The Disability Justice Leaders Collaborative: An Introduction
This is the seventh post in a series. Click here to start at the beginning.
[Image description: An adult pauses in their conversation with two others to smile at the camera.]
In June 2017, we opened an application process for a Disability Justice Leaders Collaborative. We were looking for people with disabilities interested in discussing how to ensure the voices and experiences of people with disabilities, particularly disabled people of color, are represented by decision-makers, as well as discussing how disabled people can build collective power in Oregon and Southwest Washington. Over 100 people applied to be a part of the Collaborative, demonstrating the need for investment in this area. We selected 16 individuals to join the Collaborative.
We sought leaders who expressed an interest in exploring and learning more about disability justice, who are already involved in efforts to build power in their communities, and who bring lived experience around intersectional identities and want to be part of a larger conversation about intersectionality. All the Collaborative participants identify as disabled people of color, representing Asian-Pacific Islander, Black, Latino, Muslim and Native communities. Our participants also identify in other ways, including queer, transgendered, gender non-conforming, youth, houseless, multi-racial, immigrant, refugee and rural. In addition, they identify with a range of disabilities: physical, cognitive, social, visible and invisible.
Disabled people of color don’t have the opportunity to meet and share a space often enough. We hope to create and hold that space with this collaborative. Although Northwest Health Foundation staff will be in the room for parts of the convenings, we’re also prepared to step out at any time. This collaborative should be a safe place for participants to share personal stories and generate ideas, without non-disabled funders listening in on and documenting their every word.
The work of this collaborative will center around disability justice, a movement-building, liberatory framework created in 2005 by Sins Invalid. Disability justice centers Black and brown, majority queer disabled people to address the whiteness and single-issue focus of the mainstream disability rights movement. Disability justice acknowledges that ableism works hand-in-hand with other forms of oppression and stresses that multiply marginalized disabled people get to create movements and organize out of their strengths, vulnerabilities, body/minds and genius. We’ve engaged two established disability justice movement leaders, Stacey Milbern and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, to facilitate the Disability Justice Leaders Collaborative.
Stacey is a queer disabled, Korean-American residing in Berkeley, California. She is currently an accommodations management consultant at Wells Fargo. She is also a youth organizer who has been working in the youth arm of the disability rights movement since high school. She’s trained many community organizations and served as an appointed advisor to the Obama administration for two years.
[Image description: Stacey sits in front of a hill covered with foliage. She wears argyle suspenders and a “Famous Witches” t-shirt.]
Leah is a queer disabled non-binary femme writer and cultural worker of Burger/ Tamil Sri Lankan and Irish/ Roma ascent. Currently a lead artist with the disability justice performance collective Sins Invalid, she teaches, performs and lectures across North America. Her work has been widely published, most recently in The Deaf Poets Society, Glitter and Grit and Octavia’s Brood.
[Image description: Close-up on Leah’s face in three-quarter view. She wears fuchsia lipstick and Frida Kahlo earrings.]
Stacey and Leah joined us for an orientation webinar with the Collaborative participants in November. The webinar ended with cheers and rounds of “Go us!” from all the participants, so we’re all very excited about this group of leaders, to say the least.
Over the next six months, The Disability Justice Leaders Collaborative will:
> Discuss visions and strategies for ensuring the needs of disabled people are centered in decision-making;
> Deepen and collectively build their understanding of disability justice; and
> Discuss how disability-led organizations can work together in new ways with: organizations led by communities of color; existing and new disabled, Deaf, sick and neurodivergent communities and organizations; and leadership programs and funders.
Over the long-term, we hope this effort will influence organizations led by people of color to learn about the disability justice framework and apply it to their work. We also hope these leaders will contribute to ensuring our region’s leadership includes disabled people and people who understand, and are committed to, disability justice.
The Collaborative met in-person for the first time on December 15, 2017. They’ll meet three more times through May 2018. The first meeting focused on an introduction of disability justice concepts, personal storytelling and a discussion about what the group wants to be together. During the second, participants will dive deeper into disability justice and politics and talk about what accessible movements/actions might look like. At the third meeting, Leah and Stacey will lead an accessibility tool skill-share and a discussion about desirability politics and the eugenics movement. In the fourth and final meeting, the Collaborative will map out current struggles and movements in Oregon, explore self and collective care and talk about next steps.
We plan to post a new blog after each session to share our learnings. We’ll post a summary of the first convening some time in the next couple weeks. For now, you can keep up with the Collaborative by reading what they’re reading! Leah and Stacey recommended the following articles:
“Fragrance Free Femme of Colour” by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
“Disability Solidarity: Completing the ‘Vision for Black Lives’” by the Harriet Tubman Collective
“Changing the Framework: Disability Justice” by Mia Mingus
“Disability Justice: A Working Draft” by Patty Berne
This Collaborative is a joint effort supported by Northwest Health Foundation and the Collins Foundation. We are eager to learn from these leaders and share our experiences with other funders and community leaders. Stay tuned for updates over the next few months! Sign up for our email newsletter if you want to be notified when we post the next one.
