Posts filed under 'crip culture'
learning from you
Like many other communities, we have this habit of glorifying a few leaders and not recognizing the work of others. The civil rights movement was/is more than Dr. King, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X. The Disability Rights Movement was/is more than Justin Dart, Ed Roberts, Judy Heumann. I wrote this poem in memory of the thousands who impacted our community but aren’t spoken about.
Hands are waving in the air
Not in that “heyyy ho” 90s kind of way
But as thunderous cheering from a throng of Deaf folk.
I like looking at you when you’re talkin’ justice
Yelling into the microphones
Wheels firmly planted into the ground
Service dogs are watching sleepily
while the terps work hard to keep up with you.
I like looking at you when you’re talkin’ pride
Some people looked peeved
They don’t like the way you say “disabled” like it’s a good thing
Cause not everyone is going to see disability like we do.
I like looking at you when you’re talkin’ community
Reforming the non-profit complex
Ending this bullshit federal grant dependency
Working together
Uniting in justice for all…
I just wish I had gotten to know you.
3 comments October 16, 2007
picture of the day
Via the Library at UC-Berkeley.
Don Galloway, manager of blind services, and Ed Roberts, executive director of the fledgling Center for Independent Living, in 1974 on the Berkeley campus.
Happy Disability History Month!
2 comments October 15, 2007
from a place of love
CHECK OUT THE BLOGSWARM OVER AT KARA’S!!!!!!(not too late to join, just email your link to consciouslycrip@gmail.com)
I didn’t think I was going to blog about the telethon, only because I’ve been up to my eyebrows in telethon-related organizing and with the campaign being posted tonight at midnight, I thought my position it was clear.
I have Muscular Dystrophy, but like NO explains on Think Freestyle I believe disability is a cultural identity and don’t feel the need to label myself with a medical diagnosis. Muscular dystrophy/congenital myopathy/or whatever the doctors are arguing “it” is, these aren’t words I use to describe myself, rather they belong to my doctors and the medical establisment [field or structure].
I’ve been reading Accidents by Nature, a book for younger teens written by Harriet Mcbryde Johnson, a woman who has been protesting the telethon for 17 years. The main character is one many disabled people can identify with as she grew up mainstreamed and separated herself from disability because society taught her that it was disabling unless she “rose above” when actually disability is just a natural, beautiful, complex part of the human experience. I don’t know if it’s because the book is set in NC and I recognize all the names, but it’s like I’m reading my own story. I haven’t reached the end of the book yet but I believe she will understand she is like the other disabled kids and learn to be proud of that, rather than trying to deny, hate, heal, erase, or “overcome” her disability.
I remember the moment I learned I even had a community. (more…)
12 comments September 2, 2007
Just your everyday queer disabled Corean girl living in the South... I admit to being a 
