don’t beep me

To the queer who “beep! beep! beep! beep! beep!”‘d at me today while i got my coffee after two other people had just done the same slightly less enthusiastic version at me, and while your queer friend stood there saying nothing:

 

don’t ever. fucking. do. that. to. me (or anyone else for that matter) again.

 

To any readers out there who may have a queer friend who maybe told you about how some disabled “dude” told you off for doing that today (yeah, that was probably me), so as i suppose to garner sympathy from you when you were just trying to be “nice” or “funny”(?) and “he” was just being oversensitive, tell them they shouldn’t do shit like that if they don’t want to be told (way too pleasantly i might add) “no. please don’t do that to me. i’m not 5″.

 

And to my variously able-bodied friends: don’t do this to me. Ever. It is not funny. It is not cute. It is not a way for us to “connect” as friends, or to “lighten” things up. It is not something we can do with one another as friends. It is not something you get to do to me, or to disabled folks in general.

 

You know why? Because it is some ableist, infantlizing bullshit. And for whatever inane reason it still hurts me more when its other queers doing it. Especially when i likely will have to see your condescending ass again. How annoying. This city is too small, this community too tiny, for you to be pulling fucked up shit like that. What exactly do you think you’re doing when you do that? What do you imagine a reasonable response is, really? <—2 entirely rhetorical questions, by the way. It’s ridiculous how often this happens, and i don’t actually care why you do it, or to talk with you about it.

 

Just knock it the fuck off.

 

just a quick thought…

 

 

Please, use that able body of yours and step the fuck back.

 

 

 

 

Bringing Mia Mingus to “Vancouver”!

i thought i’d post this as a blog post here even though things aren’t finalized so that i and you can easily find it and update as i hear more info. Stay tuned!

Mia Mingus continues to be a real influential part of my own personal and organizational path of disability(etc!) justice, and through whose writing i have come to better know, respect, challenge, and love myself. That sounds ultra cheesy, but i dont know how else to put it. So many of the things i’ve read her write have helped me to feel not so alone, have touched me so deeply and changed my life in fundamental ways. When i read her writing, i know im not alone, i know my communities are not alone, i know that we have so much to share with each other

[for example, she wrote this piece which just slayed me. i have it printed and on display in my apartment, as a personal reminder, and as a message to anyone who comes into my home, and as an intention i keep in my heart and actions: www.sfpirg.ca. 

 

Why Are We Contacting You?

We want to bring Mia Mingus from California to Vancouver from the 18^thto 20^th October, 2013 to do a series of workshops for the community. We need help to make this possible! We think that her work will be of interest to you and in alignment with what you do.

Who is Mia Mingus and Why isShe so Awesome?

Mia Mingus is a writer and organizer working for disability justice and transformative justice to end child sexual abuse. She identifies as a queer physically disabled Korean woman transracial and transnational adoptee, raised in the Caribbean, nurtured in the South and now living on the west coast.  She works for community, interdependency and home for all of us, not just some of us and longs for a world where disabled children can live free of violence, with dignity and love. As her work for liberation evolves and deepens, her roots remain firmly planted in ending sexual violence.

Mia is a core-member of the Bay Area Transformative JusticeCollaborative (BATJC), a localcollective working to build and support transformative justice responses tochild sexual abuse that do not rely on the state (i.e. police, prisons, thecriminal legal system).  She is currently traveling giving speeches,workshops and trainings to support her writing and work with the BATJC.

Over the years, her work hasincluded: community building, reproductive justice, queer liberation,cross-movement building, feminism, transracial and transnational adoption,radical women of color, racial justice, disability justice, transformativejustice, community responses to child sexual abuse, challenging privilege anddismantling oppression.  She also has a passion for community fundraisingand communication.  She recognizes the urgencyand barriers foroppressed communities to work together and build solidarity for liberation.

For more info about Mia andto read her essays, including the essays we have quoted below, please visit herblog, Leaving Evidence:http://leavingevidence.wordpress.com/

  

What Are We Proposing? 

We would like to do a series of three workshops over two days in mid-October and we are looking for partners in order to make them possible.We are willing to work with our partners to shape the workshops. The workshops we are thinking of asking Mia to offer are:

·       Community Building Workshop – Full Day

“We must roll up our sleeves and start doing the hard work of learning how to work through conflict,pain and hurt as if our lives depended on it—because they do. We have to learn how to have hard conversations and get skilled at talking about and dealing with shame, guilt, trauma, hurt, and anger….Activists are burning out or being traumatized by the very movements that seek to end trauma; campaigns fail because we don’t know how to listen and work together, so instead of coalitions, we have turf wars and undermine each other for next year’s grant that barely pays the bills.” (Mia Mingus,“On Collaboration: Starting With Each Other”)

 

Workshop Proposal: Our conversations with Mia about thisworkshop so far are about looking at how we deal with conflict and differencewithin social justice communities. Our intention is that this day-long workshopwill equip participants with new skills and tools that will enable us to worktogether in ways that strengthen us (instead of hurting us) and allow space forgrowth & healing. This will be a “live” space to talk about theactual concrete needs of the local community and offer a political frameworkwith which to orient community building.  We will engage in long and shortterm visioning, hammer out agreements, values and principles, and share tools. Thisis not a workshop about the idea of community building; in this workshop, wewill actively practice community building.  Comeready to work, connect, share and learn.

 

·       Disability Justice Workshop – Half Day

“I have watched ableism tear apart relationships with people I love. I have seen access be too much of a barrier for people to be inrelationship with each other.  I have made excuses for inaccessibilitybecause I loved people and didn’t want to lose relationship with them.  Ihave excused racism, sexism, violence, homophobia because I didn’t want to,couldn’t afford to, lose access…I have kept parts of myself from people I lovebecause I was afraid to, didn’t know how to, be whole and complex in thecontext of needing access. This is the cruelty of ableism: it robs us from eachother.” (Mia Mingus, “Feeling the Weight: Some Beginning Notes on Disability, Access and Love”)

Workshop Proposal: What we have discussed with Mia istailoring this workshop foractivists,organizers, community groups and non-profit organizations. Core concepts willbe explored, including: What is Disability Justice?  How is it differentfrom Disability Rights?  What is ableism?  How can we startintegrating a disability justice analysis into our work as activists andorganizers?  How are disability and ableism connected to other forms ofoppression?  A Disability Justice analysis deepens and strengthens ourwork for social justice because ableism undergirds whose bodies are considereddesirable or disposable. This workshop will give participants a chance toengage with the Disability Justice framework and understand how it connectswith different communities, movements, and access.  Disability Justice hasthe power to shift our work so we can fight for liberation for all of us, notjust some of us.

·       Writing Workshop: Moving Towards the Ugly – Half Day

“Because we all do it. We all run from the ugly. And the farther we runfrom it, the more we stigmatize it and the more power we give beauty.  Ourcommunities are obsessed with being beautiful and gorgeous and hot.  What wouldit mean if we were ugly?…What would happen if we stopped apologizing for ourugly, stopped being ashamed of it?  Whatif we let go of being beautiful, stopped chasing “pretty,” stopped sucking inand shrinking and spending enormous amounts of money and time on things thatdon’t make us magnificent? Where is the Ugly in you? What is it trying to teachyou?” (Mia Mingus, “Moving Toward The Ugly: A Politic Beyond Desirability“)

Workshop Proposal: What we have discussed with Mia istailoring this workshop for anyone who wants to explore how we disown the partsof ourselves and our bodies that we have learned to see as ugly, and how wereject the same in others. In this workshop participants will get thechance to explore Moving Towards the Ugly: A Politic BeyondDesirability, a speech given by Mia Mingus two years ago.  In hertalk, Mingus critiques the concept of beauty and our desire for it.  Shechallenges us instead to embrace our ugly and remember our magnificence. Wewill open the space with inspiration and grounding from Moving Towards theUgly, as well as excerpts from another talk about magnificence andthen explore the concept of Ugly and Magnificence using prompts. Usingwriting as a tool, we will have the opportunity to explore our fears andjudgments around “ugly,” as well as what gifts we disown by not embracing allof who we are. This workshop is not only intended for those who identify as“writers” and writing experience is not required.

What Do We Need From You?

 

We think Mia Mingus is awesome and we really want the Greater Vancouver community to benefit from heramazingness. We need partners and financial support in order to make her visitpossible.

The total cost of Mia’s visit will roughly be $5500. The break-down is as follows:

·        Travel from California: $700

·        Accommodation for 3 nights: $600

·        Food and transportation: $200

·        Workshop Fee: $2000

·        Event Costs (Room Booking, Food forParticipants, AV Equipment): $1500

·        Accessibility Fund: $500

Total: $5500

 

 

SFPIRG can contribute the following:

·        We can book rooms for the three workshops at SFUHarbour Centre

·        We can manage the booking logistics with Mia

·        We can create publicity material and onlineregistration for the events

·        We can put $2500towards the total cost.

Therefore we need the following from other community organizations whowould like to come on board:

·        Financial contributions to cover the $3000 shortfall

·        Help publicizing the events and getting the wordout there!

Are You In? What Next?

If, like us, you are now super excited at the thought of Mia Minguscoming and doing this amazing work with us, AND you would like to come on boardas a partner, please contact us! Or maybe you have questions and want to talkmore about what these events will look like.

Either way, we are happy to talk more and to collaborate in puttingthese events together.

We do need to finalize things by the end of July 2013, so please let usknow your thoughts either way. Thanks so much!

Kalamity Hildebrandt        Shahaa Kakar

SFPIRG Research Coordinator                            SFPIRGMedia and Outreach Coordinator

arx@sfpirg.ca                                                           outreach@sfpirg.ca

 

RADICAL ACCESSIBILITY RECOGNITION AND CELEBRATION!

RADICAL ACCESSIBILITY RECOGNITION AND CELEBRATION!

https://www.facebook.com/events/363488100429009/?fref=ts

Save the date, ’cause on Saturday June 8th 2013 at Gallery Gachet, from 7pm on, we’re going to be celebrating, honouring, and giving respect where it’s due to the folks behind the Radical Access Mapping Project, the Vancouver Queer ASL Club, and other radical accessibility groups in Vancouver and beyond! 

Often groups working to make this broadly non-accessible world more accessible do so for free or very little money. They pour countless hours of sweat, tears, blood, and bones into making this world a radder, gentler, & safer place for us all with little to no acknowledgement.

So It’s time to pony up and give what we can! Got a fiver you can throw down? Wanna make goodies for a bake sale? Show off your artistic skills & make a poster? Donate something for a raffle? Volunteer at the door and/or (sober) bar? Well, June 8th is the date to do all of that and more! 

This event is taking place on the un-ceded Coast Salish territories of the Musqueam, Tsleil-waututh, and Squamish peoples. Our work is grounded on this land, sits firmly in the reality of ongoing processes of colonization and attempts at erasure, and is inspired and informed by the resistance of indigenous people here and across Turtle Island. We’re talking about who has access to what, who designs, defines and is left out of our communities; and whether it’s a staircase or a border, we’re doing all of that on stolen land. In/accessibility and colonialism are intimately connected.

This event is happening in the DTES, a community facing ongoing processes of vilification and gentrification. Please be respectful of the folks who live and work in the neighbourhood, and the spirit of resistance that lives here.

———————————–

CALL OUT FOR PERFORMERS:

Are you and/or do you identify as disabled, d/Deaf, sick, chronically ill, blind, neurovariant/atypical, mad, the holder of “dangerous gifts,” HIV positive, DeafBlind, superfat, living with multiple chemical sensitivity/chemical injury, someone with learning differences and/or cognitive disabilities, otherwise dis-abled by this inaccessible world, or ____the list is endless in its fabulousness!_____? 

If so, do you want to do a performance art piece, set up an installation, screen a film or video (if so, it’s gotta be captioned, if you’d like help with that, let us know!), tell a story, do a dance, sing a song, showcase a Zine related to access, or some combination of all of the above, or something else entirely? 

Please email
moreshowsfortheladiesandhomos@gmail.com,
rampvancouver@gmail.com,
arfistic@gmail.com,

and/or text Kay Lamothe at 778-714-DYKE to propose something.

———————————–

CALL OUT FOR VOLUNTEERS:

None of this can happen without you, and there are some specific areas where we’ll definitely need you!

set up/tear down (especially teardown! Having committed folks who won’t take off without doing their shift is crucial; we’ll need to especially rely on able bodied allies for this.) We’re also looking for folks to do the door, to be active listeners, and other things that’ll develop as we go! 

Are you able to livestream this event? And/or record it for future captioning? 

Please contact moreshowsfortheladiesandhomos@gmail.com to volunteer.

—————————–

ACCESSIBILITY INFO FOR THE NIGHT

This event is happening in Gallery Gachet [http://gachet.org/] a space which actively supports the wellness of folks marginalized because of their mental health, trauma and/or abuse experience, and works towards the elimination of discrimination against people marginalized because of other’s response to that mental health, trauma and/or abuse experience. We can’t thank the collective at Gachet enough for actively supporting this event, for making the links, for prioritizing access, and creating one more space we can be together.

WHEELCHAIR ACCESSIBLE (full audit to come)

ASL INTERPRETED. Also, printed material will be available for each piece, any films/videos will be captioned in English, (and if you’d like to help with other captioning options, get in touch!).

CLOSE TO ACCESSIBLE TRANSIT: There are a number of transit options within one block, and the closest skytrain station (Waterfront) is 6 blocks away, with minimal-to-no hills. All transit is wheelchair accessible.

SOBER space. Please take care how you need to, but don’t consume in the space.

ALL AGES space.

GENDER NEUTRAL WASHROOMS. There are 2 bathrooms, one w/c accessible, one down a step, both gender neutral.

FAT ACCESS/FRIENDLY SEATING available.

SCENT REDUCED space. We want our amazing friends who live with chemical injury –who are left out of most events– to access this event safely. This event is happening in an art gallery, where a variety of materials are used regularly. We will have air filters in place before and during the event. Folks are expected to come to this event fragrance-free.

***THE BARE MINIMUM (SERIOUSLY) FOR SCENT REDUCTION FOR THIS EVENT***
Don’t wear colognes, perfumes, essential oils or products containing them, including gels, sprays, etc., or using laundry dryer sheets and detergents. And as much as we love nail art, please apply your fresh coat of fabulousness at least 8 hours before coming to this event.

We haven’t planned to have specific fragrance-free seating for this event, because it’s a relatively small space and the entire event should be fragrance free, but if you have ideas about having some specific seating, or would like to see some reserved, please let us know! 

We don’t want anyone to have to leave the event, whether you live with chemical injury or usually wear/apply something scented for whatever reason. You’re an important part of making this event and this community amazing, and a scent reduced policy is not intended to alienate or shame anyone, or to prioritize one disability over another (for example, some folks use various salves for pain, which often have strong smells), but to open space for some folks who so rarely get to be part of these kinds of community gatherings. It’s just a few hours, but it’s a few hours many folks don’t ever get, and we thank you for prepping ahead and respecting the intention of the space and the safety of other attendees, performers, and volunteers. 

Please see http://www.brownstargirl.org/1/post/2012/03/fragrance-free-femme-of-colour-realness-draft-15.html for some great info on coming to this space fragrance free. 

Also, don’t smoke on the sidewalk outside the gallery, as the smoke easily makes its way indoors. Please go around the block, thanks!

EMS SAFETY. This space is right downtown, amid a number of wifi hotspots and so on, but to make it more possible for folks who deal with electro magnetic sensitivity to attend this event, please if you can turn your cellphone to airplane mode, and if you use it, please go outside. Also, please don’t access wifi in the space, in fact, we may have them cut the connection for wifi for this event. thanks!

LIMITING NUMBERS INSIDE to ensure enough space for folks to safely move around. We will be capping attendance at about 100 for the night, and after that will proceed with a one in – one out policy, prioritizing variously dis-abled, Deaf folks and others. We ask that if we are at capacity, that our allies please offer their space.

If you’re not sure if you’re coming, or just want to support the event, please list yourself as “maybe”, so we can get a more realistic idea of how many people we should expect. 

If you have any other accessibility needs or just want more info about what’s above, please let us know!

NOTHING ABOUT US WITHOUT US!

process rant

\\rant. If it’s not about you it’s not about you. i just need to get this out.

So often it feels like when able bodied people decide it’s time to act somehow on inaccessibility, we disabled folks are supposed to just jump on board with these efforts no matter how ill-informed and/or dangerous and/or xerox-copies-of-our-work and/or removed from our actual needs & lives and/or how actually able-bodied-centric and presumptuous they can so often be; and that we are just immediately supposed to trust this process, we are just supposed to trust *you*, because finally some of you are doing something, and something is better than nothing amirite? and all that bullshit we put up with and continue to put up with to get even scraps is supposed to immediately, with no process at all, be water under that bridge in this really, well, entitled way.

This stuff may well not be the intent, i’d like to think it’s not for most. But it would go a hella long way to re-building bridges *that able bodied people have burnt*, it would be just generally real awesome, if more folks would be aware that that hesitance or reluctance or outright refusal to work with you on this (right now or ever) is so often part of the ongoing effects of dealing with your un-examined ableism, and not some character flaw on our part. If we are not getting involved in the work you are doing, think about why that might be, honestly. If you think it’s because we just want to complain about something and not actually do any work, you are so incredibly, fantastically clued-out, you have missed the point entirely.

Please, some simple steps to not reinforcing ableism while this work happens:

• Step back.
• Ask what is needed. [No, you don't automatically know.]
• Ask how or if you can help. [Sometimes we actually don't want or need your help.]
• Actually listen to the answers. [They matter, and they should inform how you proceed.]
• Offer resources if you have them, [but don't just plow ahead as though no one's been doing anything this whole time.]
• Listen the closest to disabled folks. [Have actual conversations with disabled folks about our lives and understand that this takes time and trust and you may not have ours yet, and you need trust to build community with us.]
• Do your own re-learning work.
• Follow direction.
• Re-centre disabled folks.
• Repeat.

 

And no, i don’t want to talk with random able-bodied folks about this rant. 

 

//rant

move…moving…movement

i need to make this decision and find ways to stick with it: i think the key is that i simply need to be less involved in things or involved in fewer things. Probably best to do the latter in the case of the queer community at least. Instead of dipping my toe in every “radical and non-oppressive”[sic] NON-accessible event/ group/ happening which predictably comes along, i need to pick out the very tiny number of those which are stating outright that they’re tangibly committed to accessibility (are actually doing it, struggling through it, making it happen, getting better at it, actually MOVING with it, which is really different than having it all figured out perfectly), and go with those.

This’ll greatly reduce the number of groups, events, individuals i’ll be involved with, but i think it’ll also hugely increase my energy, capacity and sense that something somewhere is changing and that we won’t always be in this frustrating circular place. It’ll maybe even make me better at what i do, create an environment where i’m more likely to keep at it, open up more space for others, it’ll for sure refuel my seriously depleted reserves, and significantly cut down on what i’m currently experiencing as an unexamined ableist backlash that gets none of us anywhere (least of all, i might add, more of my disabled friends and me connected to more community, which is the whole point, but i digress i suppose).

It means even less community to connect with, and as someone who already straddles this line very precariously, that absolutely fucking sucks, and i’m angry at myself and at parts of this community that that is where this sits. But i can’t keep (and it doesn’t make any sense to keep) this current level of involvement up. It’s making me real pissy at people i don’t want to be pissy at, and making some people real pissy at me, and we are going to lose even more connection than we have right now if something doesn’t shift here. i need to take responsibility for my part, power, and agency in this, and to be able to make a promise to myself to make a change and to stick with it, to not get back into the same old patterns out of necessity for making connection with queer community even when it so often doesn’t seem particularly, tangibly, invested in connecting to people who really matter to me.

And maybe saying it here will help. We shall see how this goes. Fellow disabled folks, if you have stories to tell, advice to offer, about how you’ve navigated this kind of thing, i’d love to hear them <3

for you, and you, and you and you and you

With so much love and respect to my able-bodied or otherwise non-disabled friends/ lovers/ comrades:

There are so many ways we are marginalized as variously disabled people. Therefore, we (WE) have created hundreds of thousands of ways to get around that as much as is possible. This is called RESISTANCE and SURVIVAL.

Some of us want to share our knowledge and experience with you, in a wide variety of ways, so that YOU can be part of our survival, our resistance, too, because we want to be a part of YOUR resistance, YOUR survival, and the circle goes on.

If you find it frustrating, angering, annoying, too much, a pain in the ass, too confusing, and so on, that defensiveness is on you to deal with. Please do that work, it’s necessary to move forward. Please let us know when you want to talk hard shit with us, some of us can do some of that work with you, and sometimes we won’t be able to, because WE are busy in a constant process of not merely pondering this, but surviving this. And WE are in a constant process of resisting this. WE are busy working overtime within and without the ableist structures you are a privileged part of that you so often (think and/or behave as though you) don’t need to resist in order to survive*. And sometimes, there is little-to-no strength left at the end of the day.

If you would like to be with us in that survival, in that resistance, do so. But please, don’t ever forget that THAT is precisely what this is.

Resistance is beautiful. OUR resistance is beautiful too.

* the truth, of course, is that you DO need to resist these systems, these structures, ableism, and so on. In part because it is just a straight up fact that you at one-or-many-more points in your life will need the wisdom and strength and resilience of that resistance, today, next month, in 20 years; and in part because you need us, right now, for yours. It may not seem like it, but i promise you that you do. This is true, in a wide variety of ways, of every system of domination and control and resistance to that system.  And why not get a head start when you have the chance?