RantWoman here presents an item from the UFM newsletter, unedited except for imperfect format adjustments to enhance readability. The article text is followed by unabashed in your face RantWoman commentary. RantWoman hopes readers will embrace the commentary with enthusiasm, gusto, and invitation to venture more deeply into the full range of experience and spiritual framing among both Quakers and people with different disabilities. It is not RantWoman's intent to make people's heads explode though RantWoman acknowledges that may occur and holds readers in the Light as they tread along the frontiers of that possibility.
The Principles of Disability Justice
(Part 1 of 3)
Mackenzie Barton-Rowledge
On the UFM disability survey conducted last year,
several people asked UFM to look into
Disability Justice. Learning about
Disability Justice has totally transformed my worldview, and it directly led to me claiming my
disabled identity with pride, so I’m excited to share it with UFM!
I’ll start with the 10 Principles of Disability Justice.
This month I’ll touch on the first four principles, and leave the other six for
later issues of Gleamings. These principles were first articulated in 2005 by
several queer disabled women of color. Variations of the description of each
principle exist—I’ll quote here from the
most recent version by Sins Invalid, a disabled performance troupe directed by
Patty Berne, one of the founders of Disability Justice.
Intersectionality:
Simply put, this principle says that we are
many things, and they all impact us. We are not only disabled, we are also each
coming from a specific experience of race, class, sexuality, age, religious background,
geographical location, immigration status, and more. Depending on context, we
all have areas where we experience privilege, as well as areas of oppression.
The term ‘intersectionality’ was first introduced by feminist theorist Kimberlé
Crenshaw in 1989 to describe the experiences of Black women, who experience
both racism and sexism in specific ways. We gratefully embrace the nuance that
this principle brings to our lived experiences, and the ways it shapes the
perspectives we offer. Before Disability Justice, the disability rights
movement fought for basic access and rights
in the second half of the 20th century. Their work continues to be essential to
survival for many of us: the Americans
with Disabilities Act (ADA) happened because of these protests. And yet, like
every civil rights movement, many other kinds of oppression were ignored as
people tried to address one issue at a time. The disability rights movement
focused on talking about disability, but not race, gender, etc. Disability
Justice, on the other hand, makes space for each of us to bring our whole
selves and explicitly acknowledges that
our experience of disability depends on our other identities.
Leadership by those most impacted:
When we talk about ableism, racism, sexism &
transmisogyny, colonization, police violence, etc., we are not looking to
academics and experts to tell us what’s what — we are lifting up, listening to,
reading, following, and highlighting the perspectives of those who are most impacted
by the systems we fight against. By centering the leadership of those most
impacted, we keep ourselves grounded in real-world problems and find creative
strategies for resistance.
There is a beautiful disability protest chant: “nothing
about us without us.” Disability Justice applies this slogan to every aspect of
identity, and gives particular attention to opposing larger social power
dynamics.
Anti-Capitalist Politics:
Capitalism depends on wealth accumulation for some
(the white ruling class), at the expense of others, and encourages competition
as a means of survival. The nature of our disabled bodyminds means that we
resist conforming to ‘normative’ levels of productivity in a capitalist culture,
and our labor is often invisible to a system that defines labor by able-bodied,
white supremacist, gender normative standards. Our worth is not dependent on
what and how much we can produce.
This point bears repeating: our worth is not dependent on how much we can produce. Despite how much
my conscious politics are anti-capitalist, feeling ashamed of being unproductive
is a long-standing reflex of mine. Quaker values align clearly with Disability
Justice here.
Cross-movement solidarity:
Disability justice can only grow into its potential
as a movement by aligning itself with racial justice, reproductive justice,
queer and trans liberation, prison abolition, environmental justice,
anti-police terror, Deaf activism, fat liberation, and other movements working for
justice and liberation. This means challenging white disability communities
around racism and challenging other movements to confront ableism. Through
cross-movement solidarity, we create a united front. I think of this as the
large-scale version of intersectionality.
Just as one individual is impacted by all the identities
that they hold, society’s mechanisms of oppression also intersect and overlap.
When we team up to fight the many types of oppression, all of our movements
become stronger.
For Summer Gleamings, I’ll write about principles 5-9: Wholeness,
Sustainability, Cross-Disability Solidarity, Interdependence, and Collective
Access. Discussion of the 10th principle, Collective Liberation, will be in
September Gleamings.
RantWoman goes off
Please bear with RantWoman as some of this ride may be rocky.
The messenger? One Single Messenger? What about continuing revelation?
Doesn't anyone else in the whole meeting have anything to say about disability? RantWoman imagines some readers may find the meanings of all this jargon self-evident but RantWoman does not. In fact RantWoman feels harangued at, and in academic terms that obliterate, erase the very distinctives the "leadership by those most impacted" is supposed to reflect.
"align with Quaker values"
WHICH "Quaker Values?"
Just as WE--or at least some of us--don't stim, crochet, do sudoku in Meeting for Worship WE speak for ourselves and our own Light and do not presume to speak for all Quakers.
Anti-capitalist politics?
Believe it or not, take it from RantWoman who no one in RantWoman's undergraduate experience would predict RantWoman would say this, A LOT of Quakers are perfectly fine with capitalism. Equally important, a really important disability justice perspective is behind for instance many elements of some organizations' diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts. People doing the work of expanding the space for fuller inclusion, fuller participation have the same (or greater) life costs and deserve the same compensation as everyone else. This principle is of course unevenly observed in practice, and disability can pose the same workplace challenges for for organizations that would like to abolish capitalism and for those steeped throughout in capitalism framing.
Please note though: RantWoman does not disagree with the point that people's worth is not measured only by what they produce. That's just another way of saying "that of God in everyone."
There now. Some resources
Sins Invalid No boddy is disposable interview through the Longmore Instittute
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