAberFair #Klassismus #Kritik #Privilege #SozialeGerechtigkeit #Armut #Privilegien #DisabilityJustice #Systemkritik #Talkshow #Monchi
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Disabled people asked for remote work for years. Were told it wasn't possible. Covid proved it was always possible. The future was just being rationed.
#Disability #Accessibility #FutureOfWork #DisabilityJustice #TechForGood
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If I am going to get a job, I will interview the employer.
- Daily food, drinks, transport, and shelter must be available.
- An ableism- and bigotry-free environment.
- A respectful environment.
- Non-coercive job.
- Clear monthly salary instead of ranges.#workersrights #labour #employment #dignity #neurodiversity #accessibility #disabilityjustice #transparency #workculture #antiwork #livedexperience #solidarity #reflections
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"The difference between their dependence and mine is not that mine exists. It is that mine is visible." This essay reframes independence from the ground up.
#Disability #Interdependence #Accessibility #Humanism #DisabilityJustice
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Latest update on our wheelchair hacking and building at https://www.patreon.com/cw/GOATspace ! We hosted the first Bay Area Repair Coalition summit, and an open source wheelchair build day at our maker space in downtown Oakland! #RepairIsCare #DisabilityJustice
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CW: Ableism, Reference to eugenics
@akamran
As a person with an “invisible” disability, who experienced how differently people treat you, when this disability becomes visible, as a German person who did a deep dive into my countries history and understood that eugenics has not only been one of the key features of fascism, but it still prevalent in our society, as a person who is very much into disability justice, I have so many thoughts on this perspective. I might write about that in a separate post and break it down to this.Disabled people don’t owe anybody the disclosure of their disability.
Certain glasses are criticized, because they can be used for purposes that are a violation of privacy. The disability of a person is a very private information, the disclosure can be a safety issue. Disclosing your disability can make you a target for people with bad intentions and that is just the tip of the iceberg.
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@plaguepoems As I warn: it includes underlying conditions you don’t (yet?) know about
And I genuinely, deeply, fervently hope they never become severe enough that you need to.
(But if they do/are, know there’s a lot more of us than you think, and who want to look out for each other. :HeartDisability: #disabilityJustice )
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#Money, the interesting thing about it is if you #exist in #poverty, you desperately need it for your day to day survival, then if your on the opposite end as in being a multi million or billionaire in reality money means nothing, because everything you own and do is leveraged off of debt that you one don't actually own and second can never actually satisfy, and the rules of the game are very different for those in poverty, and the rules are slightly different if your in the middle, but if your on top, the rules don't apply to you unless somehow your generation and hoarding of wealth imposes upon another top income holder, basically if your in poverty all the way to the bottom end of double digit millions, your beholden to the entire state if it where, and beyond that the entire state apparently is beholden to you and your ability to leverage debt, it is a rigged system of epic inequality and strongly embraces prejudice against the rest of us whom simply would appreciate the basics in life to be readily available without so much turmoil, and stress to our mental and physical wellbeing, money is an illusion of power and has left far to many of us going hungry, literally;
You can encourage my continued useless #poetry, creativity and expression of self, #commentary, random thoughts, #philosophy and ideas, and by doing so your helping to feed, house and clothe a #disabled man living in #poverty, $5-10-15 It All Helps, via #cashapp at $woctxphotog or via #paypal at paypal.com/donate?campaign_id=…
#Austerity #Awareness #BrokenSystem #Capitalism #Change #ChronicPoverty #CorporateGreed #CriticalThinking #DailyStruggle #DebtSlavery #DisabledVoices #DisabilityJustice #EconomicInequality #EconomicJustice #EconomicViolence #Economics #Education #ExistentialThought #Financial #FinancialTrauma #FinanciallyDistressed #FoodInsecurity #Hunger #Homelessness #HumanCost #IllusionOfWealth #Inequality #Justice #LateStageCapitalism #MarginalizedVoices #MentalHealthMatters #MutualAid #Neoliberalism #Oligarchy #PhilosophyOfMoney #Plutocracy #Politics #PovertyAwareness #PowerAndControl #PowerDynamics #RealTalk #Reform #RiggedSystem #SocialCommentary #SocialEconomicWarfare #SocialJustice #Society #Solidarity #SpeakTruth #StatusQuo #SupportDisabled #Survival #SystemicOppression #SystemicPoverty #TaxTheRich #TruthBomb #TruthToPower #WakeUpCall #WealthGap #WealthInequality #WorkingClass #WorkingPoor
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Kommunalpolitik bedeutet für mich: Ressourcen dorthin bringen, wo echte Solidarität gelebt wird.
Deshalb gebe ich meine Aufwandsentschädigung aus dem Bezirksausschuss monatlich an Initiativen weiter, deren unermüdlichen Einsatz ich von Herzen schätze.🔽
#DieLinke #Solidaritāt #Umverteilung #Kommunalpolitik #Queer #Community #CommunitySupport #DisabilityJustice #Behinderung #Disability #Inklusion #Feminismus #Antikapitalismus #Antirepression #Armut #München
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Today I’m in a celebratory mood. On one hand, it’s Pride weekend in Berlin, and I’m on my way to the Internationalist Queer Pride march, a valued alternative to the commercialized and pinkwashing-ridden CSD. On the other, all 6 episodes of the first season of my #ActuallyAutistic podcast The Autistic Rant Hour are now online and available to binge.
Being a queer and disability activist doesn’t stop at making sure we have the right to change our names and change or delete our gender markers, to love whomever we choose or have the right to self-determination along with needed support and accessibility measures.
It also means standing up for the rights of people in intersecting struggles: migrant rights, asylum rights, worker rights, bodily autonomy, the right to live free of oppression, eugenics and apartheid, and the right to live at all, in times where folks are hunted down, locked up, denied life-saving medical care, ethnically cleansed and genocided, in more countries than anyone would have believed would still be the case in the 21st century.My guest on the closing episode of Season 1, Tal’y Wozner (she/her), is the kind of person who understands that and who has always been part of this kind of struggle, resisting intersectionally and challenging preconceptions, both outside and inside queer spaces and discourse. This is why it was such a pleasure and a privilege to have her on the show, even though she isn’t autistic (how dare she!). Tune in to hear us discuss the different challenges of accessing places and services: I from the autistic perspective, and she from the mobility perspective. Together we not only explain the challenges, but also dig into their systemic reasons and reach some conclusions about the meaning of community and how disabled people can be there for each other to make going places more accessible than it, infuriatingly, is.
Get The Autistic Rant Hour wherever you get your podcasts, or see here for links to various platforms, RSS, online player and human-proofread transcripts: https://prepped.to/podcasts/autistic-rant-hour
#podcast #podcasting #disability #disabilityJustice #disabilityLife #autistic #autisticLife #CP
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Pan Piotr z Fundacji 515 kilometrów idzie pieszo z Krakowa do Warszawy po 250 dniach braku reakcji premiera.
Miałam okazję być przy nim na starcie tej trasy i nawet nagrać krótki wywiad.
Dobra wiadomość jest taka, że można pomóc za darmo, podpisując petycję pod linkiem 💛#autyzm #autisticsolidarity #niepełnosprawność #disabilityjustice #petycja #aktywizm
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RE: https://ohai.social/@Garwboy/116753869821948051
Unintended consequences - The age verification debate is backwards. It prioritizes theoretical risks to privileged kids over documented harms to those already marginalized. For disabled youth, LGBTQ+ teens, and kids in unstable homes, social media isn't a distraction—it's a lifeline. Banning access punishes the most vulnerable while doing nothing about algorithmic harms. Real policy would protect without erasing. #AgeVerification #DigitalEquity #DisabilityJustice #a11y #MarginalizedVoices
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Wenn Menschen wie ich politisch Stellung beziehen, kommt sofort der immer gleiche alte ableistische Reflex: Wir seien "missbraucht", "vorgeschoben" oder "manipuliert". Dahinter steckt kein Zufall, es ist eine Strategie.⬇️
#DisabilityJustice #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs #Disability #IntersectionalFeminism #QueerAndDisabled #AntiAbleism #Ableism #AntiRacism #QueerResistance #DisabledAndProud #Solidarity #Solidarität #Inklusion #SolidarityIsPower #MarginalizedVoices #Behinderung #FaceSMA
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Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution follows a group of disabled teens as they become historic disability rights activists.
Crip Camp chronicles decades of disability activism and the fight for disability justice. The film includes the 1973 504 Sit-in, where people with disabilities and the disability community occupied US federal building to push for groundbreaking disability rights legislation. It also highlights the 1990 protests in support of the Americans with Disabilities Act, one of the most stirring scenes imaginable—disabled activists pulling themselves up the Capitol steps in what became known as the “Capitol Crawl.” No overview of US protest history is complete without Crip Camp. 6/n
https://journeysinfilm.org/product/crip-camp-guides/
#CripCamp #DisabilityRights #DisabilityJustice #DisabilityHistory #Activism #Protests #Education #Homseschooling @film @disability @disabilityjustice @disabilityhistory
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What We’re Up Against and Where To Go From Here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RpPTRcz1no
This video discusses the playbook these techbros are using. The agenda discussed is exactly what we are seeing playing out in real time right now in the USA. They want corporate-owned “network states” to hoard more wealth and make it impossible for others to gain their wealth; as well as having a trapped workforce to extract more wealth.
We need to understand their plan, so we can work to sabotage and stop it.
Their plans Will Kill People and already have.
Plane crashes lately were impacted by not enough air traffic controllers. The timing of Trump’s executive orders and actions to cripple FAA is alarming. It’s possible Trump/Musk’s actions contributed to their deaths; however, their crippling of FAA likely will cause more accidents in the future.
There is also people who will die or are dying due to the freeze on federal funds for nonprofits, USAID, state programs, healthcare institutions, and other crucial agencies and social programs that focus on the most vulnerable.
More will die from the active purge of studies and health data on CDC.gov. A lot of health workers use that data and study results to improve health outcomes for patients. Also, the purging of data for infectious diseases will result in an even steeper rise in diseases, less vaccine availability or research from which more people will die.
Due to the purge of documents and sites pertaining to LGBTQIA people, Black Indigenous and People of Color, and any terms related to us such as transgender, gender, sex, pregnant people, Black, Indigenous, etc., we are seeing a digital book burning across a massive scale.
Musk and his cronies are hacking the US government’s agencies and US Treasury Payment System without being confirmed by Congress nor hired as a federal worker. They’re often acting in secret and seem to be installing private servers to download massive reams of data. They are pushing untested code into the Treasury’s Payment Systems with little to no understanding of how the system works, which is massively dangerous and could destabilize the entire system. All of which is illegal, unconstitutional, dangerous, and massive security risks.
They are even making ‘target lists‘ that list anyone who has been involved with Diversity and Inclusion or used pronouns in their bios. These lists are incredibly dangerous for marginalized communities, particularly Jewish, Black, Indigenous, Disabled, and LGBTQIA people, who are often the first to be harmed.
It’s great that lawsuits are happening now, but they won’t save us. What we need is people to march in, kick out these goons, and blockade them from entering again. FBI could do this, but instead they’re suing Trump which is good but not enough. Senators should be doing blocking access physically, but instead they do speeches and write strongly worded letters.
So it’s up to us to sabotage the techbros vile plan as much as possible. They are fascist, tech-nazis, and they don’t care who they destroy and kill in their thirst for power.
SO WHAT NEXT?
We need to engage in care toward one another and ourselves first and foremost. We can’t survive a fascist/Nazi coup unless we have energy and health to do so. So make sure you take care of yourself and your friends/loved ones.
For other actions to take, there’s a lot to consider, and below is just to get people started.
Make a safety plan first, which I cover in the below post (Censored Secret expanded on mine here):
The following are other actions to consider taking. It can be helpful to have people you trust to have your back work through the safety plan and the list below with you.
We are not alone, and although the US culture tries to instill this rugged individualism, that isn’t true to human nature. We’re naturally cooperative creatures, and we can work together collectively to stop the fascists and build up better.
- Archive documents. Archivists right now are working to archive and save thousands of government documents, especially those pertaining to health and other scientific studies. Create your own archives. Here’s two sites that explains how to do that: Practical Guide to Fighting Censorship AND Archiving 101.
- Read up on how to craft a safety plan here: My Post and explore the indepth dive in @CensoredSecret’s Post
- Make a list of your skills and capacity. Make it a skill list party with friends, where you all work on your lists together. (Can do this with crafting safety plans too.)
- Find like-minded groups such as local mutual aid groups, protest groups, mask blocs, etc., who are doing the community care work. Offer to help and follow through with the tasks you agree to do.
- When working with a group/org, make sure the group has some sort of delegation system and accountability. Draft a mini-constitution. This video has a good overview. Also, check out the short but thorough Anarchic Agreements by Ruth Kinna, Alex Prichard, Thomas Swann, and Seeds for Change.
- Plan and/or Engage in Community Grief and/or Community Care sessions. Be creative! Use the arts or writing or talking in a circle (where whoever holds the stone speaks). This can help avoid burnout.
- List people you trust that have your back and make sure you have their contact information in a secure offline location (go-to bag from safety plan for instance).
- Learn some new skills such as first aid, archival work, gardening, etc. Be open and willing to learn from others who have done the work for awhile. Be open to offering to teach others your own skills. A skill-share can be crucial.
- Write up and get notarized an Medical Power of Attorney and Will to avoid your safety and wellbeing doesn’t fall into the hands of people you don’t trust. Make sure you and your loved ones have copies.
- Make a list of needed medications, where you can source them, and alternate healthcare options in the case of emergencies where you cannot access your usual healthcare or pharmacy. This may require a little research.
- Have your group/org work on building up mini-libraries for repair, books, food, essential supplies, and other items. Andrewism has some excellent videos about this here.
- Check on your most vulnerable folks and find out what they need then follow through. Ask for their consent and only assist in what they ask for. Never presume to know what another person needs.
- Do a Digital Cleanse (this site has actions you can do daily to work toward this). Secure your data using encrypted tools, such as encrypted email, Signal, and tools like cryptpad.org for any organizing/protest conversations.
- Defend your community by organizing together for safety and care — this site has a good guide. Books on disability justice, transformative justice, and climate justice often have good organizing strategies and action items.
- For more tips see an easy-to-read version in CensoredSecret’s Post.
Andrea Pitzer on Next Comes What covers a lot of good tips and ideas to consider in order to survive and fight fascism. She digs into past examples as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwFZpROLvX4
For another good video, check out Imani Barbarin, a disabled activist and writer, who discusses how to establish a Progressive Media Apparatus: https://www.patreon.com/posts/establishing-121218731
For ways to build up library ecosystems, Andrewism has some good starter videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOYa3YzVtyk
Books and articles to read about organizing and mutual aid:
- Surviving the Future edited by Branson, Hudsen, and Reed.
- Imarin Barabarin has a set of videos on how to organize.
- Mutual Aid by Dean Spade (also in anarchist library).
- How We Show Up by Mia Birdsong
- A People’s Guide to Abolition and Disability Justice by Katie Tastrom
- The Sea is Rising and So Must We: A Climate Justice Handbook by Cynthia Kaufmann
- Creative Interventions Workbook
- Building Accountable Communities by Project Nia
- eBook repositories may have the above books if one can’t find at local library or have funds to purchase.
Protest Tips (I wrote in this reblog/post but copying here):
Protests rely on the movement of large amount of people. Signs can be made for them, plans on routes can be done (keep offline or use encrypted tools for planning), and assigning roles to help keep it organized.
When organizing sit-ins, it’s even more crucial that people be trained to NOT talk to random folks pretending to be journalists. Have a designated communications role with people trained on what to say, and direct all journalists to that group. Stick to your assigned role’s tasks.
If the care work for a sit-in is on a rotating schedule, make sure you are aware of that and pitch in your part to keep the sit-in safe, secure, and fed/watered.
Below are tips that focus on safety and security:
- Wear a mask with and safety glasses. (Harder to identity you and it protects you from smoke, tear gas, and diseases.
- Do Not Bring Your Phone. Or at the very least Do NOT turn it on as it can be used to identify you or obtain your location.
- Do NOT advertise the full details of the protest and who is coming to the protest all over social media. Share about the protest’s start locations as needed in your groups, but don’t advertise it’s march pattern or its end goal location or who is attending. These conversations about the march route, goal location, assigned roles, and etc need to happen either in-person with all phones off OR use an encrypted chat. You want to limit what the surveillance state can pull from posts.
- Have designated medics who can help in case of injury or if Police try to shoot people or throw tear gas.
- Have designated frontline people. These are the people at the front of the protest, the ones that are most likely to deal with police and/or fascists first. Use make-shift shields to help protect frontline people.
- Have designated communication roles for people who are educated/trained on how to speak to journalists/news and who can keep the message consistent.
- Have designated people who assist those with disabilities to make sure they care able to stay safe and escape if things turn sour. Stay with your assigned peeps!
- Have a designated protest partner to help watch your back. Stay with your assigned peeps!
- Have designated suppliers, who carry supplies for medics and/or frontline and/or other roles.
- Have a plan in case the police try to kettle protesters. A kettle is when police block off routes to escape, thus trapping protestors in a smaller area. This is done to shut down protestors, demoralize, frighten, and mass arrest. Make sure everyone knows the plan and abides by it.
- Write on your arm the numbers of lawyers and/or people you can contact in case of arrest.
We’re in a fight for our right to exist and for survival.
Be safe all.
#activism #anarchism #antifascism #communityCare #disabilityJustice #fightingFascism #fightingTheNetworkStateAgenda #justice #mutualAid #networkState #organizing #politics #protest #protestTips #usCoup #USPolitics
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International Women’s Day Hero of Invisible Disability Rights – Elaine Wilson:
In celebration of International Women's Day, OutOfExile_IDR honors Elaine Wilson, champion of invisible disability rights and the Olmstead Act. It seems germane, as March is also Developmental Disabilities Month.
During Martin Luther King week, I posted about Lois Curtis, a champion for Invisible Disability Rights (link below). Lois, togather with another woman, Elaine Wilson, fought all the way to the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) for the right to live in the community, rather than being institutionalized. Fighting courageously for their freedom, they won the right to freedom for all people with invisible disabilities. The case is often refered to as the “Brown v. Board of Education” for people with (Invisible) disabilities.
Excerpt below & image of Elaine from:
https://www.olmsteadrights.org/iamolmstead/history/[“Elaine Wilson became seriously ill when she was one years old. She was hospitalized with a raging fever and it was unclear whether she would survive... When the fever finally broke and Elaine was …sent home, ….Elaine had lost some of her early motor function abilities, such as crawling or even sitting up by herself. The doctors assured Elaine's mother that (it) was only a lingering effect of the illness…. Elaine eventually did recover, but very slowly”.[]
In school, Elaine lagged behind other students having difficulties with focus and learning , eventually being diagnosed with an Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) attributed to the prolonged high fever as an infant. Likley, this was the correct diagnosis.
She was reevaluated as a teen upon enrollment at “Gracewood State School and Hospitol” in Georgia. There, she was diagnosed with an ableist slur containing the “R" word, once used in reference to PEOPLE living with Down Syndrome. Providers believed the only recourse was institutionalization. (I am bitting my tongue and holding back my opinions on the lot of it.)
She would spend about a decade living in institutions (State hospitals) against her will. Following that, in the 1980s, she would be “ping-ponged" from care homes to hospitals, back and forth for nearly two decades of her life.
“When I was in an institution, I didn't like myself," Elaine says. "I was trapped. . . . I had no hope. I thought, Oh God, Oh God - When am I ever going to leave here?"
Another hero deserving mention on IWD is Sue Jamieson, the Atlanta Legal Aid Society Attorney who brought the case. Sue and Lois Curtis were joined by co-plaintiff Elaine Wilson, to blaze the path of freedom for countless individuals with disabilities in their wake.
After more than 30 years and 36 psychiatric institutions, at times living homelessness and in varous “care homes", Elaine along with Lois Curtis, were victorious and finally free.
The 1997 ruling by Senior U.S. District Judge Marvin H. Shoob said that “… denying the women a community-based life amounted to segregation of people covered by the Americans With Disabilities Act.” Judge Shoob later remarked “They were both so articulate” in regard to the testimony of Elaine Wilson and Lois Curitis.
Elaine passed in 2004 at the age of 53 but, will be forever remembered as a Disability Rights Legend for her resilience, strength and courage. As part of her testimony, she told the court: “When I was in an institution, I felt like I was in a little box and there was no way out”.
Thanks to Elaine Wilson and Lois Curtis, people with invisible disabilities are afforded the right to live in freedom at home, instead of confinement in a “box", cage or institution, merely because of a health issue. Thanks and honor to Elaine, Lois and Sue on this International Women’s Day.
“The Brave and the Strong” Lois Curitis – OutOfExile_ID:
https://kolektiva.social/@OutOfExile_IDR_Voice/109690867328587920Elaine’s story continued:
http://www.olmsteadrights.org/iamolmstead/history/item.5405-Elaine_Wilsons_Story_ContinuedMore on Olmstead and Elaine’s impact:
https://olmsteadrights.wordpress.com/tag/elaine-wilson/More from disabilityjustice.org:
https://disabilityjustice.org/olmstead-v-lc/ADA – Community Intergration for Everyone:
https://archive.ada.gov/olmstead/olmstead_about.htmInternational Women’s Day Image from:
https://www.desicomments.com/womens-day/international-womens-day-5/IMAGE CW - (eye contact)
Don't forget the ALT text.#InternationalWomensDay #ElaineWilson #LoisCurtis #Hero #OlmsteadAct #SueJamieson #SCOTUS #freedom #home #gratitude #CommunityIntergration #DevelopmentalDisabilities #IntellectualDisabilities #BrainInjury #TBI #ABI #AcquiredBrainInjury #MentalHealth #disability #InvisibleDisabilityRights #Hero #DisabilityJustice #EmbraceEquity
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Summary of "Metaeugenics and Metaresistance: From Manufacturing the ‘Includeable Body’ to Walking Away from the Broom Closet
I will start this summary by explaining the title. I usually skip that part. This time I am going to explain the title because the title is so long, and so annoying. In "Academia" (which is just a fancy way to say college), there is a joke about how professors choose titles for their papers. It's not a specific joke. But everyone likes to make fun of titles that go like this "short catchy title": "long title with complicated meaning". I choose this kind of title a lot, because I think it's fun. I don't take myself too seriously.
The first part of this title is "Metaeugenics and Metaresistance". Something-ics is a kind of science, or a way of thinking, like economics, or politics. Eugenics is a way of thinking that says there are good bodies and bad bodies, and that human beings have a moral duty to keep their bodies "good" and to only have children with "good" bodies. Eugenics also says that governments are responsible for making sure their citizens are only people with "good" bodies. Eugenic science was overtly racist and ableist.
Most people believe that eugenics is over. They believe it was a bad science that happened in the past, and that we don't believe in it anymore. The problem with believing eugenics is over is that it makes it hard for you to notice when it is still happening. When more black and Indigenous people die from a virus, some people understand that this is because of racism in medicine. But when more disabled people die, we think it is because their bodies are weaker - That they do not have "good" bodies. The truth is that disabled people are dying more not /just/ because they are vulnerable but also because we made public choices that endanger their lives.
We made these choices because we still believe in good bodies and bad bodies. We still believe that it is everyone's moral duty to make their body as strong as possible. We still believe that some people deserve to die because of the body they are in. This is metaeugenics.
For something to be meta- is for it to exist without being said or written out loud. It is important to be clear that when we say disabled people, we do not mean just white disabled people. Understanding metaeugenics helps us to understand why we are okay with so many disabled people dying. It also helps us to understand that black and Indigenous people are not just vulnerable to racism, but to ableism also, even when they are not disabled in ways that are obvious to us. Because we do not care about disabled people, we allowed black and Indigenous people to be put at greater risk from racism in public health. Metaeugenics can help us understand how racism and ableism work together.
Resistance means to work against something. In this paper I want us to think about the ways we can work against metaeugenics by paying attention to metaresistance. To notice metaresistance, you have to think differently about what you are seeing when you see people resisting something. You have to notice both what someone is directly working against, and also notice how that resistence “speaks” or does resistance against other things that are not clear - like metaeugenics. I will give some examples later.
The next part of the title is “manufacturing the includable body”.
The “includable body” is something disability scholars write about. When we talk about inclusion, we usually mean that society should be open and accessible to everyone, no matter their disability. But when we “do” inclusion, schools and workplaces usually set some rules about what a person must do or be or look like in order to be included. Some scholars that write about this are Tania Titchkosky, Sara María Acevedo, Joe Stramondo, Eunjung Kim, and Anne McGuire. When a disabled child has to “earn” their place in the mainstream classroom by graduating from certain therapies, this means they have been made “includable”.
This is one way we uphold metaeugenics. We make disabled people work to make their bodies “includable” in therapies before we will accommodate them in “mainstream” spaces. Disabled people are morally obligated to make their bodies as “good” as possible, and if they don’t, they are called “non compliant”.
If you know anything about inclusion, you might be a little confused. Inclusion is a right! In the United States, we have the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act which means disabled people have the right to accommodations to access public life, work, and school. Unfortunately, rights and laws do not work without people doing the right thing. Even if you have the "right" to be included, who decides what counts as inclusion?
The problem with rights is that someone else is always in charge of deciding what "counts".
The United Nations has the Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (CRPD) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). In my paper, I try to explain that when you put these documents together, they show a global metaeugenic attitude toward disability. The CRPD says that disability must be recognized as a natural part of human diversity, but that adult decision makers have the authority to determine the "best interests" of a disabled child. In the CRC, adults are responsible for considering the "best interests of the Child" and children are guaranteed the right to "develop healthily". What does this mean when the child is born into a body that the world declares is "unhealthy" or "disordered"? Basically, a disabled child has the right to be "fixed". Our rights comand us to manufacture an includable body for any person whose body is not "normal".
The final part of this paper's title is "Walking away from the broom closet". Ursula K. le Guin was a famous science fiction author. She wrote a book called "The Ones who Walk away from Omelas". In this book, Omelas was a Utopic society. A utopia is a place where everyone is happy and cared for. In the story, people find out that Omelas's happiness is only possible because there is a child, locked in a broom closet, who takes on all the suffering so that everyone else can be happy.
I think that in the real world, we have lots of broom closets where we make people suffer so that we can have our happy idea of normal. I think prisons are an example of broom closets. I also think that for many disabled children, the "intensive interventions" we force them to do in their "best interests" are a kind of broom closet. They suffer so that we can have our happy idea of a future without disability.
Attitudes toward children can tell us about attitudes toward the future. If we want to ensure our children do not have to be disabled, then we must also want a future where there are no disabled people. The disabled community is large and diverse. There are some conditions which are painful and some people want treatments that help them feel at peace in their own bodies. But that doesn't mean that you can eliminate disability. Disability is a natural part of human life. The society that wants to eliminate disability can only hope to eliminate itself.
I will end this summary with some stories.
On August 2, 2018, NBC News’ Health website published an article praising Google Glass
and researchers at Stanford University for the creation of a wearable app that may improve eye
contact for children with autism (Scher, 2018).
In preschool, [he] struggled socially with other kids. One hit him in the
face with a rubber mallet and another in the shoulder with a metal shovel.
“He didn’t see it coming,” [she] told NBC News. “When you don’t look
kids in the face, you can’t see their reactions or know what to expect.”
When he was 5, he was diagnosed with autism.
[N]ow 9, [he] started working one on one with a therapist using applied
behavioral analysis, a technique to improve social behavior, but [his
mother] saw little progress.
“Nothing really changed,” she said. “Until Google Glass.”This child was assaulted by his peers. Because he was disabled, the solution was to put him in therapy. To use technology to change his behavior. To put him in a broom closet. So that other people could be happy.
In another project, researchers made a smart watch that would buzz to notify a child that they were behaving inappropriately. In this example, even "hand flapping" was considered inappropriate. At one point, "Child 5" was buzzed. He looked up and noticed that his teacher was too far away to stop him, and he continued flapping his hands. This child is my patron saint of noncompliance. His microresistance, written down in a scientific paper, is a testimony for all to see that the researchers are focusing on the wrong idea.
There are other examples, like the children who run away from robots designed to teach them social skills, or the children who scream at their therapists.
If we pay attention to where our participants are resisting our research, we can learn to recognize these broom closets, unlock the doors, and take these children out of Omelas forever.
https://ojs.library.carleton.ca/index.php/cjcr/article/view/1976
Hashtag soup
#SciComm #ScholarComm #STS #CDS #HCI #DisabilityStudies #HumanComputerInteraction #HumanRights #ChildrensRights #CRPD #CRC #Metaeugenics #Metaresistance #Eugenics #Omelas #UrsulaKLeGuin #Autism #Disability #DisabilityJustice #TechJustice #Technoableism #ColiberationLab -
:black_sparkling_heart: #Introduction #Intro
TL:DR: I'm mostly posting this intro to connect with other Black and BIPOC Anarchists or Anti-authoritarians. Hit me up! :Fire_Panafrican:
Hey, everyone
My partner and I are currently working on a docuseries, @Elememts_of_MA, about the origins, structures, healing ways, and logistics of mutual aid-based organizing. The project isn't exclusively profiling anarchist groups, but it is deeply anti-authoritarian - we're especially staying away from charismatic leaders and celeb "activist" types.
The whole thing is independent - no producers; everything is out of pocket. We've been living out of a van we converted so we could make this happen; which has been amazing. We've been on the road since May Day this year, and have already filmed some solid interviews as far north as Montreal and as far south as Puerto Rico.
However, I'm personally struggling to find Black organizations or collectives that aren't MLM, AADOS, authoritarian, Black Capitalist, nonprofit style groups. Reading and theory groups or media collectives are rad, but I'm really looking for groups that're doing interesting work on the ground (*not food distro*) from an anti-state-nationalist analysis.
Lorenzo and JoNina Irvin will appear in the film, among other radical Black people like Jessica Gordon Nembhard, The Northeast Action Collective in Houston, and Arm the Girls in Oakland. So, I'm not at a complete loss.
But, please send me all the rad groups of Black people you know that are creating long-term, democratic, mutual aid projects in their communities. They do not need to identify as anarchist, but they *cannot* be down with the nation state and have to be doing more than food distro.
Thanks a ton, y'all.
Beyond all that, I'm also really interested in connecting with people to write Star Wars analysis and fan-fiction. I think the galaxy far, far away is an interesting canvas to explore the tensions of autonomous world building vs authoritarian revolutionary movements. If I lived in that universe, I'd no doubt be getting into arguments with the Rebel Alliance.
Thanks for reading this long-winded post.
#Black #BlackMastodon #BlackAnarchism #Anarchism #Anarchy #Antifa #Antifascism #Antiracism #Feminism #DisabilityJustice #BlackLiberation #IndigenousAnarchism #indigenousFedi #BlackFedi #blackfediverse #decolonize #decolonization #TransLiberationNow #transliberation #LGBTQ #queerliberation #QueerLiberationNow #StarWars #Andor #SciFi #Literature #creativewriting #creativewritingsocial #documentary #documentaryfeaturefilm #documentaryfilm #film #antiauthoritarianism #antiauthoritarian #vanlife #anarkata #anticapitalism #antinationalism #AnarchismOfBlackness #AnarchistPeopleOfColor #APOC #democraticconfederalism #MutualAid #collectivism #Zapatismo #Farming #UrbanFarming #Gardening #FoodSovereignty #LandBack #internationalism #JinJiyanAzadi
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My #Introduction. AKA the Hashtag Explosion. My name is Rua M Williams and I am a #Disabled #Mad #Autistic #CommonCyborg and an #Academic studying #TechEthics #DisabilityJustice #MadRhetoric #Crip #Technoscience and #Autistic #Technoculture.
I work in the #STS #CriticalDisability and #HCI disciplines. I idolize #Histodon and #HistMed. I also study contemporary eugenics, which I clal #MetaEugenics.
I'm a #JustTech fellow with the #SSRC Social Science Research Council's #JustTechPlatform. My project is #CyborgImaginaries (formerly #Cyborg Coalitions but that sounded too neoliberal.. Which I did on purpose to get the award 🙃).
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My #Introduction. AKA the Hashtag Explosion. My name is Rua M Williams and I am a #Disabled #Mad #Autistic #CommonCyborg and an #Academic studying #TechEthics #DisabilityJustice #MadRhetoric #Crip #Technoscience and #Autistic #Technoculture.
I work in the #STS #CriticalDisability and #HCI disciplines. I idolize #Histodon and #HistMed. I also study contemporary eugenics, which I clal #MetaEugenics.
I'm a #JustTech fellow with the #SSRC Social Science Research Council's #JustTechPlatform. My project is #CyborgImaginaries (formerly #Cyborg Coalitions but that sounded too neoliberal.. Which I did on purpose to get the award 🙃).
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My #Introduction. AKA the Hashtag Explosion. My name is Rua M Williams and I am a #Disabled #Mad #Autistic #CommonCyborg and an #Academic studying #TechEthics #DisabilityJustice #MadRhetoric #Crip #Technoscience and #Autistic #Technoculture.
I work in the #STS #CriticalDisability and #HCI disciplines. I idolize #Histodon and #HistMed. I also study contemporary eugenics, which I clal #MetaEugenics.
I'm a #JustTech fellow with the #SSRC Social Science Research Council's #JustTechPlatform. My project is #CyborgImaginaries (formerly #Cyborg Coalitions but that sounded too neoliberal.. Which I did on purpose to get the award 🙃).